As part of the nationwide de-radicalisation programme, the Interior Ministry has geared up consultation process with the governments of all four provinces as well as Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan Today has reliably learnt.
However, despite the government’s efforts, social scientist Dr Rasool Bakhsh Raees casts doubts on the government’s commitment and claims of bring about a coordinated and integrated de-radicalisation campaign on the pretext that a government, comprising corrupt and inept ministers, can never implement accountability and good governance which are the basic components of an integrated de-radicalisation campaign.
Around a month ago, on August 17, the defence committee of the cabinet had decided to launch a national de-radicalisation programme “to combat rising fundamentalism and extremism in the country”. A government spokesman told Pakistan Today that the Interior Ministry was working in coordination with other ministries and divisions to shape up a coordinated campaign on de-radicalisation, however, due to the sensitivity of the matter, details of this programme could not be shared with the media.
“In principle, the Ministry of Interior is dealing with the matter. However, since there is so much coordination involved between various ministries and divisions, no timeframe could be given on this subject,” said the spokesman, adding that the de-radicalisation strategy would be formalised and submitted to the defence committee of the cabinet soon.
“The defence committee of the cabinet will also be given a briefing on the status of the implementation on this strategy and it will be launched as soon as the federal cabinet approves it,” the spokesman said.
On the other hand, Raees said the government did not share the details of its de-radicalisation campaign with the media because of fears of being exposed as well as a lack of transparency.
“Actually, the foreign donors/governments are funding this project. But I have serious reservations about the government’s commitment on this subject as most of the ruling party’s ministers are inept and corrupt. How can one believe people such as Rehman Malik and Babar Awan,” he said, adding that the government functionaries were involved in malpractices and could not focus on people-friendly policies.
Lauding the de-radicalisation programme implemented by the Pakistan Army, in collaboration with a Lahore-based NGO in Swat for the rehabilitation of youth and would-be suicide bombers, Raees said it was an excellent programme for a targeted group.
“Under a de-radicalisation drive, you would have to reform education curricula and conduct madrassa reforms, as was done by General (r) Pervez Musharraf. Equal rights, good governance, promotion of a tolerant society and rule of law coupled with across-the-board accountability are a must. But due to this corrupt regime, people are loosing faith in the system which finally leads to trigger radicalisation and militancy,” he said.
Raees said there were successful models of de-radicalisation to be followed but all what was needed was the political will to de-radicalise the society. He said the campaign must be integrated which could redress the grievances of the people at large, restoring their faith in the governance.
Though the official record of the Ministry of Religious Affairs, available with Pakistan Today, puts the number of registered religious seminaries at 18,352, independent sources and media reports suggest that the total number of unregistered seminaries was over 30,000, with around 200,000 students being taught religious education along with residential facility besides food and clothes.
Though the federal and provincial governments also provide funding to these seminaries, most of their funds come from private sources, including the business industry. Per the record of the Religious Affairs Ministry, Rs 296.723 million were released to 18,352 registered religious seminaries from the Zakat fund this year. Of this amount, Rs 163.381 million were released to 12,903 religious seminaries in Punjab, Rs 67.548 million to madrassas in Sindh, Rs 39.378 to 3,343 madrassas in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Rs 14.566 million were given to the seminaries in Balochistan.
Moreover, Rs 7.035 million were given to the seminaries of FATA, Rs 2.943 million were released for seminaries in Gilgit-Baltistan and another Rs 1.872 million for those in the federal capital. Besides funding these seminaries, the government keeps a close eye on the working of the registered and unregistered seminaries and per the reports, intelligence agencies had been directed to keep a strict vigil at some of these seminaries where hate literature was supposed to be taught leading to acts of extremism and terrorism.
Suspecting links of religious seminaries with terrorist groups and lashkars, successive regimes have taken several initiatives to combat zealotry and broaden educational offerings but to no avail. The Musharraf administration had announced a number of measures to make the madrassas participate in the modernisation programme with modern gadgets, such as computers provided to these seminaries.
Those reforms included a 5-year, $1 billion Education Sector Reform Assistance (ESRA) plan to ensure inclusion of secular subjects in syllabi of religious seminaries, a $100 million bilateral agreement to rehabilitate hundreds of public schools by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), besides increasing access to quality education and the enforcement of Madrassa Registration and Regulation Ordinance 2002 which required the seminaries to audit their funding and foreign students to register with the government.
At the same time, a federal Madaris Education Board was set up to enable the students at religious schools to benefit from the national education system by learning Mathematics, English and vocational sciences in addition to the normal madrassa education. However, the so-called modernisation campaign largely failed, and hardly a few cosmetic changes could be introduced in the system.
Most of the religious leaders and religious organisations rejected the government legislation requiring religious seminaries to register and broaden their curricula beyond rote Quranic learning. Under the reform programme, drafted on the advice of the Bush administration and financed by USAID, special government committees were formed to supervise and monitor the educational and financial matters and policies of the seminaries. Most of these schools are sponsored by the country’s leading religious parties, be it the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl, the Jamiat Ulema-Pakistan, or the Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan, while many others are affiliated with jihad groups which preached extremist ideology of religious warfare.
Four major militant outfits, the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Jaish-e-Mohammad and the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, have been all comfortably ensconced in south Punjab. There have been some bodies working to regulate these seminaries. Those include Wafaqul Madaris Arabia Pakistan (Deobandi) founded in 1959 in Multan, Tanzeemul Madaris (Barelvi) founded in 1960 in Lahore, Wafaqul Madaris Salafia (Ahl-e-Hadith) founded in 1955 in Faisalabad, Rabitatul Madaris Islamiya (Jamaat-e-Islami) founded in 1983 in Mansoora Lahore, and Wafaqul Madaris (Shia) founded in 1959 in Lahore.
