Representative image of children at a madrasa.
Credit: iStock Photo
Lucknow: The Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind has demanded withdrawal of UP government's recent order directing that all students in unrecognised madrasas and non-Muslim students studying in government-aided madrasas should be shifted to government schools.
The Muslim organisation called the order "unconstitutional".
The then Uttar Pradesh chief secretary, Durga Shankar Mishra, in an order dated June 26 and issued to all the district magistrates of the state, cited a letter of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) dated June 7. The letter directed admitting all the non-Muslim students studying in the government-funded madrasas in the schools of the Basic Education Council for providing them formal education.
In the letter issued on June 26, it was also said all the children studying in all such madrasas of the state, which are not recognised by the Uttar Pradesh Madrasa Education Council, should also be given admission in council schools.
Committees should be formed at the district level by the district magistrates to implement the entire process, it said.
Meanwhile, terming the government order "unconstitutional" and an action violating the rights of minorities, the Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind has demanded its withdrawal.
In a statement issued on Thursday, it said, "Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind president Maulana Mahmood Asad Madni has written a letter to the Chief Secretary of Uttar Pradesh Government, National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, Additional Chief Secretary/Principal Secretary, Minority Welfare and Waqf Uttar Pradesh and Director Minority Welfare UP and appealed to refrain from this unconstitutional action.
"It is known that on the basis of the correspondence of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), the UP government has issued instructions on June 26, 2024 that non-Muslim students studying in aided and recognized madrasas should be separated and they should be admitted to government schools. Similarly, all the students of unrecognized madrasas should be forcibly admitted to government primary schools for modern education," it said.
This order will affect thousands of independent madrasas in the state because Uttar Pradesh is the state where there are large independent madrasas, including Darul Uloom Deoband and Nadwatul Ulama, Madni added.
Madni clarified in his letter that NCPCR cannot give instructions to separate the children of aided madrasas on the basis of their religion. This is an act of dividing the country in the name of religion, he said.
Madni also said the UP government should understand that madrasas have a separate legal identity and status as recognised by section 1(5) of the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 by exempting Islamic madrasas. Therefore, Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind demands that the government order of June 26 be withdrawn, he added.
UP has approximately 25,000 madrasas. Of these, 16,000 madrasas are government recognised, including 560 government-aided madrasas.
The Supreme Court had on April 5 stayed an Allahabad High Court order, which had declared the Uttar Pradesh Board of Madrasa Education Act, 2004, as "unconstitutional".
Hearing a bunch of appeals against the March 22 verdict of the Allahabad high court, a three-judge bench of Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra said the order will would impinge on the future course of education of nearly 17 lakh students who are pursuing education in these madrasas.
Uttar Pradesh Madrasa Education Council president Iftikhar Ahmed Javed has also reacted to the development and said no student is forced to study in madrasas.
"All the non-Muslim students studying in madrasas are studying with the consent of their parents. In such a situation, forcibly enrolling them or students of unrecognised madrasas in council schools is beyond comprehension," he said.
According to Javed, there are 8,500 unaided madrasas in the state in which around seven lakh students are studying. They are proposed to be sent to the schools of the Basic Education Council, according to the government order, he said.