Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma announced on Friday that he intends to close all madrassas in the state.
Sarma said this at a public rally in Belagavi, Karnataka, that his government has already closed 600 madrassas and will close the remaining ones soon.
“We don’t require madrassas. We require engineers and doctors,” Sarma stated.
When asked by a journalist to explain his motivation for the move, Sarma stated that the new India requires schools, colleges, and universities rather than madrassas.
Sarma has previously expressed a desire to either downsize madrassas or examine the teaching provided at these establishments. Assam now has 3,000 madrassas, both registered and unregistered.
In 2020, he introduced a law that would facilitate converting all state-run madrassas into ‘regular schools’.
Sarma had said the state police were working with Bengali Muslims, who have a positive attitude towards education, to create ‘a good environment’ in the madrassas. “Science and mathematics will also be taught as subjects in the madrassas, and the right to education respected and a database of teachers maintained,” he had said.
