BJP Member of Parliament and the Union Rural Development Minister Giriraj Singh is known for giving controversial, even provocative statements. Recently, he has claimed that madrasas and mosques[1] pose a serious threat to security. According to media reports, the BJP leader said “Bihar seems to be flooded by illegal (avaidh) madrasas and mosques (masjid). The situation is particularly grave in the areas bordering Nepal and Bangladesh”.
Having made such a wild allegation, he tried to intimidate people that “while the population of Muslims in the state is about 18 per cent, these areas have a higher concentration. Moreover, he alleged that there is a strong presence of the banned PFI across the state. So the situation poses a grave challenge to the country’s internal security”.
He proceeded thereafter to criticise the JDU and the RJD-led Government in Bihar for appeasing the Muslim community and ignoring the threat of the mushrooming growth of “illegal” madrasas and mosques in the state. But the statement of Giriraj Singh has been brushed aside by the leaders of the RJD and the JDU and they have accused him of playing a communal card.
There may be multiple reasons why Giriraj Singh has consistently used polarising words and imagery in his public exhortations, the latest being about madrasas and mosques. By claiming that madrasas and mosques have been “illegally constructed”, he is playing to the gallery of the party’s hard-core supporters. Sources suggest that the party may deny him a ticket in the upcoming Lok Sabha election. Fearing his exclusion, he has tried to establish his relevance and resumed making such statements to re-consolidate his position as a fire-brand leader of the state BJP.
Giriraj Singh is aware of the fact that the myth of the population rise of Muslims has penetrated deep inside the psyche of a section of the majority community with the help of continuous propaganda. By raising such an issue, he is trying to attract media attention for himself and the party. Such a communal card may also work to counter the “re-assertion” of Mandal politics in the state.
Under the leadership of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav, the Bihar government has recently conducted a caste survey in the state. Based on the findings of reports, the Bihar assembly passed a unanimous resolution to increase the quota for the marginalised castes to 65 per cent. Although the opposition BJP supported the resolution for the quota increase, the upper caste lobby within the BJP was not happy with the party’s decision. The upper castes lobby believes that the quota increase would be detrimental to their “dwindling hold on the state politics”. A section of the upper caste leadership has always demanded that the BJP should promote upper caste leaders in the state, rather than using the mascot of Nitish Kumar. After Nitish parted ways with the BJP the same lobby is now once again trying to strengthen the upper caste hold within the party.
But the top leadership of the BJP understands the compulsion of Bihar politics. In the state, the upper castes are numerically a minority and they alone cannot help the saffron party win elections. Therefore, the BJP is trying to maintain “a balance” in Bihar. While it has supported the quota increase to woo marginalised castes, it has often promoted firebrand leaders within the party who are capable of polarising voters on religious lines. Giriraj Singh is one of them and he is trying to do what the hard-core supporters may feel appeased.
However, this statement may fetch the BJP some votes but would certainly also strain the social fabric of Bihar. Such a statement is also historically erroneous and misleadingly portrays what has been a rich tradition of India’s freedom fighters.
The act of linking madrasas with security threats and terrorism is a relatively recent phenomenon. The act of demonising madrasas is a part of wider Islamophobic discourse. The writings of orientalist writers (including historians), at first systematically demonised Muslim rules in their education and culture and called Muslims essentially (only) a religious community.
It was these Orientalist authors who created a false binary. For them, western society is based on the values of secularism, science, rationality and democracy, the Muslim society has an inherent bias against secularism, and are mired in “fanaticism” and “bigotry”.
Now, the post-2001 war on terror discourse, first fuelled after the end of the Cold War has further ignited Islamophobic discourse, generating a fear of madrasas. The demonisation of madrasas is, hence the re-calibration and continuance of the same Orientalist prejudice against Muslims.
Under the influence of Islamophobia, the madrasas are suspiciously looked at by both the right and unfortunately a section of the left. Such discourse has also been used by majoritarian parties, such as the BJP, to polarise society on religious lines. When Atal Bihari Vajpayee came to power, the establishment launched a campaign against madrasas and wild charges were made against madrasas. They were linked to “anti-national” activities, the way Giriraj Singh has not yet elaborated. But these charges were never proven. Yet, proof does not matter, such an anti-Muslim narrative is often invoked to target the minority community.
Targeting of madrasas or calling them a “den” of “anti-anti-national” activities is, besides being prejudicial and Islamophobic, also an act of insulting our freedom fighters and undermining India’s anti-colonial struggle. Historians have shown how, the Khilafat Movement in the early 1920s shook the foundation of the mighty British Empire. Under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi and the Ulema of Deoband Seminary, millions of people turned mobilised British rule.
It is a historical fact that the success of the Khilafat Movement turned out to be the result of the rock-solid alliance between the Congress party and the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind. Formed in 1919, the organisation was an integral part of Darul Uloom Deoband.
A large number of nationalist leaders, who worked with the Congress party, had a madrasas education background, including the Deoband seminary that was set up in 1866.
Apart from Gandhi, Dr Rajendra Prasad, the freedom fighter, the Congress leader and the first President of India, had intimate relations with madrasas. In his autobiography, Rajendra Prasad devoted the third chapter to fondly remembering his association with “Maulvi Saheb”, who “initiated” him “into the alphabet”. Prasad, the big Congress leader from Bihar, went to Maktab in his childhood where he learnt Persian. It was because of his Maulvi Saheb that Rajendra Prasad learnt to read Persian texts such as Karima, Gulistan, Bostan etc. Paying tribute to the Maulvi Saheb, Rajendra Prasad wrote in his autobiography, “The little Persian we learn goes entirely to this Maulvi’s credit. We had started liking him and we felt sorry to leave when we had to go to Chapra” (Rajendra Prasad, An Autobiography, NBT, New Delhi, 2018, p. 8).
History is witness to the fact that a large number of Hindu scholars also attended madrasas for education. Learning Urdu and Arabic, Persian and going to madrasa were open to all. Similarly, Muslim scholars also learnt Awadhi, Braj Bhasha, Hindi and Sanskrit and went to the educational centres run by Hindu teachers.
The composite culture of India and the historical reality are witness to the fact that madrasas were never called a place for breeding “anti-Hindu” or “anti-national” feelings, the way Giriraj Singh has alleged.
In the same statement made last Friday wherein he reviled mosques and madrasas, Giriraj Singh called for imparting science to Muslim students and implied that they should desist from going to madrasas. Similar rants have also been attributed to the BJP chief minister of Assam Himanta Biswa Sarma. In 2018, Prime Minister Modi too made his infamous statement that he would like to see “Muslim Youth hold the Quran in one hand and a computer in the other”. Exhortations apart, this ground reality exposes the questionable intentions of BJP leaders.
For example, several news reports from Uttar Pradesh reveal that the madrasa teachers, who were recruited to impart computer education and science along with English in these institutions, have not been paid a salary by the government for months.
Similarly, the Modi Government rolled back the Maulana Azad scholarship for minorities, even though Muslim youth are underrepresented in higher education. Worse still, the BJP government continues to cut the budget for minority education and their welfare schemes.
Recently the BJP has invoked the Pasmanda Muslim issue and tried to project itself as a “champion” of their rights. But such an act appears to be the classic instance of shedding crocodile tears. Had it not been the case, the BJP governments would not have failed to give protection to the Muslims from communal forces whose large population compromised Dalit and backward caste Muslims. The saffron party has also failed to take concrete steps to address their social and economic backwardness.
The BJP, which raises the issues of the Pasmanda Muslims, has so far failed to give proportional representation to them. While it is at the forefront to point out how they are discriminated against by the upper caste Muslims, it has offered no concrete programmes to address their social and economic backwardness.
For example, the Pasmanda Muslims are yet to get adequate seats in the assembly and Parliamentary elections from within the BJP. Ali Anwar, the leader of the Pasmanda Muslims, has rightly raised a question on the BJP’s intention to give justice to Pasmanda Muslims by saying that Bilkis Bano was also a Pasmanda but why she had been denied justice.
In his Bhopal meeting last summer, Prime Minister Modi raised the issue of “untouchability” within the Muslim community but when the Supreme Court asked the Government to spell out its stand on giving SC status to Dalit and Christian Muslims, the Government spoke a different language by saying that caste does not exist in Islam to weaken the case for SC status to Dalit Muslims and Dalit Christians.
What could be a better example than this about speaking in forked tongue?
It appears that the statement of Giriraj Singh has less to do with historical facts and ground reality and more to do with fermenting communal polarisation. Amidst these disturbing trends, the need of the hour is to maintain communal harmony and fight for social justice.
(Dr Abhay Kumar, the author is a Delhi-based journalist.)
[1] Union Minister Giriraj Singh stirred controversy on Friday December 1, 2023 with a call for the closure of “illegal madrasas” in Bihar, citing concerns over the rising numbers and saying that they pose a “threat to the internal security of the state and the nation.”
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