For the first time since the CPI(M) came to power in West Bengal, the Muslim community’s ties with the Marxists appear to have come under strain.
The January 22 attack outside the American Center is the catalyst. Muslims are angry with CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharya’s declared war on madrasas not affiliated to the West Bengal Board of Madrasa Education.
Last week in Siliguri, Bhattacharya said he would shut down unaffiliated madrasas because many had become ISI centers. The state has 507 recognised madrasas. According to unofficial reports, as many as 130 unrecognised madrasas exist in border districts.
Some Muslims consider his comments a slur on the community and are planning a rally and a memorandum for Governor Viren J Shah.
The All Bengal Madrasa Teachers’ Association, too, is sore with Bhattacharya. Tomorrow, they will discuss his comments at a meeting. “It’s a blatant attempt to malign the community,” Zahiruddin Khan, general-secretary, All India Anti-terrorist Forum, said.
The Madrasa Teachers’ association is as unhappy. “People who go to these unaffiliated madrasas are from the lowest strata of society,” Syed Noore Khoda, teacher at Hosenia High Madrasa, Murshidabad, and an association office-bearer, said. “After their education, they land petty jobs at mosques they are simple people. I don’t believe they are anti-national.
West Bengal Madrasa Board president Abdus Sattar said efforts are on to modernize madrasa. He said the system is still relevant. It educates large numbers of people in remote villages without schools, he said.
“People have misconceptions about
madrasas,” Sattar said. “They don’t know madrasas are secular educational
institutions which have Hindu teachers and Hindu students.”