Latest In 'Project Appeasement' From Bengal: Smartphones, Tabs, Bicycles And Scholarships For Students Of Islamic Seminaries

Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has initiated yet another measure to appease the Muslim community of the state. 

She wants various government welfare measures that had been rolled out earlier for students of general, government-affiliated educational institutions in the state to be extended to students of khareji (unregistered) madrassas.

These khareji madrassas, which are in reality Islamic seminaries, have more than five lakh students. Most of them are controlled and run by hardline Islamists and many are aligned with the regressive and radical Salafi Islam. 

The Chief Minister has said that the students of these Islamic seminaries do not get government benefits that their counterparts in regular educational institutions receive.

Hence, from now on, these clerics-in-the-making will get smartphones, tabs, bicycles (under the state’s Sabooj Sathi scheme), as well as, handsome state grants under the Aikyashree and Swami Vivekananda Scholarship schemes. 

These welfare measures were originally meant for students of mainstream educational institutions teaching regular subjects and affiliated to state or central boards of education. 

The Chief Minister had tried to couch this latest appeasement of Muslims very cleverly by announcing her government’s intention to carry out a survey of all khareji madrassas in the state. 

She had said on the floor of the state assembly earlier this week that a high-powered committee comprising educationists, academics, representatives of the state government and prominent members of the Muslim community would be constituted to undertake the survey. The committee, she had said, will submit its report within six months. 

However, the announcement of the survey had triggered considerable disquiet among Muslims who now constitute more than 30 per cent of Bengal’s population and form the ruling Trinamool’s precious vote bank. 

Muslim clerics criticised the state government’s move and construed it as an attempt to interfere in the functioning of the seminaries. The proposed survey, they felt, would be the first step towards interfering with the curriculum and other activities of the khareji madrassas. 

“We vehemently oppose any move to influence the running of Khareji madrassas. They run on the charities that Islam has earmarked for various purposes. Technically, these madrasas cannot be aided by any government. Moreover, Khareji madrassas have developed their curriculum in keeping with time,” said West Bengal Imams Association chairman Md. Yahiya. 

Alarmed over this disquiet, the Chief Minister stepped in to assuage the fears of the Islamic clerics. And in a bid to do so, she revealed the true purpose of the survey. 

“We will not interfere in the functioning of these madrassas. Only those who are willing to be part of the survey will be brought under it. There is no compulsion. We will not interfere at all in what is taught in these khareji madrassas,” she clarified. 

And then she let the cat out of the bag: “The main objective of the survey is to bring these khareji madrassas under the ambit of various government schemes so that the students of these madrassas can benefit. Those students can avail of Sabuj Sathi and Kanyashree schemes, they will be able to get smartphones and tabs, and be eligible for Aikyashree and Swami Vivekananda scholarships”. 

The Chief Minister had, earlier, stated on the floor of the Assembly that the outlay for registered madrassas has gone up manifold for the benefit of Muslim students. She boasted that Bengal ranks first among states in terms of scholarships given to students from the minority community. 

The Chief Minister also announced her government’s plans to grant recognition to 700 non-aided madrassas which follow the syllabus prescribed by the West Bengal Board of Madrassa Education. 

Granting recognition to these madrassas, which will make them eligible for government aid, has been a long-standing demand of the Muslim community. 

There are around 1,800 khareji madrassas in Bengal and about one thousand of them follow the syllabus prescribed by the Darul Uloom Deoband which cradled the Deobandi movement, which promotes orthodox Islam and aims to shield Muslims from modernist and secular culture. 

The Darul Uloom is the most influential Islamic seminary in the Indian sub-continent and has strong ties with Wahhabism, a radical school of Islam that has inspired many terror outfits like the Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. 

Clerics passing out from madrassas that follow the Darul Uloom’s Islamist syllabus have often been accused of promoting Islamic radicalism through their sermons in mosques and their lectures in madrassas. 

The demand for bringing all madrassas under government control has been cropping up since the Left-Front rule in Bengal.

Former chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharyya had once sounded the alarm over unregistered madrassas in the state becoming breeding grounds for Islamist radicals and terrorists. 

The existence of unregistered madrassas and their links with terror outfits came to the fore in the aftermath of the Khagragarh blast in 2014. On 2 October 2014, a huge explosion in a two-storied building owned by a Trinamool Congress leader rocked Khagragarh locality in Bardhaman. 

Two terrorists who had rented the building were killed in the blast and a third was severely wounded. The state police allegedly tried to destroy evidence, but the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) asked the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to quickly start probing the blast. 

The NIA probe revealed the involvement of the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), a proscribed terror outfit, in the blast. JMB operatives, it was discovered, were indoctrinating students of khareji madrassas and motivating them to work as operatives of the terror outfits. 

However, despite strong demands to crack down on khareji madrassas and shut them down or make them follow the syllabus prescribed by the West Bengal Madrasah Education Board, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has preferred to look the other way. 

She has possibly heeded warnings by many influential clerics in Bengal who have vehemently opposed those demands and warned the state government against initiating any move to bring the khareji madrassas under state control.  

The move to extend government benefits to students of Islamic seminaries has come in for sharp criticism from the BJP. 

“Why should children and people undergoing religious education get benefits funded by taxpayers’ money? Why should students of madrassas that impart only Islamic education be treated at par with students of regular schools and colleges?” asked leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari. 

He dismissed the chief minister’s bid to woo Muslims with tabs and smartphones for students of seminaries as “mere gimmick”. “She will not be able to do anything for them (students of Islamic seminaries) since that would be illegal and would meet with legal challenges. She is only misleading Muslims,” Adhikari added. 

Mamata Banerjee’s latest bid to woo and appease Muslims seems to have been triggered by the results of the recent panchayat polls. 

An analysis of the results show that Muslims in some minority-dominated areas like South 24 Parganas and Murshidabad districts are shifting support from the Trinamool to the Indian Secular Front (ISF) and the Congress. 

The Trinamool received a rude jolt earlier this year when the Congress snatched away the Sagardighi Assembly constituency in Murshidabad district in a by-poll. The Congress candidate trounced the Trinamool nominee in the seat which the Trinamool considered its stronghold. 

The panchayat poll results gave the Trinamool more cause for concern over its Muslim vote bank. The Trinamool relies overwhelmingly on Muslim support to stay in power. The shift of Muslim support from the Left to the Trinamool brought the latter to power in Bengal in 2011. 

Mamata Banerjee openly acknowledges her indebtedness to Muslims for being in power. She has often gone to extremes to demonstrate her affiliation towards Muslim community by donning the hijab and reciting the kalma (read this) in public.

A little over four years ago, while reacting to charges of Muslim appeasement, she said she was completely unapologetic about such appeasement.