The current educational system of India strikes at the very roots of existence of Muslims as a separate religious and cultural community and throws their whole future in India into jeopardy.
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Muslims Education and Indian Constitution
The Indian Constitution has guaranteed the freedom of creed and cultural development to all individuals and communities and bestowed a status of complete equality on all citizens irrespective of their religious affiliations. This Constitution is most ideally suited to the Indian conditions which has a heterogeneous population and where a number of religious and linguistic groups live side by side with each other.
In the same way, in India only that system of education would have answered the needs to perfection which represented the teachings of all the faiths popular in the land fairly and faithfully. But perhaps an arrangement like this was not possible in India in view of great diversity of its religions.
The next best thing would have been to keep education in India strictly secular, in design as well as in content, as was the intention of the framers of the Constitution and had also been the practice under the British regime. Such a course would have given no cause for grievance to any religious or cultural community including the Muslims.
Unjust and Partial System of Education in India
Nevertheless, it has to be recorded in sorrow that in the field of education, the secular ideal of the Constitution has remained only on paper. In most of the States and Uttar Pradesh in particular; courses of studies were introduced that were literally loaded with the religious beliefs and mythology of the majority community. A curriculum of this kind naturally militates against the very foundations of the Islamic Faith, against its concepts of Divinity and Monotheism and against the Divine institution of Prophecy and Apostles hip.
Religiously Biased Official School Text Books
A glance through the officially prescribed school text-books will unmistakably convey the impression that those responsible for them regard a multi-religious country like India exclusively the home of Brahmins and attach value only to their deities, festivals, temples, pilgrim centres and religious customs and practices.
The books recommended for general study, whose aim is to acquaint the children with their ancient heritage and the heroes of their history are also such that they deal solely with the ancient heritage and the heroes of a particular community, and ignore everything that is Muslim.
Conspiracy of Total Blackout of Muslim Contribution in India
One is simply struck with wonder at the inability of their authors to find in history a single Muslim spiritual leader, ruler or man of learning who could be worthy of mention since there was no sphere of existence in which Islam had not produced personalities of the highest class, a study of whose lives could have a tremendous inspirational value for the students.
Anyhow, the heroes of the Muslim phase of the Indian history have been treated by these writers as aliens and strangers, and if ever an Islamic personality has received their notice, it has been presented in most unflattering, and even positively disgusting, colours. The limit is that the Prophet himself has been referred to in some books in terms which are completely at disagreement with the established facts of history. They are based on colossal ignorance and prejudice and are a source of great pain to the millions of Muslim citizens of India. At places, Muslims have been described as Yuwans, meaning, ‘unclean or ‘foreigners.’
Injustice and Violation of Educational Rights of Muslims in India
To include books of this type in the school curricula and to teach them compulsorily to all children (including Muslim children) is patently unjust to Muslims and a flagrant violation of their rights and sentiments. It has posed a most serious threat to their religious and cultural solidarity and the religious survival of their future generations.
It is a fact that the educational system of India is rapidly throwing Muslim children in the lap of religious and intellectual apostasy. The writing has already appeared on the wall. The lethal effects of the system can easily be seen in Muslim families which, for one reason or another, could not take special care to keep alive in their midst the basic ideals of Islamic civilization. The children of these families are progressively accepting the influence of un-Islamic and manifestly Polytheistic teachings and practices. This is indeed a highly distressing situation for Muslims.
Need of Major Educational Reform in India
It is the need of hour that such a reactionary educational scheme should not be allowed to perpetuate itself for long. The inherent democratic spirit of India, for which it is famous in the world, should not tolerate this grave injustice to an important section of its population, and the Government as well as the educationists should step forward to put an end to the outrage against the Indian Constitution whose consequences can be extremely hurtful to the larger interests of the country.
The Government and responsible authorities of India should make necessary changes in the school syllabi by expunging from the textbooks chapters that were hostile to the fundamental doctrines of the Islamic Faith or were intended to propagate the religion and culture of a particular community exclusively, and thus restore to the educational structure its secular character.