Footprints: Opposition to madressah reforms

In this photo, a student of a madrassa attends a test in reciting verses of the Quran in a Mosque in Islamabad. — AP/File

Sitting at a tea stall near Jamia Farooqia, a seminary in Karachi’s Shah Faisal Colony, a group of five young students discuss the current issue of madressah reforms.

One of them is Mansoor Abbasi, a 26-year-old student of the seminary, who feels that the government wants “to shut down all the madressahs in the country at the behest of the US and foreign-funded NGOs”. The others nod their heads in agreement.

In response to the Dec 16 attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar, the government has announced a National Action Plan (NAP) to fight terrorism and militancy. The plan includes the registration and regulation of madressahs and a committee has been formed to meet the wifaqs of different madressahs to reach a consensus.

But the Ittehad-i-Tanzeemat-i-Madaris-i-Deenia (ITMD), a coalition of five wifaqs (Deobandi, Barelvi, Ahl-i-Hadith, Shia and Jamaat-i-Islami), have come out strongly in defence of the seminaries. Supporting them are religious political parties, especially the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F).

Mufti Munibur Rehman, who heads the ITMD alliance, says that the madressahs will not “tolerate any negative propaganda and agenda against the madressahs”. He headed the Jan 3 meeting of the coalition at the Jamaat-i-Islami’s central office in Lahore and says that the government should consult the ITMD leaders regarding the action plan and take them into confidence about any issues related to madressahs.

It is not the first time that the madressahs federation has voiced opposition to government attempts to regularise them. In fact, the ITMD was formed in 2004 in opposition to retired Gen Pervez Musharraf’s introduction of the Pakistan Madressah Education Board in 2003.

Meanwhile, security analysts believe that this is not the right time to address seminary reforms. Muhammad Amir Rana, an Islamabad-based security expert, who also attended the meetings of the working group for the establishment of the NAP, says that religious parties and seminaries of different sects become united whenever the government tries to impose any kind of control over them. “The working group has recommended to the government to examine the connections of different madressahs with militancy,” says Rana. He adds that the government should “push the seminaries managements to provide assurances that their teachers and students would not be involved in any sort of terrorism”.

Rana points out that madressahs provide political, social and financial support, as well as manpower, to religious political parties, the key reason why they always unite to stop government intervention in madressahs matters. “They do not want to lose their strength,” Rana says.

This time, JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman is leading the campaign to oppose attempts to regulate madressahs and is trying to build a larger alliance of religious parties and wifaqs to pressure the government. Mufti Muhammad Naeem, who heads the Jamia Binoria Al-Alamia in Karachi, says that Rehman represents all five major wifaqs and they “support his struggle”.

Commenting on federal Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Khan’s statement that 10 per cent of the madressahs are involved in terrorism, Naeem says that those madressahs should be exposed. “We will support the government action against them,” he says.

Liberal political parties and civil society organisations are in agreement that seminaries should be reformed. “They impart extremist and violent sectarian ideologies catering to militant movements and feed armed conflicts,” says Afrasiab Khattak, an Awami National Party leader and part of the NAP committee.

Some Shia and Barelvi groups are also demanding action against madressahs involved in militancy but point out that there should be no restrictions on madressahs that are not. Allama Amin Shaheedi of the Majlis Wahdat-i-Muslimeen says that Chaudhry Nisar should identify the seminaries associated with militancy. “It is a fact that some madressahs have turned into militant training centres and prepare young students for suicide attacks,” says Shaheedi.

Interviews with seminary teachers and religious scholars suggest that following the announcement of NAP’s formation, law enforcement agencies started collecting information such as connections of teachers, management and students with religious and jihadi groups and their funding sources from seminaries. They insist that in the last five years, all major wifaqs have directed their seminaries to keep an eye on students and teachers for involvement in militancy.

“Forget about the past, now almost all seminaries have been asking students and teachers to sign affidavits that they would not become part of any religious, sectarian and jihadi groups,” says a teacher at Jamia Farooqia, requesting anonymity. He adds that they had expelled a number of students for violating the instruction and “are not responsible for acts by any students who have graduated”.

However, he agrees that some seminaries associated with banned jihadi and sectarian groups are not under the influence of the wifaqs.

Footprints: After The School Massacre

Army soldiers stand inside the Army Public School.—AP/File

THE Dec 16, 2014 attack on the Army Public School and College on Warsak Road put the entire nation into a state of unprecedented grief. The trauma of this attack is not limited to the surviving students and teachers, and the parents of the victims, though their ordeal is by far the toughest. Suffering as well are the students enrolled in about 20 other schools, including two religious seminaries, located on Warsak Road. All together, thousands of children study in these schools. 

One of them is 14-year-old Zeeshan Ali, a student of grade eight at Saint Mary’s High School, Peshawar, located near the APS. “I was playing with my friends in the school lawn during the break when we heard blasts and gunshots,” Ali told Dawn. “We ran back to our classrooms where our teacher told us that militants had entered the Army Public School. I am scared to return to school after our winter vacation ends on Jan 12. I hear the sound of gunfire in my dreams and see images with black and long beards coming towards me.”

Students, teachers and parents are reeling from shock and are concerned about security. Most of the schools located on Warsak Road are private and don’t even have proper boundary walls, let alone security apparatus such as walk-through security gates, and metal detectors. Compounding the problem, most schools have just one exit while the route leading to the schools often gets choked with traffic during school hours.

Twelve-year-old Aishma Khan studies at Peshawar Public School and College, a semi-government institution run by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s education department. She says that her school has only one gate and the security guard doesn’t have a gun, expressing fear of it being targeted like the APS. “At closing time, there is a rush of students at the gate. There should be more exits,” she says.

Haji Rustam Shah Afridi, whose children study on Warsak Road, is thinking of moving them to Islamabad to live with his cousin. He says that his daughter, a grade six student at Frontier Model School, is too scared to go to school. “She screams in her sleep and clings to her mother when she wakes up. I don’t believe the school administration can ensure the safety of children in the given situation.”
Moreover, a large number of students from outside Peshawar live in private, makeshift hostels on Warsak Road that have no proper security arrangements.

Arsalan, a young teacher at a private school on Warsak Road who lives in one of these hostels, is thinking of quitting his job. He says that the school administration doesn’t provide security or a safe place to live. “Why should I risk my life?” he asks. “Two of my colleagues have already decided not to return to Peshawar.”

There are others, though, who claim to be unafraid. Fifteen-year-old Sufiyan Khan from Swat wants his school to reopen quickly. “I am not scared of these ignorant people who blow up schools and kill innocent children,” he says. “We should resist militancy. I hope the army defeats them as they did in Swat.”

Mian Iftikhar Hussain, a psychiatrist in Peshawar, observes that there can be two reasons for such shows of resilience. One could be a state of denial, a refusal to believe that such a thing could happen to them or loved ones; the other is exposure to violence. “Both can be dangerous at later stages as the sufferers can develop anxiety and phobia,” he says, warning that they should be treated in initial stages.

“I have received patients refusing going to school because they identify school as an unpleasant place,” says Dr Hussain. “I have sent letters to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa education and health departments,

recommending counselling for the affected people, whether students, teachers or parents, not just of the APS but also of other schools nearby.”

The APS tragedy has made students, parents and teachers, as well as members of civil society, aware of the need for psychological counselling. They have demanded that the government provide not only protection for all educational institutions but also arrange for psychological support to all those affected by the events.
Dr Hussain also feels that the media should avoid showing graphic details of the attack. Instead, the media should also invite experts to explain the situation clearly as lack of knowledge also leads to fears, he points out. And most importantly, the apprehensions of students, teachers and parents regarding preventive security measures should be properly addressed.