In every institution of the higher education in the Punjab, Dars-i-Quran has been made compulsory. The Government College University, Lahore, took the lead and embarked on instituting compulsory instruction of the Islamic foundational text. The chancellor of almost all the public sector universities went a step ahead and promulgated this practice in all the universities under his purview.

Several thinking minds having a penchant for social activism were critical of this initiative, saying that given the quite a large Department of Islamic Studies in the University, the initiative was unnecessary. Some of them don’t subscribe to the idea of imparting religious instruction at all.

Does the ground reality allow state apparatus to take that route? An objective view would find it hard to endorse such a prescription. With Pakistani people and the level of religiosity that they have harboured, at least for the last 40 years, dismissing religious instruction may not be a conceivable option, at least for the time being.

In adding the component of religious instruction in the curriculum of the mainstream educational institutions, the government aims at appropriating the discourse specifically growing out of the foundational texts (like Quran and Hadith). The policy and plans formulated in Islamabad point towards that aim.

If the Dars-i-Quran having been re-introduced in GC University, Lahore, as a mandatory feature has irked some of the vocal liberals, the news about Rehmat al lil Alimeen conference has depressed them further. One may figure out the raisan d’etre of such conference which is in response to the blasphemous cartoons, flagged in a brazen manner in France.

There is no need to assert here that the right-wing sections in our society tend to get a fresh lease of life when some irresponsible act is perpetrated in the Western world. Be it the burning of the Holy Quran or showing insolence to the Prophet of Islam (peace be upon him). In several of many columns I have shared my own conclusions about the neo-colonial Muslim world in general and particularly Muslims from the sub-continent who mostly react to what Western nations and societies think and do.

That is always the case with the dominated. Their actions do not fructify independent of the actions of the dominating. If that argument is stretched a bit further, it can safely be concluded that religious extremism and militancy are neo-colonial phenomena. The re-vivification of the narrative of jihad and unequivocal support to the religious outfits didn’t have local origin. Such intellectual and material support was lent by the Americans in 1980s.

Such are the vagaries of the interconnected, inter-dependent world. Madarassas and those instructed in these institutions, acquired power, pelf, and nuisance value in lieu of the services they rendered for America and its allies. The later used the former to its own advantage and then abandoned them.

Once the American objective came to fruition, that extremely complex system was left for Pakistan to wrestle with. With scarce resources, Pakistani state was hard put to meeting their demands. Diehard fundamentalists could not be debriefed, a necessary precondition for their rehabilitation; their extremist positions spawned sectarianism, which still is the biggest menace.

The government ought to tread very carefully on that slippery slope. Introducing a single system of education may seem good on paper but practically it is an extremely vexed proposition. 

By the 1990s, extremist organisations had become strong enough to stake their claims on the state. Some of them started running a parallel state in the capital, Islamabad. Caught in the crosshair of such a situation, Pakistan did not have the resources to take the sting out of militant zealots, born and bred in religious seminaries. The biggest challenge that the state of Pakistan is up against today, is as to how it can wrest away the religious discourse from the madrassa-trained clerics and to bring it to the educational mainstream.

That indeed is a difficult mission to accomplish. But the state seems to have realised its importance as the only way ahead to provide socio-political stability to Pakistani society. However, the state lacks clear direction in its execution.

Domesticating people, whose immediate interests are served only if madrassa system remains unaltered, is the biggest challenge at hand. Many of them have diehard following among madrassa students and among the alumni. Such odds notwithstanding, the matter rests on the political will of the government and the state institutions.

One aspect which may help government to prevail upon the management of the madrassa network(s) is the foreign funding for them to have dried out. Administering the existing madrassas and sponsoring them is a daunting task in such circumstances. Fazl ur Rahman’s clamour against the state institutions may be deciphered in terms of the financial hardship.

Bringing religious instruction is, of course easier said than done. The state will have to be definitive about its strategy as to how to strike a balance between two different streams of education. Students of seminaries are factious, sectarian in their outlook and have deep-seated ideology. The mingling of the two systems of education may end up eroding a bit of plural values and progressive/professional approach towards life.

The institutions providing mainstream education have diversity which to my reckoning is not a bad thing but a lack of unanimity of purpose makes them vulnerable against the lot of madrassa students who know rather well what exactly they want to do in life. Their belief in the truthfulness of their profession is their biggest strength. That may enable them to establish their sway. That is what Jamiat-i-Talaba-i-Islam had been doing since 1980s. It neither countenanced plurality of ideas or thoughts, nor withstood any opposition/difference of opinion. Therefore, the government ought to tread very carefully on that slippery slope. Introducing a single system of education may appear good on paper but practically it is an extremely vexed proposition.

So far as Dars-i-Quran is concerned I think it is an initial step by the state to appropriate the discourse that springs out of the religious education. The state does not want religious clerics with political ambition to have a monopoly over the seminaries. My young members of literati must keep that fact in mind while analysing what meets the eye.

The writer is Professor in the faculty of Liberal Arts at the Beaconhouse National University, Lahore