Getting to grips with madrassas

It has taken far too long but the Sindh cabinet on August 20 approved the draft of the Sindh Madrassa Registration Bill 2016, which takes within its ambit a range of issues concerning seminaries in the province that fall within the National Action Plan (NAP) — and there were immediate howls of disapproval from Maulana Fazlur Rehman, leader of the JUI-F. He accused the Sindh government of making discriminatory laws against madrassas and if it did so then religious leaders, scholars and cadres would have no option but to take “direct action”. Whether the Maulana likes it or not is neither here nor there. The Sindh government is working with this Bill to implement NAP and has our full support.

Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah said that he wants to see terrorism eradicated from the province and that meant the implementation of NAP “in its full spirit”. Such a move was never going to have the support of the religious right that views any attempt to regulate madrassas or even simply register them and declare the source of their funding, as an attempt to ‘secularise’ the state. As is right and proper, there will be consultation with religious leaders and the managers of madrassas, but the provincial government has a duty to carry forward an anti-terrorist agenda that is founded in deeds and not just words. NAP is an action-plan, a to-do list. Some of the things to be done are not going to be easy or quick and challenge existing paradigms and practices, and so be it. Pakistan, not only Sindh, needs its madrassas and seminaries. They are a core part of cultural and religious life, and contribute to the wealth of the nation in the broadest sense. They also need to be part of the mainstream, have curricula that reflect the modern world and prepare their students to work in that world, and have greater transparency particularly in respect of their funding than is currently the case. This Bill is an opportunity, not a threat and should be passed with consummate haste.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 23^rd, 2016.

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