'Muslim politicians have lost bond with the community'

The Inquirer

Maulana Abdul Khaliq Sambhali, Deputy Vice Chancellor, Darul Uloom, Deoband,

the apex body of the traditional Muslim educational institutions, answers some of these oft-bandied questions. He also disowns the Taliban, who are often associated with this nearly 150-year-old institution, as he speaks to Shruba Mukherjee of Deccan Herald. Excerpts:

Do you think the national political parties have given any serious thought for the welfare of the Muslims or have they served their cause?

The national parties have befooled the Muslims. Initially we had hopes with the Congress, but it fared no better. Till date they have failed to implement the Sachar Committee recommendations. The literacy rate is only four per cent, employment scenario is equally bleak. Where are the Muslims in the Army, police and other security forces? Even in Parliament, they are not at all represented in terms of their population. Political parties talk about us at the time of elections and treated us only in terms of a vote bank.

Do you think the Muslim parliamentarians have done their job in highlighting the plight of the community?

They have failed pathetically. How many times they have stood up and spoken before the nation? Why could not they put pressure on the authorities to implement the Sachar Committee recommendations? They have lost their bond with the community and thus are no longer aware of the problems and issues before their own people. But political parties are also to blame for this. They prefer “yes man” and only give tickets to those who would kowtow to their wishes.

Deoband is often accused of fomenting separatist feelings among young Muslim students and even the Taliban ideology is said to have been a Deoband creation. Your comments?

Terrorism is an economic problem. It is a war between the haves and the have-nots. The US has taken away the heroin fields of these Afghan people whom they call the Taliban. These poor people have lost their employment and if you take away bread from their mouth, won’t they revolt? Won’t they take up guns and shoot at you? And in so far as our involvement with the Taliban is concerned, we do not have any association whatsoever with them. Deoband, being an internationally renowned institution, has admitted a number of foreign students and some of them might be from Afghanistan. Now if they go back and start something there in their own country, how can you hold us responsible for that? We admit only those foreign students, who are given education visas by the Government of India. So we have not done anything illegal.

Islam has always attached importance to acquiring of knowledge. So how do you justify the Taliban when they are closing down girls’ schools?

The Taliban are not against girls’ education per se. They closed the schools because the girls were not covering themselves, not doing hijab as per Islamic tradition. In Islam, men and women have their restrictions and there is a code of behaviour for every one. We are not against education of girls, but we are against co-education.

An eminent historian from Aligarh Muslim University has said that Muslims need schools, not Madarsas. Being the leader of Deoband, known to be the mother of Madarsa education, how do you react to such statements?
One should know that the madarsas provide more modern education than these schools. What Kothari Commission report, on the basis of modern education in the country, suggested in 1986, our founders had done it way back in 1866. You could not implement the Right to Education Bill till date, but see here we provide free education to children from 8-14 years. We provide them two square meals a day, textbooks and we do not even take any hostel fees from them. And we do not even take a single penny from the government. Our budget is Rs 13 crore and everything comes from voluntary donation.
The government talks about adult education, but what is the success rate there? Our founders thought about this also and anybody can take admission here irrespective of his age and all students from 8 to 80 years can sit together and study. We have around 3,500 students here but there is not a single incident of ragging. Only one invigilator is on duty while 400 students are writing their examination and not a single boy has been caught for resorting to unfair means in the test. Would you claim that the so-called modern schools have been able to inculcate this kind of integrity and discipline among students?

Then why are the madarsas accused of ‘breeding terrorism?’

It is totally false and baseless. Have you ever been able to prove a single allegation? Please check the personal background of all those Muslim youths, who have been convicted of terrorism, and you will see they are all products of your so-called modern system of education inculcating nothing but materialism and greed in them. Madarsas make peaceful citizens, they never teach students to take up guns.