Lucknow: After the Union government, the Yogi Adityanath government stopped the honorarium of teachers hired to teach modern subjects in the madrasas of Uttar Pradesh. The state government’s decision will adversely impact the livelihood of nearly 21,000 teachers and the education of nearly one million madrasa-going students.
Many believe that the decision is part of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s majoritarian politics, and it is the second major attack on minority education after withdrawing from the Maulana Azad National Fellowship in 2022. This decision has shocked thousands of teachers who have been persistently protesting for their honorarium for the past four years.
In a bid to impart modern education to madrasa-going students, the Union government appointed over 21,000 teachers in 7,742 madrasas in the state. These teachers were appointed under the prestigious SPQEM (Scheme for Providing Quality Education in Madrasas), which was introduced to modernise the education system in religious schools in 2009.
After the Modi government came back to power for the second time in 2019, the Union government has begun turning a blind eye to this scheme. Earlier, the pro-Hindutva government slashed the budget of SPQEM, and later on, in the financial year 2017-18, the Union government stopped releasing funds for the modern education of madrasa.
According to the teachers’ union, teachers moved from pillar to post, organised protests, and met with the ministers concerned and administrative authorities, but the Union government didn’t release the funds. Teachers say that after their long fight for four years, they got an honorarium of only 10 months in the years 2021-22, which was like a “drop in the ocean” because only 25% to 30% of madrasas received an honorarium, and other madrasas were denied it in the name of anomalies.
Madrasa teachers protesting in Lucknow. Photo: Asad Rizvi
In the meantime, the state government gave a little support to these teachers by giving them Rs 2,000 to Rs 3,000 for graduate and postgraduate teachers, respectively, as an additional honorarium. However, in the current financial year 2023-24, teachers have not received this additional honorarium since May 2023.
Now, the Uttar Pradesh government has issued a fresh order to stop the additional honorarium, following the order of the Union government. The Union ministry of minority affairs sent a letter to the state government regarding this issue on October 17, 2023. A letter apprised the state government that SPQEM was valid only until the financial year 2021-22, following which the government issued an order to stop additional honorarium on January 5, 2024.
After getting the order from the top bosses, the minority welfare department issued directions to all the district minority welfare officers on January 8 this year to stop additional honorarium. It is to be mentioned here that SPQEM was introduced during the Manmohan Singh-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in 2009. It was initially under the ministry of human resource development (HRD), and on April 1, 2021, it was transferred to the ministry of minority affairs.
Earlier, funds for the honorarium came from the Union government. However, since the funding arrangement changed in the financial year 2018-19, the Union government only paid 60% of the honorarium amount, with state governments responsible for arranging the remaining 40%.
The news that the state government also ended the additional honorarium stunned thousands of teachers because, as of now, they do not get any financial assistance from governments for their services. These teachers have been protesting for the release of their pending funds in the state capital, Lucknow, since International Minority Rights Day on December 18, last year.
Also read: Union Govt-Appointed Madrasa Teachers in UP Haven’t Received Honorariums in 4 Years
The latest order came as a setback to these thousands of teachers who teach subjects like English, Hindi, mathematics, science, social science, computers, etc., in different madrasas, and they are perturbed about their livelihood. They feel that their years-long services are going in vain.
However, teachers vow to continue their struggle for their pending payments. Ashraf Ali, alias Sikander, president of Madrasa Aadhunikaran Shikshak Ekta Samiti, says the state government wrecked the livelihood of teachers and will leave a million students deprived of modern education. According to Ali, teachers will continue their agitation until the government clears all their pending dues. “We will also protest to mount pressure on the government for the renewal of our contract.”
From time to time, the Uttar Pradesh Madrasa Education Board has also pleaded with the Union government for the release of honorariums for these teachers. When contacted, Iftekhar Ahmad Javed, the chairman of the board, told The Wire that he had written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 10 and urged the renewal of SPQEM.
In his letter, Javed reminisced about Modi’s 2018 speech, in which the PM said, “The government of India is leaving no stone unturned in empowering the Muslim youth.” “We want them to have the Quran in one hand and a computer in the other.” Javed went on to say that the situation is appalling, as the withdrawal of honorarium could collapse the madrasa education system, where students from underprivileged households take admission for their primary education.
‘Modi government does want to give funds’
This was not the first attempt by the saffron party government to target minority education. Earlier, the Union government ended the Maulana Azad National Fellowship (MANF). This decision hampered the higher education of hundreds of students belonging to six notified minority communities, including Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, Jains, Parsis, and Sikhs. Muslims were the main beneficiaries of MANF, who pursued courses like M.Phil. and Ph.D. with its help.
It is noteworthy that in 2023, a report was prepared based on the analysis of data from the Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) and the All India Survey of Higher Education (AISHE), which revealed that enrolment in higher education among Muslim students in the age group of 18–23 dropped by more than 8.5% in 2020–2022. According to a report, while 21 lakh Muslim students had enrolled for higher education in 2019–20, the number fell to 19.21 lakh in 2020–21.
In Uttar Pradesh’s Vidhan Parishad, the Samajwadi Party, the principal opposition party, raised the issue of the Madrasa teacher’s honorarium several times last year. Ashutosh Sinha, the SP’s MLC, says he brought up the issue of these teachers on the Floor of the House, and the government promised that it would contact the Union government in this regard and release their payment until March 2023. Sinha further says, “The BJP is showing apathy as it is a matter of madrasas, and it seems that there is no coordination between the centre and state government.”
Meanwhile, Muslim intellectuals see that the BJP’s government is following the playbook of its ideological parent, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, and attempting to disempower Muslims in India. Professor Nadeem Hasnain says the BJP’s Muslim outreach programmes like Pasmanda and Sufi conferences, or Shukriya Modi Bhaijaan, are merely an “eyewash”; they want to hamper their education to make them illiterate.
Hasnain, former head of the Anthropology department at Lucknow University, believes that despite all the differences, the madrasas are giving education to millions of students coming from economically weaker families. “Madrasas have become an eyesore for the BJP and RSS, and the government does not want to give them funds. When they collect donations from the community, agencies look at them with suspicion. It is evident that since the Yogi government came into power, madrasas are persistently facing crackdowns in the name of surveys and investigations.”
