India's Assam state bans Islamic schools, drawing criticism
Source: Reuters
EVERYTHINGNEWS
DECEMBER 30, 2020 11:07 AM UPDATED 13 HOURS AGO
Indian state bans Islamic schools, drawing criticism
By Zarir Hussain
2 MIN READ
GUWAHATI, India (Reuters) - An Indian state ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modis Hindu nationalist party on Wednesday passed a law abolishing all Islamic schools, saying they provided sub-standard education.
Opposition politicians criticised the move and said it reflected the governments anti-Muslim attitude in the Hindu-majority country.
More than 700 of the schools, known as madrasas, in northeastern Assam will be shut by April, the states education minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told the local assembly.
We need more doctors, police officers, bureaucrats, and teachers, from the minority Muslim community rather than Imams for mosques, said Sarma, a rising star in Modis Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The government would convert them to regular schools as education provided in the madrasas could not prepare anyone for the temporal world and its earthly concerns, he said.
-snip-
Read more:
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN2941VM