Not Just Madarsas: Uttarakhand Seeks To Reshape 'Minority Education' With New Bill

When the Indian Constitution conferred rights to 'linguistic and religious minorities' to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice, it did not specifically name the communities that fell under the category.

Yet, most Indian states, at least in northern India, only have Madarsa Acts in the name of minority rights' protection, focusing on Islamic religious institutes, instead of having an overarching Act for all minority educational institutes.

Without a dedicated Act, the institutions run by other minority communities remained dependent only on the Constitutional Articles, the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions Act 2004 and ad-hoc executive orders.

They faced delays in recognition from state boards or universities, difficulties in getting grants and challenges of maintaining autonomy amid a lack of a statutory forum to raise issues.

On the other hand, madarsas, in the presence of Madarsa Acts, enjoyed smoother functioning while preserving their religious identity. They easily got legal recognition and funding, even from the state governments.

The Pushkar Singh Dhami-led government in Uttarakhand has now decided to change this. The state Assembly on 20 August passed the Uttarakhand Minority Educational Institutions Bill 2025. This Bill would extend the minority status benefits to education institutions run by the Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, Christian, and Parsi communities in the state, along with the madarsas.

To avoid any clashes, the Uttarakhand Madarsa Education Board Act 2016 and the Uttarakhand Non-Government Arabic and Persian Madarsa Recognition Rules 2019 will be repealed, bringing all minority institutions under a single Act.

What The Bill Does

The state government claims that the Bill aims to bring transparency and empower educational institutes of other minorities, apart from those of the Muslim community, as well. "All those communities that are minorities should have their own institutes, while maintaining quality education," Chief Minister Dhami said.

Along with religious minorities, the Bill also aims covers linguistic minorities. The study of the Gurumukhi and Pali languages will also be officially recognised in Uttarakhand now.

The Bill also seeks to ensure that the funds received by minority institutions as fees, donations, grants, or any other funding are not misused. Any misappropriation can lead to the termination of recognition.

To monitor these institutes, the Uttarakhand State Authority for Minority Education will be formed. The institutes will be required to obtain recognition from the authority after fulfilling certain conditions.

"To obtain recognition, educational institutions must be registered under the Societies Act, Trust Act, or Companies Act. Ownership of land, bank accounts, and other assets must be in the name of the institution. Recognition can be withdrawn in cases of financial mismanagement, lack of transparency, or activities against religious and social harmony," an official said.

This will likely ensure that the institutes meet the standards set by the Uttarakhand Board of School Education, ensuring quality education. Educational progress will be assessed through fair and transparent student evaluations.

Why The Bill Was Needed

The Bill comes after Uttarakhand's crackdown on illegal madarsas. Defending the Bill, CM Dhami himself said, "As you have seen in the past few days that illegal madarsas were being run, we need to bring transparency to minority institutes."

"Serious issues such as irregularities in the distribution of central scholarships, discrepancies in the mid-day meal program, and a lack of transparency in management have been evident in the madrasa education system for years," Dhami posted on X.

Dhami's crackdown on illegal activities and irregularities in madarsas began in December 2024 when he directed the Home Department to conduct a full-scale verification of madarsa operations across Uttarakhand. District-level committees, led by District Magistrates, were set up to investigate legality, funding sources, and registration statuses.

The government found that there were approximately 450 madarsas officially registered in the state, while 500 others were suspected to be functioning without acknowledgment of the education department.

So far, the government has acted against nearly 200 illegal madarsas. However, what is more concerning is that the suspicion of money laundering and terror funding through illegal madarsas.

The failure of the Uttarakhand Madarsa Education Board, which was established as per the 2016 Act, is apparent from these developments. The recognition of institutions under the 2016 Act has been criticised for its opacity and non-inclusivity.

Notably, its Recognition Committee, which was empowered to grant or refuse recognition to madarsas, had not met since 2020. This showed the ineffectiveness of the Board in regulating madarsas.

Only after CM Dhami called for a review of madarsas, this committee met on 27 February this year to prepare a list of “unrecognised” madarsas, leading to their closures.

Moreover, the 2016 Act did not empower the Madarsa Board to monitor the financial matters of the institutes, leaving scope for irregularities in the use of donations, grants or other sources of funding.

In this context, we can understand that the Minority Educational Institutions Bill was needed not just to broaden the government recognition ambit for benefit of other minority institutes, but also for better management of madarsas themselves.

The Apprehensions

While the Uttarakhand Madarsa Board Chairman, Mufti Shamun Qasmi, has welcomed the move, calling it an effort to mainstream education of minority communities along with their religious education, many Muslim leaders are criticising it.

Calling the Bill discriminatory, Islamic scholar Maulana Sufiyan Nizami said, “What’s happening to Muslims in Uttarakhand is no secret," referring to the crackdown on illegal madarsas. "The government’s actions continue to reveal its bias," he added.

Nizami alleged that the dismantling of the Madarsa Board goes against the Centre's talks about modernising madarsas with phrases like 'Quran in one hand and a laptop in the other', and appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to intervene.

Ahmed anticipates that the nullification of the Madarsa Board will hamper Muslim religious education. He is also planning to legally challenge the Bill, based on alleged violations of Constitutional rights.

Apart from Muslim leaders, opposition leaders from the Congress party are also criticising the Bill. Former CM Harish Rawat called the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) narrow-minded, which is averse to Urdu words like 'madarsa'.

"Madarsa is an Urdu word, and Urdu is the product of Ganga-Jamuni culture. Madarsas have their own history associated with the country's freedom struggle. Why do you have a problem with the Urdu word?" he said, suspecting the Bill to be a move to abolish madarsas.

Congress's Uttarakhand president Karan Mahara gave the Bill a political angle and alleged, “The state government is currently venting out its frustration over the defeat in the Panchayat elections, instead of focussing on the development of the state."

“The BJP has an agenda to set the narrative of Hindu-Muslim. If the objective is to improve education, then what is the need to form a Board? They should have made such laws that improve the education system," he added.

The Assurances

The BJP government has assured that the Bill would not be used to interfere in the imparting of religious education to minority communities, as it contains a non-interference clause and will only monitor the operational aspects.

“The Bill does not interfere in the establishment and administration of minority educational institutions, but ensures that educational excellence is maintained. The Constitutional rights of minorities will be safeguarded. The state government would monitor institutional functioning and issue directions," an official said.

The Madarsa Board Chairman Qasmi also denied the charges that the Board is being dismantled and asserted that, rather, the Board is being expanded to accommodate all minority institutions.

He added, "It will not have any impact on our religious beliefs and education. With the formation of this Act, children from the Muslim community will also be able to get big jobs, including IAS and IPS in the coming days."

The Bill has been designed to ensure quality, transparency and accountability of the education system in minority institutes, the officials say.

The Bill is also in line with the Constitutional rights of minorities to allow them to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice, and hence, any legal challenge to it is unlikely to stand in courts.

Rethinking Minority Education?

While the Uttarakhand Minority Welfare Department does not share any data about funding to madarsas or other minority institutes, at a national level, we see a trend of declining government funding for madarsa education.

After the Modi government came to power in 2014, it restructured the existing schemes for madarsa education, categorising them into two sub-schemes: Scheme for Providing Quality Education in Madrasas (SPQEM) and Infrastructure Development of Minority Institutes (IDMI).

Rather than continuing as a 100 per cent grant scheme, the Modi government made it a centrally-sponsored scheme. For Uttarakhand, the Centre was to contribute 90 per cent and the state 10 per cent under SPQEM and for IDMI, the Centre was to contribute 75 per cent and 25 per cent by the institution concerned.

When the scheme was under the Education Department, it secured funds worth Rs 194 crore in 2014-15 and Rs 120 crore from 2016-17 to 2019-2020. It rose to Rs 214 crore in 2020-21, before the scheme was shifted to the Minority Affairs Ministry in April 2021.

Since then, funding for the scheme has been declining from Rs 175 crore in 2021-22 to Rs 30 crore in 2022-23, Rs 5 crore in 2023-24 and Rs 0.01 crore in 2024-25. Moreover, even the reduced funds have remained un-utilised, suggesting the government is rethinking the minority education.

The development coincides with the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR)'s report titled: "Guardians of Faith or Oppressors of Rights?': Constitutional Rights of Children vs Madarsas."

The report released in October 2024 emphasised that keeping religious institutions outside the purview of the Right to Education (RTE) Act has negative impacts, where children miss out on quality and formal education.

Expressing special concerns for states of Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand, which have Madarsa Boards, the NCPCR urged states to stop funding madarsas, unless they comply with educational requirements.

Uttarakhand: A Model State?

In this backdrop, Uttarakhand's actions appear timely. Instead of silently reducing funding of madarsas, the Dhami government took an initiative of expanding the scope of minority education in the state.

The ground for it was laid with the crackdown on illegal madarsas first, so that they do not infiltrate the new system. At the same time, the new Bill introduces a watertight framework, ensuring repercussions for any irregularities.

However, this is not the first time that Uttarakhand is taking such an initiative. It is also the first state to implement a Uniform Civil Code (UCC), which has been prescribed in Article 44 of the Constitution under Directive Principles of State Policy.

On 7 February 2024, the UCC Bill was passed to govern personal laws, such as marriage, divorce, adoption, inheritance, and live-in relationships, regardless of religion. The law officially came into effect on 27 January 2025, making Uttarakhand the first state in India to actually implement such a law.

Since the BJP came to power in the state in 2017, it also implemented anti-conversion legislation, the Uttarakhand Freedom of Religion Act in 2018, and further strengthened it in 2022 and 2025 through amendments.

At the same time, the Dhami government has not shied away from cracking down on fraudsters masquerading as Hindu saints to exploit and deceive people under Operation Kaalnemi.