Why Assam is closing down government-run madrassas, Sanskrit centres

GUWAHATI: As many as 614 government-aided madrassas and 101 Sanskrit tols (institutes) in Assam will shut down over the next couple of months and reinvent themselves as high and higher secondary schools as part of a policy decision by the BJP-led government not to spend public money on "religious education", finance and education minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Wednesday.
"Teaching Arabic and religious texts is not the government's job. In a secular country, religious teachings cannot be funded by the government," Sarma said. "If religious texts are allowed to be taught in state-run madrassas, the Gita, or for that matter the Bible, should also be taught with government funding."
The government spends Rs 3-4 crore annually on madrassas and about Rs 1 crore on Sanskrit tols.
"Teachers employed in these madrassas can stay home without having to worry about finding employment elsewhere. The government will pay their salaries till their day of retirement," the minister said.
Pointing to the decision to simultaneously stop funding Sanskrit tols, Sarma said this should put at rest speculation that madrassas were being targeted on religious grounds. Privately-run madrassas - Assam has around 900 of them, all run by the Jamiat Ulama - and Sanskrit tols can continue to function as usual, he said.
The website of the erstwhile state madrassa education board defines "madrassa" as an Arabic word for "an educational institution or school imparting education to all, irrespective of religion, caste, creed and gender".
"The idea that it imparts religious and theology based education to a particular religion is not true," it states.
Jamiat Ulama's legal cell convenor Masud Akhtar Zaman said the closure of state-aided madrassas would not affect the private madrassa education system in any way. "Our madrassas do not depend on the government for a single rupee. Almost all our students are from BPL families, and we take care of their boarding, food and clothing."
Zaman also clarified that there was more to madrassas than religious education. "It is wrong to say that madrassas are only for religious teachings. We follow a normal syllabus same as other schools under the state board," he said.
Two years ago, the government disbanded the madrassa education and Sanskrit boards to bring all madrassas under the Secondary Board of Education, Assam, and the Sanskrit tols under the Kumar Bhaskar Varma Sanskrit and Ancient Studies University in Nalbari. This was apparently done to bring modern education and teaching methods to these traditional institutions.
Sanskrit education had been introduced in the state under the Assam Sanskrit Education Act in 1957. The madrassa education system started in 1780.