Religious education and politics

The decisions, apparently, were made more with a political motivation than with the aim of improving the quality of education. This apprehension is based on the fact that, while Jamaat-e-Islami backs Alia madrasas offering Fazil-Kamil degree, the Islami Okya Jote (OIJ) chairman is deeply involved in the task of drawing up a curriculum and overseeing examinations of the Qwami madrasas.

Both Jamaat and OIJ are coalition partners of the present government. Islami Chatra Shibir, the student wing of Jamaat, reportedly controls 98% of the Alia madrasas from which over 25,000 students obtain degree every year. The degree equivalence will mean that a large number of students who, until now, could not sit for examinations for government and non-governmental positions will now be able to compete, and given the politicization of the Public Service Commission, get absorbed in the civil administration of Bangladesh.

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Many eminent educationists and political leaders were taken by surprise at the governmental decision to accord equivalence of madrasa degrees with that of Masters. While the educationists questioned the quality of Qwami madrasas and the educational system of the institutions giving Kamil and Fazil degrees, the politicians saw in this move the distinct possibility of encouragement to Islamic fundamentalism with disastrous consequences for the country.

Undeniably, Bangladesh is a Muslim majority country. But if Bangladesh is to be rescued from the vortex of under-development, then it is not Islamic education, however satisfactory spiritually it may be, but secular education that is required. As it is, divorce from English language education for the last several decades has regressed our socio-economic development vis-a-vis many countries of the world. The argument given by some that countries like Japan, China and Russia have developed retaining education in their own language may not be applicable for countries like Bangladesh. For an open economy like ours, dependant on politico-economic interaction with the international community, our skills have to be sharpened through competition, not amongst ourselves, but firstly with the neighbourhood, then with the rest of the world. To sharpen these skills Bangladeshis, in large numbers, have to go to foreign institutions of excellence where the medium of instruction is mostly English. In this age of globalization the language of computer and internet, essential ingredients in all walks of life, is English. The World Trade Organization's negotiations, vital to safeguard the economic and trade interests of Bangladesh, are conducted in English for the benefit of countries like ours (other languages being irrelevant for us).

In the Hong Kong round of WTO negotiations, our poor negotiating skills were mainly to blame for Bangladesh's poor showing. How will the challenges of the 21st century, when we are already placed in a disadvantaged position as a least developed country, be faced by embracing religious education and producing thousands of young graduates whose contribution to national development, apart from Islamic spiritual development, is bound to be negligible?

The days of "each according to his needs" -- however ethical the premise may be -- are over because the kitty from which the needs of the unemployed, the underemployed and the retirees could be met has become smaller. If one looks at the behaviour of the Western multi-national companies, and the extent of lay-offs of their workers, one has to conclude that the current precept is "to each according to his contribution to the wealth of the company" and ultimately to the country. Pursuit of such a policy will not only induce the people to increase their efficiency but may also result in, depending on the degree of good governance, prevention of dishonest people from aspiring for windfall and abnormal profits, and discouragement of price spiral through syndication.

Western security , particularly after 9/11 terrorist attacks, has intensified its scrutiny of the madrasa system of education. US Congressional Research Service, in one of its reports, has underlined the revitalization of madrasas in South Asia since the 1970s: "Offering food, lodging and free education," the report states, "madrasas spread rapidly throughout the Muslim world, and although the curricula varied from place to place, it was always religious in character because these schools ultimately were intended to prepare future Islamic religious scholars for their work ... in recent years and in more impoverished nations, the rising costs and shortages of public educational institutions have encouraged parents to send their children to the madrasas.

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The present government's decision on equivalence of religious degrees is a retrograde step with incalculable impact on future generations, and on the competitiveness of Bangladesh in the globalized world. Spiritual development, however noble, may be useful only after death and is unlikely to promote socio-economic development of the country in the pre-death world.

Compounded with this decision is the reemergence of HUJI, under a different name, whose leaders have contradicted the government's assertion of its total ignorance of HUJI's public meeting. On the contrary, the HUJI leaders have claimed to have had held discussions at various levels of the government for a long time for permission to come out in the open, and had informed the government in advance about Friday's rally. One wonders whether the composition of the four party alliance government, and the recent events recounted above, do not substantiate Sreeradha Dutta's assertion on communal divide in Bangladesh politics.

In Bangladesh's Political Evolution: Growing Uncertainties, she writes: "Having realized secession from West Pakistan in 1971, Bengali nationalism lost its relevance. The dividing line once again moved back to religion. Now Bangladesh has to differentiate itself from West Bengal and not from West Pakistan." She makes the further point that, with tens of thousands of madrasas, the country's religious education has significantly supplanted state-supported education in some urban areas as well as in most in rural areas.

Even if the government were to describe it as an "international conspiracy," the eighteen congressmen's letter to the prime minister asking for a new, and fully independent, enquiry into the August 21 grenade attack to assassinate Sheikh Hasina and describing the government's failure of investigation as "symbolic of serious diminution of rule of law in Bangladesh, the recently published report in The Washington Post on Islamic militancy, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service's report expressing concern over activities of Islamic extremists and their suspected links with al-Qaeda, Bertil Lintner's monograph on Religious Extremism and Nationalism in Bangladesh, Joseph Schatz's enquiry into the US Foreign Policy and Religious Extremism in a Developing Country (with Bangladesh as a case study), reports carried by Time magazine and Jane's Intelligence Review on shifting of some al-Qaeda elements to Bangladesh from Pakistan after US military action on Afghanistan and many others -- President Bush's determination to rid the world of "Islamic radicalism, Islamic fascism" trying to stop the advance of democracy (albeit the comment was made in the context of Lebanon crisis) can only be ignored at one's own peril.

In a country where eighty percent of the national wealth is possessed by twenty percent of the people, and the gulf between the rich and the poor is so vast that vertical movement from one social class to another is almost impossible, social explosion, fuelled by unwavering religious conviction, is all too possible. It is truly regrettable that the Bangladesh government has found it expedient to exploit one of the most vital sectors of societal development -- education -- for transient political advantage, a sector that philosophers, from Aristotle to many modern day thinkers, consider a vitally important brick for the foundation of civilized society.

Kazi Anwarul Masud is a former Secretary and Ambassador.