Assam: Madrasa bans admission sans legacy papers

Guwahati: In what has been seen as strategic move to counter the criticism about harbouring illegal immigrants and fundamentalists, a 121-year-old Islamic seminary— the Darul Uloom Banskandi — in  Assam has made it mandatory for students to provide documents on family legacy from 1971 onwards.

The legacy data is a set of documentary evidence which establishes that the family of a citizen of India has been living in Assam before 1971.

This is a requirement of the National Register of Citizens of 1951 being updated in the state with March 24, 1971, as the cut-off date. People who entered Assam after the cut-off date would be marked illegal immigrants and deported.

The move has assumed significance in the backdrop of uproar over the citizenship bill and the ongoing process of updating the National Register of Citizens (NRC). Voter identity cards have also been sought from the students aged 18 or above.

The decision was taken last month by the governing body of Darul Uloom to clear “suspicion” about madrasas admitting illegal migrants and to ward off charges that these centres are breeding grounds for jihadi activities.

Seminary chairman Maulana Mohammad Yahya said, “Our initiative is to clear all suspicion regarding madrasas. By making the legacy data from 1971 onwards mandatory for seeking admission to Darul Uloom, we want to demonstrate that only bona fide Indian citizens study in our seminary.”

Seminary rector Hamid Ahmed said that they have decided to make the admission rules stricter as Islamic educational and research institutes are often suspected of sheltering illegal immigrants, fundamentalists and jihadists.

“From this academic session, students keen on studying in the seminary will have to submit their legacy data,” said Mr Ahmed.

He, however, admitted that the idea of stricter admission rule is to end the atmosphere of distrust between communities.

It is significant that southern Assam, known as Barak Valley, is named after the river Barak that flows across the region from east to the west.

The valley consists of three districts — Cachar, Karimganj and Hailakandi. Of them, the two districts Karimganj and Hailakandi have a Muslim majority while Cachar has close to 40 per cent Muslim population.

The madrasa education in Barak Valley is very old. The first informal madrasa of the region was established in the early 14th century by Shah Ziauddin, a close disciple of Hazrat Shah Jalal, the famous Sufi of Bengal and Assam. It was built at Badarpur in the present Karimganj district.