The Madrassa Angels - 1

Alex Rogo is happy to be transferred to his hometown to manage a manufacturing plant. But he soon discovers that the plant is a loss-making unit and he has three months to turn it around or face shut-down. The pressure on Alex also strains his marriage and his life at home. Thus, starts the story of one of the greatest books “The Goal” by Eliyahu Goldratt. In putting us through the life of Alex, Goldratt lays down the now famous “Theory of Constraints” (TOC – which is now also an Institute) and compels Alex to ask the three astonishingly simple questions that need to be asked before implementing changes in any situation or a crisis.

What to change? Change my donkey? Change my job, my house, my location? Change it to what? Change my donkey to a horse? Change my bank job to an IT job? Move from Delhi to Bangalore? And How to cause the change? Changing the donkey to a horse might need miracles in surgery. Moving from a bank to IT might need new knowledge and skills and so on. If you haven’t read “The Goal”, I recommend you do, it is for any professional or even a home-maker. If you don’t want to read, you can quickly glimpse through a summary of the whole book at the TOC site. Every politician aspiring to a top job promises “change” for the better. Even a simple term like “Achhe Din” is a promise of change. Not everyone is open to change. Some are very resistant and some are extremely opposed to change.

A sudden announcement of “Demonetisation” is a “dramatic” change for everyone. The commoners faced a lot of struggles in replacing notes, ATMs drying up, receiving and making cash payments. But eventually, the commoner absorbed the change and moved on. The corrupt politicians resisted the change and protested on the streets all over the country and even three years after the event, they were still making it an election issue. Religion is not just a matter of Faith but also a highly emotional matter. In particular, Muslims are very emotional about Islam, Sharia and their social practices. Thus, they oppose any Bill to ban Triple Talaq, any move to reform their society, any move to allow women into mosques. They have been at conflict with change for centuries. A little bit on how emotions affect changes, including those dictated by religion:

Any improvement is a change but not every change is necessarily an improvement. This is what we will explore with Madrassas and their religious connection that dictates their existence and delivery of learning. God likes changes too. So, he sent three angels to change Madrassas and “Improve” them and the learning outcomes at these centres. One is part-time-saffron, one is a Muslim, and one is a fulltime-saffron:

 

All three angels are well-intentioned. Modernising and improving Madrassas is not a bad idea at all. The total money outlay for such change, scholarships, teacher training, new courses etc for Muslim students is around Rs.4700 crores. So, the money part should not bother us at all. It is peanuts and less than the amount Vijay Mallya is accused of having stolen. What it does do is cause an “emotional dent” among Hindus and other citizens and also causes an “emotional resistance” among the Madrassa operators and their Clerics. For instance, in UP the Clerics opposed the idea of Madrassa students having a dress-code, like a uniform that a vast majority of schools in India follow. You cannot overcome “emotional resistance” with logic and reason. The Muslim resistant to change flows from their religion of which they are very emotional.

So, what was the sudden urge to reform Madrassas and what was the motivation to do so. The Clerics have not given any indication whatsoever that they wanted change. And hard as I tried, I couldn’t find reliable data on how many Madrassas exist in India or how many students are enrolled and how many teachers are employed. From here and there, I gathered that there are around 5 lakh big and small Madrassas, up from about 100 in 1947. Since ModiSarkar announced schemes for 5 crore minority-students, I have to assume around 3.5 to 4 crores are in Madrassas. Besides, they might be employing some 4 lakh teachers. What to change? Madrassas! But we are going to change something of which we don’t have any clear, reliable data. Not just in India, even in Britain there is a resistance for mere “registration” of Madrassas:

 

The reason for enforcing registration? Then UK PM David Cameron clearly stated “teaching intolerance” has to stop. Being based on their religious books, Madrassas are known to teach intolerance of others and their Faiths. It would take an extremely delusional moron to deny this. What is it they teach in Indian Madrassas? We know they teach Quranic studies and children memorise stuff, rocking back and forth. A recent report by MEMRI also establishes that the Madrassas under the Barelvi school of thought teaches contempt for polytheists and non-believers of Islam. And their teaching about “Jannat” is hilarious to say the least. A sample of this Jannat is worth understanding for the crap fed to children:

You are going to change such Madrassas into what? Citadels of scientific research? In addressing a meeting in some other context, Yogi Adityanath claimed that his govt had “modernised” Madrassas by including Math and Science as subjects. I can understand basic Arithmetic being taught anywhere but to teach English, Math and Science (EMS) you need teachers for these subjects and consistent teaching from the early classes right up to the school-leaving level. Most of the teachers at Madrassas are ex students of Madrassas themselves with no grounding in these subjects. The other angel, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, claimed that they will modernise Madrassas by “training” their teachers across the country in EMS. This is as hollow as a LIE as it can get. There are no details of the program or how many teachers will be trained and for what duration. Change to what? Change “Jannat-teachers” into Math teachers?

I don’t think the minister any clue about what he’s saying or the task. Training Madrassa teachers in EMS is as good as educating a child from KG onward for at least six years for some proficiency in the subjects. However, as “Lipstick”, all these announcements and scholarships look good. Most govt policies are exactly that – Putting “Silk hat on a pig” with no logic, rhyme or reason. If anything, Madrassas have driven Muslim youth more into backwardness in reverse progress. Since the 1990s, Indian Muslims have been wearing skull caps, long or short mooch-less beards, the Pathani garb as standard dress, loudspeakers for Azaans and doing road and rail Namaz, agitating and rioting over everything. This is very far away from modernized education. This is consistently showing us their regular assertion of their identity, of being superior and of being above the law. And the more information is exchanged through technology, more horrific details come from these learning centres:

The Kochi Madrassa teacher abused kids for 38 years since he was age 25. And because there is no law against such acts in Sharia, they are not even reported or brought to light by Muslims themselves. The Madrassas in India are not “stand-alone” entities by themselves. To understand this – there are around 10000 schools affiliated to CBSE but between them, the schools don’t have any relationship. Except for a few group schools owned by a single person or group all the rest are owned by different people. In the case of Madrassas, the most dominant school of thought is the radical Darul-Uloom of Deoband. This Darul is not limited by national borders or geography. Their radical teachings are followed in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh (and we don’t know which other country):

 

The above content and quotes are from the Deoband school itself. The author had conducted a fairly in-depth study of Madrassas and the Deoband ideology. The full report by Financial Times. I am implying that the Madrassas are not linked by an “Indianness” or committed to India by nature. They are “multi-nationals” committed to Islam as a vast majority of Muslims are. They will keep asserting their separate identity and it will always be “Islam first” for them not anything else. The best example of this is cricketer Moeen Ali of England. This cricketer once claimed that he represents his Muslim Faith first and not England. That England comes second to this Faith:

Yes indeed, players represent a country and not a religion. But try telling that to Moeen Ali. At least in India, we have never had a Muslim who made such idiotic statements when playing for India. Reform in Muslim society will NEVER happen unless some of their Quranic-Sharia norms are surrendered. That is asking for the impossible. If anyone thinks education removes the backwardness from their community, they are seriously mistaken and merely using lipstick to cover up govt failures. In case of the Madrassa Angels of ModiSarkar, I believe they have undertaken this exercise under compulsion from Islamic powers and there is no real outcome that I can see from it. Take the “modern Muslim cricketers” from some teams:

 

You think these cricketers are backward? Hashim Amla, Moeen Ali, Rashid Ali all sport flowing beards like a regular Mullah on the cricketing field. There is no law against it but what exactly ae they trying to tell you? That they will ASSERT their Muslim identity no matter where they are and what their profession is. This has become the norm, more so, after 9/11. Umpire Aleem Dar, who was previously clean-shaven, now sports a long beard. Dar claims he was impacted by Hashim Amla’s commitment to Islam and, therefore, he decided to follow Amla and reaffirm his commitment to Islam. The more the change, the more they seem to go back some centuries. What to change? What to change it into? More in the next parts.

 To be continued…

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