Two postcards from Lucknow

Sixty-five persons man the Archives. For the two days that I spent at its precincts, most had probably availed of casual leave, earned leave, or french leave. Frankly, I couldn8217;t tell. I found the rest doing nothing; most came late or left after a hard day8217;s work around 3 pm. This being the case, nobody bothered to dust the place, or remove pieces of broken furniture and desert coolers covering the access to the toilets. Well, a brief visit to the washroom convinced me that the open sky was preferable to entering its sacred area. The next day was no different. The director and his deputy were still invisible. The gracious lady at the research room came at 11 am; the most helpful gentleman, who brings in documents, arrived around midday. Dismayed by this, I returned to my hotel convinced that creating institutions without ensuring their smooth functioning was a monumental folly.

On the subject of education and research, I was reminded of the Prophet of Islam, who wanted his followers to travel as far as China in search of knowledge. This exhortation, as I discovered during my stay in Lucknow, inspires some, but not all Muslims. With the exception of professional groups and remnants of the old service families, most parents still resist sending their children to a school, even if it just across their street. Even well-to-do Muslims, having made their fortune in the Gulf, prefer the maktabs small schools that are mostly attached to mosques, and the community funded madarsas. These institutions 30,000 maktabs housed in over a lakh registered mosques and 1,500 registered madarsas are not the breeding ground for 8216;terrorists8217;, but they are inadequately equipped to train their pupils to compete in the wider world of trade, professions and government.

Whether it is UP8217;s capital or the erstwhile princely state of Rampur, Muslim girls are at the receiving end. Though institutions like the Karamat Husain Girls8217; College in Lucknow draw them from various social classes, most Muslim girls spend a few years in a madarsa memorising the Quran and studying Urdu and theology. Thereafter, they 8212; including the very poor who attend classes as well as supplement their family income up doing odd jobs 8212; end up performing domestic chores. What a brief stint at a local madarsa does is to lend social respectability, and thereby enhance their marriage prospects.

In Indira Nagar, or in nearby Chinhat where Amrita Das runs an NGO, the overall drop out rate of girls from poor- or middle-level families is high. The explanations are varied, ranging from poverty to the tradiional resistance to co-education. Maulana Matin Miyan of Firangi Mahal, once a renowned theological seminary, bemoans that Muslim theologians have not done enough to change their mindset.

One man who has made the difference is Maulana Kalb-i Sadiq. His flowing gown is a symbol of change, of social regeneration. With a doctoral degree from Aligarh8217;s Muslim University, he belongs to Lucknow8217;s venerable and influential Shia family. Robust and energetic, he derives inspiration from Syed Ahmad Khan, the chief catalyst of Muslim educational reforms in the last quarter of the 19th century. What does he tell his fellow-theologians? 8216;Spare a few minutes of the pulpit time for emphasising the importance of education and its promotion. The communities of the world are respected and graded according to their expertise in knowledge and not because of their numerical strength.8217;

Words are translated into deeds. From a modest beginning in 1984, the Unity College has been established in a predominantly Shia locality. Basking in the shadow of a superb-looking 18th century Juma Masjid that is being renovated through the collective efforts of Hindus, Shias and Sunnis, the college, with its 2,500 students, boys and girls, is a testimony to Kalb-i Sadiq8217;s foresight and vision. I was struck by the sight of burqa-clad women turning up in the afternoon, when the 8216;Free Education8217; classes are held, to monitor the performance of their wards. Here, in Unity College, it is the poor mother who motivates the child, and regularly attends the parent-teacher meetings.

Good luck to Maulana Kalb-i Sadiq and his colleagues who, instead of depending on state patronage, marshal their own intellectual resources to turn a dream into reality. True, abhi manazil-i dasht-o daman kutch aur bhi hain literally: there are still many a hurdle to cross, but their initiative will ultimately bear fruition. By dispersing the clouds of ignorance and illiteracy, they bring hope to an educationally backward community.

Write to mushirulhasanexpressindia.com