Mewat region comprising the Gurgaon and Faridabad districts of Haryana and Alwar and Bharatpur districts of Rajasthan, lies south of Delhi. It is inhabited by Meo Muslims among whom the global Islamic movement of Tablighi Jamaat took roots in 1920s. Recently, a separate district was carved out of the Meo-dominated parts of Haryana and also given the name of 'Mewat'.
Meos and Tablighi movement were subjects of my Ph.D. dissertation. Some months ago, I returned to Mewat, after a gap of 15 years, curious to learn how much, if at all, the region had changed in this period. When I did my field work in the region in the 1990s, the literacy rate among the more than one million Meos was estimated at less than 10 per cent and that of their femals was lower than 5 per cent. This was attributed to ultra-conservative Tablighi Jamaat which was opposed to school-based education.
Two decades later, poverty still reigns Mewat. Hardly anything has changed in its towns and villages. But for a couple of new, brightly-painted mansions and a few new shops (only a few of which were Meo-owned), Nuh and Ferozepur-Jhirka, the two largest towns in Mewat, seemed to be no different from their former self. Indeed they seemed to be more filthy and chaotic. The villages seemed to have remained frozen in time with squalid mud huts, official apathy, Meo women labouring in the fields while their men sucking away at their hukkahs at roadside eateries. But one change struck me forcefully throughout my trip: a distinct thirst on the part of many younger Meos for 'modern' education—nothing short of a revolution in terms of demands, hopes, and expectations.
Meos breaking shackles to get education Today, literally dozens of 'modern' schools run by Meos have mushroomed all over Mewat. Girls are enrolling in them and in government schools in increasing numbers. Many ulema are in the forefront of promoting 'modern', in addition to religious, education among the Meos. And scores of madrasas have begun teaching English and Hindi, with some of them having actually transformed themselves into regular schools.
Located on the outskirts of Ferozepur Jhirka town is the 15-acre campus of the newly started English-medium Aravalli Public School, the largest Meo-run school in Mewat. Founded by a retired Meo engineer, Muhammad Israil, this residential school has 600 students on its rolls, 60% of whom are Meos, and the rest being from other communities. 60 of the school's 70 girls are Meos. The costs of studying here are exorbitant by average Meo standards, but tuition fees are waved for girls in order to encourage more Meo girls, whose overall literacy rate is less than 15%, to enroll. The schools' principal is a Hindu. Most teachers are non-Meos, including Muslims from other parts of India as well as non-Muslims from Mewat.
The school's well-maintained campus is lined with fine buildings built around a vast playing field. The swank technical training institute was built with aid from the Japanese Embassy, and the girls' hostel is being built with aid from the Islamic Development Bank.
Late in the afternoon students pour out onto the playing field to play football and cricket, dressed in jeans or shorts, and T-shirts or jackets and sneakers. Tablighi-style beard that almost every Meo male in their fathers' generation does are nowhere to be seen. Almost all students are Meos. A dozen Meo girls, take a sprint around the playing field, brandishing their badminton rackets. Needless to say, that would have been considered sheer anathema two decades ago.
I stare, dumbstruck, at the students, stunned at what I see before me. When I first visited Mewat, most parents would be almost illiterate farmers.
The signs of Meo youths defying deep-rooted traditions by clamoring for 'modern' education are undeniable. I am not sure if this is an entirely positive development, though. Need 'modernisation' necessarily be equated with 'Westernisation'? Does it have to also necessarily imply 'secularisation', in the sense of focusing wholly on worldly knowledge and 'success', consequently trivializing religion and moral values? These crucial questions are being raised by many Meos themselves, who fear that the irrepressible desire on the part of Meo youths for 'modern' education might seriously erode traditional, religious values and promote crass consumerism. This is summed up in a complaint of a maulvi attached to a Deobandi madrasa located adjacent to the Aravalli Public School—'The school has no facility for teaching Islamic Studies. All that they are taught is about this world (duniya)—how to gather more information and degrees so that they can get highly-paid jobs and lead a life of ease and comfort.'
Schools imparting religious and secular education I met with numerous maulvis this time, all graduates of what are commonly considered to be 'orthodox' madrasas, who have set up their own schools that impart a healthy mix of both sorts of learning.
One of them is 33 year-old Qari Sirajuddin of Bhadas village near Nuh. Over the last 18 years, his Madrasat ul Banat Ayesha Siddiqa has transformed into Al-Falah Model Senior Secondary School which is affiliated to Haryana Educational Board. Of the almost 700 students on its rolls, girls number 125, of whom 25 are Hindus and remaining ones Meo Muslims. The school teaches modern syllabus with compulsory Islamic Studies, Urdu and Arabic. Hindu students study Sanskrit.
Sirajuddin says the demand for a general school and need to generate his own funds made him turn his madrasa into a co-ed school. Several other small madrasas across Mewat might, too, like to make the shift and become regular schools, albeit with provision for Islamic education for their Muslim students, he adds. However, official norms like possession of a couple of acres of land, library, playing ground, specific number of rooms for government recognition stand in their way to qualify for being schools.
Sirajuddin's own family exemplifies the rapid transformation that the Meos are undergoing. Although himself a madrasa graduate, none of his children is training to become a traditional alim or Islamic scholar. His brother, also a graduate of a traditional Ahl-e Hadith madrasa has just finished a degree in Social Work from the Jamia Millia Islamia and hopes to join the civil services.
His support for 'modern', in addition to religious, education, Sirajuddin assures me, is something that he shares with increasing numbers of ulema today—not just in Mewat, but across other parts of India, too. However, this stems from the fear that unless they themselves started schools, the Muslim kids would go over to non Muslim school, because of which they might, in their own words, go astray. He also laments the failure of the traditional madrasas being dogmatic in their aversion to English and modern subjects.
Be that as it may, the very fact that Mewat's madrasas, once known for their visceral opposition to what they saw as the baneful influence of 'Western-style' education imparted in schools, are increasingly willing to incorporate these 'Western' subjects into their curriculum is ample proof, Qari Sirajuddin assures me, of the veritable revolution in the demands and expectations of vast numbers of Meo parents as regards the education of their children.
ysikand@gmail.com
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January 2010 |
