Rights and wrongs

It can be hard to do the right thing in a country where there is so much dichotomy of opinion even over the most basic issues and an even more deeply entrenched tendency to exploit these divisions essentially to earn political mileage. The Sindh provincial government took far too long to move ahead with the process of registering the thousands of seminaries that operate in that province. But the passage of the Madressah Registration Bill, 2016, through cabinet and now into the assembly is a positive step. Regulating religious seminaries, by first of all recording where they exist and making note of their activities, had been included in the National Action Plan of 2015 as a fundamental step in tackling terror. As we have been reminded recently, very little effort has been made to implement this plan. The Sindh government’s effort then needs to be commended. But it became clear within hours of the announcement that there is strong opposition to it. Maulana Fazlur Rehman warned of street protests and counselled, as he has done on multiple occasions before this, against Pakistan being ‘turned into’ a secular state. Lacking any significant assembly presence in Sindh, Maulana Fazl has threatened to take to the streets using the cadres produced at seminaries.

While launching his attack, the maulana appears to have completely ignored the findings of the Sindh government. These findings show that out of the over 9500 seminaries that run in the province some 3000 are not registered at all. In addition, agency reports suggest that 48 may have extremist links. But even beyond the extremist issue we should be thinking about the kind of mindsets that seminaries create, shaping ideas on state, militancy, gender and other issues for the tens of thousands enrolled at them. This was one of the reasons their growing presence was taken note of in the NAP draft with political parties agreeing they needed to be seen as a threat. Regulating the education they provide is an essential step; we also need to know more about which groups are running these seminaries and how they are being funded. The Sindh initiative then needs to be replicated in other parts of the country and the threats made by the JUI-F chief disregarded. Religious scholars have been involved in the consultative process on madressah reform and Maulana Fazl’s outcry appears to be little more than an unfortunate effort to stir up trouble.