It has been a decade in which violence against children, including murder, kidnapping, sexual assault, and mental and physical abuse, has crossed all limits in the country. When all the countries that claim to be developed and civilized have taken up and implemented plans to reduce crimes against children, India has been embarrassed in front of the world as a country holding a rally in solidarity with the attackers, including the leader of the ruling party, who raped and killed a minor girl. The rise in violence against children is not due to the lack of responsible systems of laws or regulations. What has turned India into a land of child deaths is a government that is not ready to see children as citizens with life, soul, and dignity, and the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), which has degenerated into an accomplice of the government rather than protecting the rights of children.
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Priyank Kanungo, who served as a member from November 2015 to October 2018 and as chairperson for two terms from October 2018, has been trying to implement one more agenda of the Hindutva-fascist government before his time is up. This is not the first time that Kanungo has played for the masters, who have awarded him the Commission's stewardship more than once by exploiting loopholes in the rules. The Commission's letter to the states the other day asking them to stop government funding to madrasas and madrasa boards on the grounds that they violate child rights is a combination of the anti-Muslim propaganda that has been being spread for some time by Sangh Parivar quarters and hate speech by the likes of Himanda Biswa Sharma and Yogi Adityanath.
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Children in the Muslim regions of northern India, who are caught in social backwardness including poverty and hunger, owe it to madrasas functioning under tin sheds that they have learned to write their names at least in their mother tongue. These educational centres also play a big role in saving today's children from the flagrant human rights violation of child labor. In many backward areas of states like UP and Bihar, where schools are inaccessible for kilometers, madrasas are the source of literacy and basic education for any child irrespective of caste and religion. Community organizations and volunteers have been making continuous efforts to modernize them and make them more useful for children. Today there are such madrasas in the country where the curriculum includes even training for civil service examinations. Realizing their social relevance, many state governments are also supporting this initiative. If any interest had remained in protecting rights and universalizing education, what the Commission should have done is to come forward to empower parallel and alternative educational institutions, including madrasas. Unfortunately, the Commission has undertaken to carry on the wholesale distribution of the toxic propaganda being carried out by the Sangh Parivar with media and social media support.
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Kerala is the state where madrasas are functioning in the best manner in the country. It is a well-known fact that mahal committees and various religious and social organizations are responsible for the maintenance of the madrasas here and the salaries of the madrasa teachers. Still, the Sangh Parivar has been giving currency to the lie that the government is paying the cost of the madrasas and that the madrasa teachers are being paid a salary of Rs 25,000 each. Priyank Kanungo is trying to hold Kerala accountable by getting hold of a report claiming to be a "Detailed study" which is a compilation of such false stories.
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The expulsion of Muslims from the field of education is the last stop of the communal ideology which has been in the works for 99 years to keep the minority community away from the mainstream and denying them advancements by creating riots and spreading false stories. Agendas have been set against minority educational institutions by banning hijab, implicating teachers in false cases, imprisoning student leaders, and concocting fake stories like marks and UPSC Jihad. None of these has stopped this community's quest for knowledge. The move to attack madrasas by challenging minority rights and the right to education should be resisted. If one does not want to help the minorities, they should at least not hinder the forward leap of the community that tirelessly strives to advance on the path of knowledge. Through such efforts, it will not only be one community that will achieve excellence, but this country itself.
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