The decision of the Allahabad High Court will affect 25,000 schools – Photo: Reuters
New Delhi: The largest state in India, Uttar Pradesh, has imposed restrictions on schools by the court ahead of the general elections, where the ruling Hindu nationalist party Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is in power under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
According to Reuters, the decision of the Allahabad High Court will widen the gap between the ruling Hindu nationalist party BJP and Muslims even before the elections, and as a result, the school management matters in Uttar Pradesh will be affected following the 2004 decision.
Based on the appeal of Indian lawyer Anshuman Singh Rathore, the two-member bench including judges Subhash Yadav and Vivek Chaudhary wrote in their decision that the state government should ensure that middle schools aged 6 to 14 are not deprived of enrollment in registered institutions.
The head of the Madrasa Education Board in Uttar Pradesh, Iftikhar Ahmad Javaid, said that the decision of the Allahabad High Court will affect 27 lakh students and 10,000 teachers in 25,000 schools.
The spokesperson for the ruling BJP in Uttar Pradesh, Rakesh Tripathi, said that they are not against the schools and are concerned about the education of Muslim students.
He said that they are not against any school, but against discriminatory practices, against illegal funding, and the government will decide on further action after the court’s decision.
The national-level secretary and Madrasa incumbent of the BJP’s minority wing, Javaid, said that the priorities of their party have been entangled in their own community and many Muslims are calling them to ask why this decision was made during the holy month of Ramadan.
The Uttar Pradesh government had closed the funding program for schools in January, resulting in 21,000 teachers becoming unemployed.
Javaid said that the court’s decision will be applicable to all state schools, whether the funding is at a private level or the government is providing funds.
No time frame has been set by the court, but Javaid said that schools will not be immediately closed down.
Meanwhile, in the state of Assam, where the BJP government is also in power, hundreds of schools are being transformed into traditional schools.
It is worth noting that general elections are scheduled in India between April and June, and it is suggested that Narendra Modi’s BJP will once again take power, but BJP members and affiliates are held responsible for spreading hatred against Islam and causing damage to Muslim properties by human rights organizations.
On the other hand, Narendra Modi denies that any discrimination is tolerated in India based on religious grounds and the stance of the BJP government is that they are correcting historical mistakes, which includes the recent opening of the Hindu temple built on the site of the 16th century Babri Mosque, which was martyred by Hindu extremists in 1992.