When militancy and madrasas go hand in hand

Qawmi madrasas, with their number now over 10,000, mainly depend on money coming in from the Middle East. A good portion of the funds collected for the Qawmi madrasas is allegedly used for training of the Islamic militants.

The Islamist militants have once again hit the courts, further stoking the fear that has already engulfed the nation. Five serial bomb blasts at the courts in Chandpur, Laxmipur and Chittagong occurred on October 3, leaving two people dead and 38 others, including a district judge and a policeman, injured. Two perpetrators held from the Chandpur blast site and one from Laxmipur said Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), which is blamed for the August 17 serial bomb blasts, assigned them to carry out the attacks. Two of the three perpetrators caught in the Chittagong court premises admitted to being members of Shaheed Nasrullah Al Arafat Brigade (SNAB), the newly formed military wing of the JMB and JMJB mostly with madrasa students.

Having patronage from the powerful, both inside and outside the country, a new breed of religious militancy has gradually emerged in Bangladesh. The militants are intolerant of any view other than their own. In order to establish their religious dogma they would not hesitate to use force. But the government long denied their existence in the country. Such denial by the government has made their existence strong enough to pose threat to state security. Jamaatul Mujahedin Bangladesh (JMB) believes in capturing state power though armed revolution and running the country by establishing Islamic rule. JMB has developed a strong network across the country and Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB) was formed as its militant front to carry on the arms operation. Most of the members of the JMJB are the young students of madrasas.

The madrasas in Pakistan have also been accused of being breeding grounds for Islamist militants and came under the spotlight after it emerged that at least two of the London bombers may have visited a madrasa in Pakistan before the July 7 bombing. President Pervez Musharraf announced a crackdown on madrasas in which hundreds of people were rounded up, including clerics and suspected militants, while madrasas were asked to expel all foreign students and register by December 31 or be shut down. President Musharraf said, even though most of the religious schools provided shelter and education to children from rural areas, some were fanning hatred and militancy. Musharraf invited the seminaries for talks earlier about his order to the country's 14,000 madrasas to register by December 31, 2005 or face closure. Hardliners had opposed the measures but changed their mind during a meeting between Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and a delegation from the Federation of Madrasas Organization and agreed to register with the government by the end of this year.

The government of Bangladesh has decided to launch a counter-motivation program for the students of madrasas to prevent them from being wrongly motivated and misguided by the Islamist outfits and used for so-called jihad. The decision was taken at the Dhaka division law and order meeting held on October 4 at the home ministry, with Lutfozzaman Babar, the state minister for home, in the chair, against the backdrop of failure to prevent fresh bombing after August 17. "There was a threat of subsequent bombing and we have to adopt alternative plans as the threat has come true," said Babar. 'They are motivating the ignorant and discontented youths to become field-level workers' he added. The meeting observed that police alone cannot resist bombing or ensure security in all corners of the country and emphasized the need for involving the cross-section of people in the counter-motivation program. The state minister directed the Deputy Commissioners and Police Superintendents to involve imams, madrasa teachers, journalists and others in the counter-motivation program

The counter-motivation program has little possibility of becoming successful as the government is going to adopt a wrong strategy for the purpose. As it appears from the media reports, most of the madrasa teachers, particularly of the Qawmi madrasas are already motivated by the Islamist outfits to establish Islamic rule in the country through jihad. The government should also not rely on the imams, as some of the mosques are now being used as militants training camps. The Islamic militants will not pay any heed to the advice of the journalists, whom they consider as their number one enemy. The government will have to go a long way to bring these religious fanatics to heel.

The government should adopt some short-term as well as some long-term measures to combat the religious militancy. There is no short-cut way for motivation. It is a long term process. The government may follow Pakistan as an immediate measure to register all the Qawmi madrasas and bring them under watch which has been accused of being breeding grounds for the militants. Apart from 9,000 government registered madrasas these are about 15,000 other institutions across the country offering religious education without registration.

As a long-term measure, the government should also take drastic step to modernise the madrasa education system. The curriculum of madrasa is much weaker than the school curriculum. Due to this disparity in the education standard, the madrasa students, who mostly belong to poor families from rural areas, fail to secure any job after passing Fazil of Kamil examinations. In fact madrasas have negligible contributions in creating skilled human resources. The Islamist outfits are taking this as an advantage for them in motivating the ignorant and discontented youths to be militants. With modernisation of madrasa education, the moral and spiritual teaching of Islam can also be infused for changing the fanatical beliefs of the madrasa students.

The Daily Star in an exhaustive report published on August 4 made a very sharp observation of the state of madrasa education in the country vis-a-vis the mainstream education. According to the report, madrasa education has received more state favour than general education in the last four years, leading to a significant growth of madrasas in the country. Quoting Bangladesh Economic Review statistics, the report said that the number of general educational institutions which receive government funds has increased 9.74 percent against a 22.22 percent growth of madrasas from 2001 to 2005. The madrasas got such a robust growth after the BNP-led alliance government came to power in 2001. The number of madrasa teachers also shows a significant rise in the last four years. Teachers in the schools and colleges marked 12.27 percent increase while it was 16.52 in madrasas. The number of student in general educational institutions rose 8.64 percent against 10.12 percent in madrasas. Total 1,720 general educational institutions were set up in the last four years against 1,618 new madrasas, according to the report. One does not require much wisdom to understand why the madrasa education has received such a state favour in the last four years.

As the militancy issue is now hanging like the sword of Damocles over the head of the government, the failure to dig out the root of militancy may put the state under severe threat. The state minister for home has virtually no reason to feel happy with the nabbing of a few perpetrators, as the militants have already proved their capabilities of destabilising the country at one go. It is now quite clear to everybody that these Islamist militants are fighting violently to overthrow the entire democratic system of government, which they termed as evil and against Islam. It is the issue of Islamic militancy and extremism that has soiled our national image abroad. Growing of any sort of extremism is not necessarily confined within one's territory, but has international ramifications. The country is already under foreign pressure to check the rise of Islamic militancy in the country. If the government was prompt in taking appropriate measures without denying the reality, the subversive activities of the militants could have been nipped in the bud.

The writer is a freelance contributor to The Daily Star.