Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati on Friday accused the BJP government of interfering in the running of private madrasas in Uttar Pradesh on the pretext of conducting surveys and "terrorising" the Muslim community.
In a tweet in Hindi, Ms. Mayawati said, "The complaints of the Muslim community being exploited, neglected and being affected by riots have been common since the time of the Congress, and now they are being oppressed and terrorised by the BJP who came to power by doing narrow politics in the name of appeasement. This is sad and condemnable."
"The BJP government has an evil intent on madrassas in Uttar Pradesh. The attempts to interfere in the private madrassas, which run on donations by the community, in the name of survey is inappropriate. They should focus on improving the condition of the government and government-aided madrasas," she said.
‘Unrecognised’ madrasas
The Uttar Pradesh government recently announced that a survey of “unrecognised” madrasas would be conducted in the state to gather information about the number of teachers, curriculum and basic facilities available there.
Minister of State for Minority Affairs Danish Azad Ansari said the government will conduct the survey according to the requirement of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights in connection with the availability of basic facilities to the students in madrasas.
During the survey, details such as the name of the madrasa and the institution operating it, whether it is running in a private or rented building, number of students studying there, and information regarding facilities of drinking water, furniture, electricity supply and toilet will be collected, Mr. Ansari said.
Information regarding the number of teachers in a madrassa, its curriculum, source of income and its affiliation with any non-government organisation will also be gathered, he said.
To a question whether the state government would start the process of recognising new madrasas after this survey, the minister said that at present, the government's aim is to collect information only about unrecognised madrasas.
Criticising the move, Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, a prominent Muslim socio-religious group, had recently said the move to conduct a survey of madrasas in the state is a “malicious attempt” to disparage the education system.
At present there are a total of 16,461 madrassas in Uttar Pradesh, out of which 560 are given government grants. New madrassas have not been included in the grant list for the last six years in the state.
