Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Shireen M Mazari

The chaos following the Swat deal and the Nizam-e-Adl Regulation have been reflections of the failure of the writ of the state to actually enforce these arrangements. This has allowed the Taliban to go beyond the terms of their deal and assert a ‘give-more’ mantra similar to the US ‘do-more’ mantra we have been afflicted with in the face of an increasingly weak state and government that shows absolutely no signs of wanting to govern. The net result is an expansion of the Taliban efforts to seize power in the surrounding areas of Swat and the renewal of military operations with all the chaotic fallout of displaced persons fleeing the fighting. Clearly, such desperate military action is not a desirable or valid long-term solution to the threat of extremist violence confronting us today. Already, we have seen the military-centric approach cause more chaos and suffering for our people – not to mention the deaths of thousands of innocent people caught in the crossfire of the Taliban, the security forces and the US drones. We have also seen the growth of the suicide bomber and as has been pointed out in earlier columns the Pakistani suicide bomber comes from the marginalised population with no hope or opportunity to improve his family’s lot.

Many solutions have also been discussed not only in these columns but also by a wide-ranging and divergent group of people to deal with our multi-dimensional threats from terrorism – ranging from the religious extremist variety to the sub-nationalist. While the latter really is a matter of righting political wrongs, in the context of the former, the urgency of the situation requires a quick but long-term strategy to deny space to more extremist militants. A beginning has to be made by altering the operational environment in the state’s favour and that can only be done by distancing ourselves from the US, for it has now become part of our own terrorism problem. That is why US dollars are not the answer but an aggravation of the problem given the perception of the US within all levels of Pakistani society. There is no middle-class Pakistani majority that wants drone attacks – regardless of the claims made by a few Pakistani ‘advisers’ to the US who say what the US wants to hear.

Beyond that, we need to focus on the sleeper cells for the obscurantist militants. These are the madressahs spread across the country. Already, a move has begun by the militants to take over madressahs in southern Punjab, but one has to actually see the scope of the problem in numbers to realise why military or other violent action by the state is not even the beginning of a solution.

Just take the case of southern Punjab and the madressahs that operate there. Some are large with adequate resources, but there are also the small ones with barely any resources and these are highly susceptible to being taken over by the militants who have the resources. The data discussed below is part of the data collected for three districts of southern Punjab during 2006-2007 and details sought ranged from the sect, number of students (and their age groups) and teachers, the level of mainstream education in addition to Islamic education, the political affiliations, funding sources and general reputation – for instance, jihadi, non-jihadi etc.

In Dera Ghazi Khan (DGK), taking both its tehsils, there are 185 registered madressahs of which 90 are Deobandi (with a total of 324 teachers), 84 are Barelvi (with a total of 212 teachers), six are Ahl-e-Hadith (107 teachers) and five are Fiqah-e-Jafria (10 teachers).

Of the Deobandi madressahs, only the Jamia Atta-ul-Uloom in DGK, with 200 boarders and 20 day students ranging from 5-25 years and eight teachers, which receives donations from Kuwait as well as from private local and religious trusts and is affiliated to the JUI with a reputation of belonging to the Hezbul Mujahideen, offers education up to matric. Another madressah, Jamia Darul Rehmania in DGK tehsil, with the same credentials, offers education up to middle and has 350 boarders plus 230 day students and 28 teachers. Four Deobandi madressahs of DGK offer primary education but the bulk only offers what is termed ‘Islamic’ education. The bulk of this sect’s madressahs are locally funded, are regarded as non-jihadi and are medium to large, with only a few containing less than 50 students. The total number of Deobandi madressah students in DGK district is 11,535. Interestingly, in this category, it is the large madressahs linked to the JUI and the Hezbul Mujahideen that receive foreign funding which in the case of DGK district is almost solely from Kuwait. In fact, funding from Kuwait also goes to non-jihadi Deobandi madressahs.

Of the 84 Barelvi madressahs of DGK district with a total of 7,335 students ranging from 5-25 years, only the Madressah Alia Mehmooda Mehmoodia receives foreign funding from Saudi Arabia and is the only one with a fair number of teachers (18) offering education up to matric. Of the rest, only one offers middle level mainstream education while six offer primary education. None of the Barelvi madressahs are known to have political party or jihadi affiliations. Also, barring the madressah mentioned above, all of the rest have two to three teachers while the Deobandi teacher average is around four per institution with some exceptions for the larger ones.

All the six Ahl-e-Hadith madressahs, which seem to be only in DGK tehsil (none in Taunsa tehsil), with a total of 1,610 students, receive funding from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait. Three of them are linked to a political party, Jamiat Ulmae Ahl-e-Hadith while four are regarded as non-jihadi. Two are reputed to be part of Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jamaat-ud-Dawa and they are part of the three that are funded entirely from donations from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait. These three have a large number of teachers (60 in one, 30 in another and 11 in the smallest one) and offer the most mainstream education including computer and vocational training, with one of them offering education up to BA while the other two offer up to matriculation. One other madressah in this sect offers matriculation also while the remaining two offer only Islamic education.

The five Fiqah-e-Jafria madressahs have a total of 300 students (from 5-20 years). They are all funded locally and only offer Islamic education.

The data for Rajanpur and Rahim Yar Khan is equally interesting and almost on the same patterns – with a few local variations but paucity of space prevents a detailed discussion on that data. However, certain patterns can be deduced – that most of the madressahs are poorly equipped for any form of education at all given the terrible student-teacher ratio and the vast age range of the students – who come from the marginalised poor of the area. The foreign funding may not be as ominous as it looks but it needs to be established whether it comes from private zakat or other charitable donations or official sources. In some cases, like three of the four non-jihadi-reputed Ahl-e-Hadith madressahs, Anjuman Markaz Al Touheed, Markaz Umer Ibne Khatab and Markaz Umer Bin Khitab, the main donor is transparent and identified as being Abdullah Salfi, Kulyat ul Banat.

The main point that has been raised for some time in these columns now is that in order to remove the three main issues of madressahs in Pakistan – that is, the marginalised poor students, the lack of mainstream education and therefore lack of any future prospects and problem of transparency of funding – can only be removed by bringing in the private sector to pump in funds, provide mainstream education alongside the religious education which the various madressah boards can continue to supervise, and offer employment opportunities so that the very poor do not need to offer their children as suicide bombers and cannon fodder for violence. Let the Pakistani nation take up the challenge because the state has failed miserably and time is running out. All the state can do is to offer incentives for what I refer to as the ‘adopt-a-madressah’ scheme alongside the necessary legislation.

When one sees the human figures involved the massive scale of the problem becomes all too evident for it is these deprived youth that will keep the extremist violence continuing within Pakistan just as the marginalised Muslim youth of Britain are the future terrorist threat for that country despite the British leaders’ inability to do introspection rather than indulge in a convenient blame game. Military action can never resolve this issue – how many of our people will we kill? The solution lies in justice and restoration of dignity alongside a future of hope for the dispossessed.