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06-04-2024
Bureau Report + Agencies
NEW DELHI: India’s top court put on hold a lower court’s order that effectively banned Islamic schools in the country’s most populous state, lawyers involved in the case said on Friday, giving a breather to thousands of students and teachers in the system.
The directive comes days before the country begins voting in a national election where Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are seeking a third term.
The top court was responding to a challenge to the March 22 order of the Allahabad High Court which scrapped a 2004 law governing the schools, called madrasas, in Uttar Pradesh state, where one-fifth of the 240 million population is Muslim.
Saying the law violated constitutional secularism, the High Court had also directed that pupils at these institutions be moved to conventional schools.
“We are of the view that the issues raised in the petitions merit closer reflection,” the Supreme Court said on Friday, news portal Live Law reported.
The matter will now be heard in July, and “everything will remain stayed” until then, lawyers said.
India’s federal election process will conclude in June.
Iftikhar Ahmed Javed, head of the board of madrasa education in Uttar Pradesh state, welcomed the court’s order, terming it a “big win”.
“We were really worried regarding the future of about 16 lakh (1.6 million) students and now this order has come as a big relief for all of us,” he said.
In the ten years of Modi’s tenure, members of his BJP and its affiliates have repeatedly been accused of anti-Islamic hate speech and vigilantism.
Modi, however, has denied that discrimination against minorities exists under his government, which he says is working for the betterment of all.
In March, a court in India essentially banned Islamic schools in the country’s most populous state, a move that could further distance many Muslims from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist government ahead of national elections.
The Friday ruling scraps a 2004 law governing madrasas in Uttar Pradesh, saying it violates India’s constitutional secularism and ordering that students be moved to conventional schools.
The Allahabad High Court order affects 2.7 million students and 10,000 teachers in 25,000 madrasas, said Iftikhar Ahmed Javed, head of the board of madrasa education in the state, where one-fifth of the 240 million people are Muslims.
“The state government shall also ensure that children between the ages of 6 to 14 years are not left without admission in duly recognised institutions,” Judges Subhash Vidyarthi and Vivek Chaudhary wrote in their order, which was made on the basis of an appeal by lawyer Anshuman Singh Rathore.
India holds a general election between April and June that Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is widely expected to win. Muslims and rights groups have accused some BJP members and affiliates of promoting anti-Islamic hate speech and vigilantism, and demolishing Muslim-owned properties.
