Religious instruction in madrasas part of India’s diverse culture, cannot be ‘wished away’: CJI

Bench was hearing a challenge to a decision of Allahabad High Court striking down Uttar Pradesh Madrasa Education Board Act, which regulated madrasa education

The Supreme Court on Tuesday (October 22, 2024) said India’s centuries’ old history of religious instruction could not be wished away by ghettoising madrasa education.

“Religious instruction is not something which is unique to Muslims. There is religious instruction among Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs. It is a country which is a melting pot of cultures, civilisations, religions… Let us preserve it that way. In fact, the answer to ghettoisation is to mainstream… To allow people to come together. Otherwise, we will be putting people in silos. To be shunted and forgotten,” Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud observed.

The Chief Justice’s oral observations were made while hearing a challenge to a decision of the Allahabad High Court striking down the Uttar Pradesh Madrasa Education Board Act, 2004. The Act regulated madrasa education. The High Court had found the law unconstitutional for validating a system of education which was grossly in violation of the principles of secularism.

But the top court observed that religious instruction, historically and culturally, had never been anathema in India. Article 23 of the Constitution recognised religious instruction.

There was nothing wrong in a State regulating an institution run by a religious or linguistic minority in the interest of maintaining the excellence of education, the Bench also comprising Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra said.

“We cannot exclude the historical and socio-cultural context that in India we do have religious instruction, whether in the Vedas or Koran or whether it is vedic pathshala or madrasas. What is wrong with the Parliament or a State legislature enacting a law to regulate such institutions only to ensure that while training young minds, they are trained in a manner conducive to the quality of secular education and broader national interest?” the Chief Justice asked.

Senior advocate Guru Krishnakumar argued in support of the High Court decision, saying there was no specific provision in the 2004 Act on secular education. Senior advocate Madhavi Divan, also supporting the High Court decision, submitted that madrasa education’s singular focus or overwhelming emphasis was on religious instruction at the cost of mainstream education. She said such lopsided education hardly equipped students to compete in the mainstream.

She differentiated madrasa students from children who take monastic vows in other faiths like Buddhism or Jainism. The latter embraced renunciation in answer to a calling while the thousands of students of madrasas wanted very much to be part of the real world.

Chief Justice Chandrachud said the High Court’s decision to quash the Act was similar to “throwing the baby out with the bath water”.

No employable qualifications

The Chief Justice explained that madrasas would continue to exist even without the absence of the 2004 Act. But thousands of madrasa students would come out of these institutions with no employable qualifications.

“Is this in national interest? Or is it better to have the State, which has wide powers under the Act, to regulate the madrasa education to ensure that students from these institutions get basic secular education along with religious instruction? Ultimately they have to find jobs in the real world or shift to open schools,” the Chief Justice reasoned.

The court noted that the extent of State control would vary upon the nature of the institution run by a minority community.

“For instance, in an engineering or medical college, the State would be against 90% religious instruction and insist on proper secular education as these students were training to be surgeons or engineers. But when the purpose of an institution is religious instruction, the State is justified in limiting it to basic education,” Chief Justice Chandrachud noted.

Senior advocate P. Chidambaram and A.M. Singhvi also appeared in the case. The court reserved the case for judgment.

Published - October 22, 2024 09:48 pm IST