CORRECTED – Indian state bans Islamic schools, drawing criticism
(Corrects to say ban is imposed only on state-run Islamic schools, not all Islamic schools)
An Indian state ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist party on Wednesday (30 December 2020) passed a law abolishing state-run Islamic schools, saying they provided sub-standard education.
Opposition politicians criticised the move and said it reflected the government's anti-Muslim attitude in the Hindu-majority country.
More than 700 of the government-funded religious schools, known as madrassas, in north-eastern Assam will be shut by April, the state's 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 Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The government would convert them to regular schools as education provided in the madrassas could not prepare anyone for "the temporal world and its earthly concerns," he said.
Opposition politicians said the move was an attack on Muslims.
"The idea is to wipe out Muslims," said Wajed Ali Choudhury, a lawmaker from the opposition Congress party.