The Pakistani Spectator

As a journalist who began his career in the late 1960s, I  feel that the media is neglecting its real role of providing information through objective and responsible reporting and analysis. Why is it that the news stories, such as the one below, about the peaceful coexistence of Hindus and Muslims rarely find a place in newspapers and the television?

The IANS article informs us: “Madrasas in West Bengal are attracting an increasing number of Hindu students with the shift in focus from Islamist education to science and technology. Hindu students now outnumber Muslims in four madrasas of the state.

“These include Kasba MM High Madrasa in Uttar Dinajpur district, Ekmukha Safiabad High Madrasa in Cooch Behar district, Orgram Chatuspalli High Madrasa at Burdwan district and Chandrakona Islamia High Madrasa at West Midnapore district.

” ‘The percentage of Hindu students vary from 57 percent to 64 percent in these institutes, which stand out as proof that madrasas (Islamic seminaries) and secularism are not anachronistic,’ West Bengal Board of Madrasah Education president Sohrab Hussain told IANS here Monday.” To read the full article please click here…

I have been writing time and again that India and Pakistan have a shared history of peaceful coexistence that dates back to centuries. Of course, there were rare ruler-induced violence, but soon the ordinary public would again start living in peace. But since 1947 this relationship has been encouraged to deteriorate.

It is time that the people in India and Pakistan realise that the rulers and the foreign powers have a vested interest in sowing the seeds of discord or conflict between the two countries for their own selfish interests.

By fanning hatred and communal tension between the masses and creating an uncertain atmosphere, the biggest gainers are the arms industry, the powerful nations, and the greedy rulers of the poor countries (just look at the military budgets of the so-called poor countries like India and Pakistan).

Can’t this money be used to feed the poor by developing a good infrastructure and providing education and health facilities to the teeming masses? Average citizens do not have any time to indulge in politics and violence because they are too busy earning for their two square meals.

Now back to madrasas. When I was a child  many Hindus learnt  their first lessons in Urdu from the Maulvi saheb attached to the local madrasas. It is heartening that the Indian government is funding in a big manner the upgradation of the teaching in madrasas in the country.

Some of the madrasas earned a bad name for encouraging a fundamentalist line. But now  there is a serious (and visible) attempt in the madrasas in India to delink these centuries old institutions of learning from orthodoxy. The bigger seminaries, such Darul Uloom Deoband, have a played an important role in this direction.