Maulana Qasmi is among the swelling army of clerics who have resolved to stonewall the government's bid to modernise the madrasas. Last year, the Centre, under the aegis of the National Commission for Minority Institutions (NCMI), proposed the establishment of a central madrasa board to bring thousands of Islamic schools across the country into its fold. The heated debate generated then has again sprung to life with NCMI'S chairman, Justice MSA Siddiqui, undertaking an extensive tour of the country to advocate modernisation of the madrasas.
Last week, Justice Siddiqui was in Mumbai, where he met half a dozen ulema and Muslim NGOs. Stressing that there was no coercion ("We will not push the board down the throat of the community; we are merely asking clerics to read the proposed Central Madrasa Board act and give objections and suggest changes"), he said that the affiliation to the board would be optional. The board itself, once ratified by an act of Parliament, will get a corpus of Rs 500 crore from the government—good money which can put the perennially cash-starved madrasas into modernisation mode with computers, trained faculty for science, mathematics and English at al.
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6:42 AM
Moderate Islamist here
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