Madrassah Education in the Indian Subcontinent

This paper focuses on Islamic education transmitted through the institution of madrassahs in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. It overviews existing studies on madrassah education in the Indian subcontinent to highlight the excessive focus of policy frameworks on madrassah modernisation especially curricular reform. It argues that this state driven policy approach targeted at madrassahs as institutions-in-need-of-reform stems from the perceived link between unreformed madrassahs and radicalization, a connection that has been widely changed in popular discourse. This understanding often obscures the field view wherein madrassahs produce a range of faith-based resources. In this process the community of believers is equipped with resilience and navigational capacities to survive and overcome disruptions owing to everyday precarity, casual employment in the informal sector and disasters. Further, the madrassahs as an evolving community institution have a long history of embracing self-initiated reform outside the ambit of the state interventions. By examining the intersection of madrassahs and the policy domain, this paper argues for a conversation between state policy and the lived realities of madrassahs within a democratic framework.