India’s right wing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party led government of north-eastern state of Assam has decided to shut down all state-run madrasas and Sanskrit learning centres, and convert them into regular schools within a period of six months, NDTV reported.
Assam’s Education Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told the reporters in state capital Guwahati, “It was not the job of a secular government to teach religion, scriptures and languages such as Arabic to children.”
Sarma said the madrasas and Sanskrit learning centres of the state will be converted to high schools and higher secondary schools with 4-5 months.
"We have about 1,200 madrasas and 200 Sanskrit centres in Assam without any independent boards to run them. A lot of problems have cropped up because these people get a certificate equivalent to matriculation or high secondary school," Sarma told NDTV.
Sarma, however, made it clear that only government-run religious schools are being shut down and no madrasas run by mosques, Sanskrit schools run by non-govt organizations would be closed down.
He further said the teachers working in the madrasas and Sanskrit centres will not lose their jobs.
Assam government began using the National Register of Citizens (NRC) to identify illegal immigrants in 2015, on the orders of the Supreme Court. It was only meant to be used for the ethnically-diverse region but since then, there have been calls from officials of the ruling party and its supporters for its nationwide implementation.
A final list of citizens in Assam, published on August 31, 2019 excluded nearly 1.9 million residents.
