POREG VIEW: The by-lined story in the Express Tribune of Karachi clearly brings out what is wrong with the Madrasas in Pakistan. The government is scared of checking the mushroom growth of madrasas and their practices fearing a violent backlash like it happened during the Musharraf regime at Lal Mosque in Islamabad. There is no count of unregistered madrasas in the country. Capital Islamabad alone has 83 such institutions. The Express Tribune report puts the issues in perspective when it said “There are around 18-24,000 registered madrassas. There are countless more unregistered…”. The ministry of interior provides madrassas — including illegal ones — with walk-through gates, along with police officials for security. Unlike Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, and Iran, Pakistan has no state control over religious learning and this has led to spread of sectarian disharmony in society. The absence of state control over Madrasas has resulted in another phenomenon – 90 per cent of foreigners studying in religious seminaries across the Punjab have expired visas.
In November last year, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom found that Pakistani school textbooks to discover that there is religious bias in them denigrating minority communities. The study was based on visiting 37 public schools and 19 madrassas. “Madrassas not only spread a certain kind of ideology to students, they also spread it in society, to the families and extended families of these students”, the report said. But, according to notes scholar, Ayesha Siddiqa, another report had come out with much disturbing facts. That report said that madrassas also spread sectarian hatred, and do not allow pupils and society to look at alternative perspectives within the religious discourse.
There are numerous cases of torture, rape, violence and terrorism connected to madrassas in 2011 alone.
