A new Chapter for Mewat

Madarsas or schools?

Qari Sirajuddin is often called a “modern maulana”. After he passed out of Jamia Sanabil,a madarsa in Delhi which also taught Hindi,Mathematics and English,he returned to his native Bhadas village in Mewat to set up a girls-only madarsa. That was in 1994,when Meos believed that even if it was reading the Quran,girls should do so at home. Sirajuddin wanted to “correct that misconception”. So he put a cot under a tree—the site for Madarstul-Banat Ayesha Siddiqua.

Over four years,100 girls studied at the madarsa,a “paltry number gained with much difficulty,” says Sirajuddin. But that didn’t stop him from pressing ahead with a riskier plan—establishing a regular co-educational school. Al-Falah Senior Secondary School began in 1999 in three rooms of an under-construction building. “Imams of seven mosques held a meeting to discuss how a bearded man could allow co-ed,” remembers Sirajuddin,who still wears his beard,topi and kurta. So,Sirajuddin did a “balancing act”: along with mainstream subjects,students would be taught Urdu and Islamic studies,girls would cover their heads,and boys and girls wouldn’t sit together at Al-Falah. That clicked. “That reassured parents their wards wouldn’t get spoilt,” he says.

Today,in Al-Falah’s classrooms,595 students (17 per cent girls; 51 Hindus) sit on mats and read books on English,Mathematics,Science,Hindi and Social Studies. It is affiliated to the Haryana education board and had a 90 per cent high school pass percentage last year. Al-Falah’s primary section is not recognised by the Haryana state government—it’s registered as Madarsa Abul Kalam Azad—and devotes “25 per cent of the time to Islamic studies and 75 per cent to regular subjects,” says Sirajuddin.

The secondary and senior secondary section known as Al-Falah is recognised and a new building is being constructed for it. “Here,10 per cent of the students’ time is devoted to religious education,90 per cent to mainstream,” he says.

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Muhammadiya High School,a co-educational school affiliated to the Haryana education board,stands opposite a cowshed in Sakras village. Its crumbling yellow building has no board. A few meters away is a government school. Muhammadiya founder Abdul Gaffar says,“Our result was 100 per cent,theirs was 65.”

The school’s academic record is what prompted Sonia Jain’s parents to shift her from the government school to Muhammadiya. “Teachers there paid attention only to bright students,” says Jain,who sits idle during an Urdu class taken by Maulana Mohd. Qasim. Urdu is optional for Muhammadiya’s 19 Hindu students,who study Sanskrit instead.

Muhammadiya’s students sit on mats and their teachers on plastic chairs. As its 14 classrooms can’t accommodate 525 students (93 girls),classes are also held in the corridor. This school,too,has madarsa origins. In 1995,Gaffar founded an “evening madarsa” called Muhammadiya Madarsa in his tyre-puncture repair shop,where 15 students of the nearby government school would study Islamic studies and Urdu in the evenings. Gaffar himself studied for two months at a madarsa,then at a government school till class XII before he went on to get a BA from Agra University.

In 1996,Gaffar built more rooms on his ancestral land for classes I to V,where students were taught regular subjects along with Urdu and Islamic studies. “The idea was to make them employable for the world while imparting basic Islamic education,” he says. Soon,classes VI to X followed,now recognised by the Haryana government.

A few kilometres away,construction is underway for a red-brick building on a 3.25-acre plot. “We have applied to the National Council for Teacher Training in Jaipur for a B.Ed course,” Gaffar says.

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The 18-year-old Madarsa Arabiya Darul-Uloom Subhaniya,off Firozepur Jhirkha town,has established a separate,regular,Hindi-medium,class I-VIII school called Subhaniya Public School. The madarsa will discontinue teaching mainstream subjects such as English,Mathematics,Science and Hindi,which will now be taught at the new school,registered with the Haryana government last year. The building is yet to be constructed—a boundary wall has been erected around the 1.75-acre plot adjacent to the madarsa—and classes are currently held inside the madarsa. Thirty students (22 from the madarsa,and eight,of whom five are Hindu,from outside) of class V will appear for their final exams this month. The school,says Hussien Ahmed,son of founder Maulana Ilyas Qasmi,will “not impart religious education”.

‘Too modern’

Aravalli Public School’s 19-acre campus in Firozepur Jhirkha—housing its red-brick building,hostels,a hobby centre,a technical training institute funded by the Japanese Embassy,and a well-trimmed playground—can rival those of schools in Gurgaon; its class X and XII toppers in 2009 scored 90 and 93 per cent respectively; it is the only school with a girls’ hostel (funded by the Islamic Development Bank) and one of the only two schools in Mewat that have been granted permanent recognition by the Haryana government. It doesn’t teach Islamic studies,boys and girls aren’t segregated in classrooms and though most girls cover their heads,they openly interact with boys and even play badminton with them. And “most daring of all”,it is the only English-medium school. Perhaps that explains why its enrolment (550) is lesser than Al-Falah’s (595). It also has fewer Meo girl students. Of its 150 girls (a higher proportion than that of other Meo schools),only 40 (the lowest) are Meo.

“People here think that girls who go to school become too outgoing. They think,har kisi se baat kar leti hain yeh ladkiyan,” says Maimunisaa,a class XII Meo student who plans to apply for a B.Com in Delhi University and wants to become a social reformer “to do something good for Meo women”.

Cultural programmes held at Aravalli have attracted fundamentalist ire; Vice-Principal Manzar Alam says “people running certain madarsas had objected to girls participating in dance competitions”. “People have been complaining that our school is un-Islamic and that in order to attract higher enrolment,we must introduce Islamic studies. But we aren’t going to do that. Ours is a secular model,” says founder Mohammed Israil,who,however,will “introduce Arabic soon”.

‘Conservative’ modern schools

In between Aravalli and the likes of Al-Falah or Subhaniya,lie over 40 schools that follow the “middle path”. Basheer Ahmed,founder of the co-ed Nawab Shamsuddin School in Badopal village,which was established in 2004 and just last year held its first class X board exam,says private school founders have made a promise to Meos. “When we went from door to door convincing people to get their children educated,their biggest fear was of un-Islamisation and sending girls to school. We assured them of a compromise—segregation and teaching of Urdu and Islam,” says Ahmed. At his school,Urdu and Islamic studies are taught alongside mainstream subjects of the Haryana board. In lower classes,boys and girls sit together; in higher classes,they are segregated and girls cover their heads.

“Including Urdu and Islamic studies in the curriculum is the only way to divert students from madarsas to schools in Mewat. Cultural sensitivity and inclusiveness are important for transformation,” says Yoginder Sikand,research associate at the National Law School in Bangalore,who writes on Muslim affairs and has done a Ph.D on the Tablighi Jamaat.

Abusaleh Shariff,member of the Sachar Committee,believes that the “model” being followed in Mewat should be “replicated in all Muslim-concentrated,illiteracy-ridden areas”. “The government should learn from Meo villagers and start being culturally sensitive,” he says.

Beating the government schools is a challenge for Meo educationists. “They charge Rs 20 as monthly fee,we charge between Rs 100 and Rs 200,” says Majeed Khan,founder of Sunrise Public School,the only private school in Agon village. Sunrise displays its “bright” academic record outside its building,to “draw families”.

Battling apathy

Sikand says,“There are very few government schools and most of these have a Hindu milieu. When a poor,uneducated,Tablighi Jamaat-influenced Meo parent sees a picture of Saraswati hanging in the classroom,he feels insecure about his child’s future. The government schools have few Meo teachers,most of the teachers come from the cities to teach,because of which they also miss a lot of classes. Many schools don’t teach Urdu.”

Basheer Ahmed,too,complains of governmental apathy. “We’ve been running around for recognition. They’ve agreed to give temporary recognition. There are 48 privately-run Meo schools,only two have been given permanent recognition,” he says.

Though most schools don’t meet the requirements for recognition,experts say norms should be relaxed for the backward district. “They can be flexible on the two-acre ground area rule and lower the minimum limit of 12 classrooms for middle school to eight,” says Siddique Ahmed,social activist and author of Mewat: Ek Khoj,which delves into the cultural history of Meos. He adds that in order to motivate teachers from towns to teach in villages,“they should be paid higher salaries”.

Ask Hussien Ahmed,who complains of paying salaries “from his own pocket” to teachers of modern subjects at Madarsa Subhaniya when “the government should be doing that under the madarsa modernisation scheme”. Since 2005,he has been “running around” to avail the incentives of the scheme,but has got no response.

“Mewat is a case of systemic failure,a reconfirmation of the Sachar Committee report—the government has to act for any reform to take place in this backward district,” says Shariff.

It seems the government is waking up to some extent,at least when it comes to its own schools. Some 135 primary schools in the district have been upgraded to the middle level,35 middle schools have gone up to high school and two high schools have been upgraded to the senior secondary level,Siddique Ahmed says. Mewat is among 90 minority-concentrated districts for which the Centre has earmarked Rs 2,600 crore towards development.

When Rahul Gandhi visited Haryana before the assembly elections last year,he promised three medical colleges in the state,one of them in Indri village that lies on the border between Mewat and Gurgaon. Social activists such as Siddique Ahmed campaigned for 45 days to get the designated site shifted to Nuh,in the centre of Mewat,so that it’s “more accessible and there’s no chance of it going to Gurgaon”. Construction is now underway in Nuh.

Winds of change

Over the last five years,Basheer Ahmed says,Meos have been drifting towards education. “Though a lot of them are still farmers,many have become truck-drivers—as they travel,they realise education is important. Besides,because the average number of children in a Meo family is six,landholdings are shrinking with each generation. So the landlords are getting their sons educated. Families also use education to attract dowry,” he says. At 64,he says he “wants to see one Meo IAS officer before I die”.

While Meo girls used to work at home and till the fields,the changing times are forcing parents to get them educated. “Young educated men today want a bride who is at least a high-school graduate,” says Basheer Ahmed. Since the requirement is only high-school graduation,the drop-out rate is high among girls. At Sunrise,Khan says,“In class I,we have 13 girls,in class IX,four and in class X,two.” People also keep the girls at home because they “think it’s unsafe to send them out after a certain age,” says Gaffar,who is in talks with the Islamic Development Bank for funding a girls’ hostel. Sikand holds the Tablighi Jamaat responsible for what he calls the “dampening effect” on women’s education.

Nevertheless,the private Meo schools continue to chart out grand plans to push for education. Basheer Ahmed and some fellow Meos went to Delhi and launched an agitation on March 14,demanding they be granted ST status,on the lines of the Meenas of Rajasthan.

Meanwhile,the “Mewat model” has already become lucrative for non-Meos. Balwant Saini,a Hindu from Karhera village in Mewat,established Saini Vidya Niketan,a class I-VII school,in April 2009,after working as an administrator in a school in Faridabad. “To draw more students,I included Urdu and Islamic studies in my school,” he says. He got “over 800 applications”. Today,at his eight-room school,most of the 400 students study in the open. Urdu here is compulsory from class III to VI—his own daughter is fluent in the language. Saini says he had asked parents if they wanted Quranic translation to be taught at the school but “not even 10 agreed”. “They said they read the Quran at home anyway,” he says.