EDITORIAL: The madressah’s registration bill has ended up triggering an unsavoury controversy between the coalition government and the JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman.
As it turns out the Maulana had lent his party’s support to the passage of the controversial 26th Amendment in exchange for a favourable legislation pertaining to madressah affairs.
Accordingly, the Societies Registration (Amendment) Bill, 2024, sailed through the Senate on October 20 and the National Assembly the following day. But the President refused to give his assent and returned the bill to parliament citing “technical flaws”, his principal objection was that education being a provincial subject madressahs fall in their jurisdiction.
The government since has been making mixed noises, on the one hand promising that it would get the bill passed in a joint session of parliament, its information minister, on the other hand, has said there are “legal complications” in the proposed legislation.
The JUI-F seems to be right in thinking that it has been tricked. After all, the ruling coalition knew all along that technically managing madressah affairs was not within federal government’s purview, yet it went through the motions getting the bill approved by parliament.
The party’s leaders have also been pointing out that as per Article 75 of the Constitution, if any bill remains with the President for more than 10 days, it will eventually be “deemed to have been assented.” Irrespective of the current controversy, mushroom growth of madressahs, many of which were accused of having fostered sectarian passions and hatreds frequently leading to violence, has been a source of grave concern.
Back in 2005, Gen Musharraf’s military regime enacted the Societies Registration Act, making registration and annual financial audit mandatory for madressahs, without much success though. Following the Peshawar’s Army Public School massacre, the government mulled putting them under the interior ministry.
Later in 2019, the then PTI government held exhaustive negotiations with the madressahs umbrella body, Wifaq-ul-Madaris, and established the Directorate General of Religious Education (DGRE) under the federal education ministry through an administrative order, placing under it mainstream Sunni sub-sects’ boards — Barelvi, Deobandi, Ahle Hadith, one affiliated with the Jamaat-i-Islami — and a Shia board.
This did not sit well with the JUI-F. For supporting the 26th Amendment it sought doing away with DGRE’s supervisory role and restoration of a previous practice of assigning that responsibility to deputy commissioners, but only to face disappointment. It needs to be said that like other educational institutions seminaries must submit to proper and effective state oversight.
Maulana Fazlur Rehman had given the government an ultimatum to have the bill approved by December 8 failing which he would launch a march on Islamabad. He decided to take a pause, however, when an ulema conference passed a resolution expressing reservations over the bill. Also, members of five new seminaries boards came out to take the same stance.
Maulana Fazl is still livid, terming it all a conspiracy to divide the ulema. Now the respected religious scholar Mufti Taqi Usmani has offered to mediate, inviting the Maulana for a meeting next Monday. Hopefully, he will help resolve the situation in an amicable fashion.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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