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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | The silent segregation of Muslim students in Bhopal's schools -Nazia Erum

The silent segregation of Muslim students in Bhopal's schools -Nazia Erum

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published Published on Jan 8, 2018   modified Modified on Jan 8, 2018
-ThePrint.in

In many schools of Bhopal, students are being put in classes based on the language they choose to study, but that has other consequences. Nazia Erum explains in this excerpt from her book ‘Mothering A Muslim’.


Sanskrit is offered across most of India as an elective third language. Students can opt for it or a regional language or a foreign language. When it’s time for the elective language class, the students move out of their sections into different classrooms based on the language they have chosen to study. After the period is over, they return to their class sections.

But something strange is happening in Bhopal. The city has a sizeable Muslim presence so Urdu is offered along with Sanskrit. Since there are a large number of students who take up either language, most Bhopal schools divide up the students of each year into class sections based on the opted languages. So section A will comprise all students who take up Sanskrit and section B those who take up Urdu.

Unlike in most other cities in the country, the segregation by language is thus permanent. When parents questioned this division they were told that timetables are easier to set and students do not need to be shuffled for a single class, and traffic in the school corridors is thus minimized. But when asked officially, school administrations denied the prevalence of any such practices. A school owner, on condition of anonymity, told me, ‘It makes economic sense for the administration to group students together according to language. It’s easier to set timetables for multiple sections. It’s a simple case of maximizing resources. The administrations are only thinking about how much money is being saved.’

Reasonable as this is, its implications are serious. It means that sections of a class are not only divided along linguistic lines but also end up being divided along religious lines. For, with a few exceptions, the Muslim kids opt for Urdu and the non-Muslim kids opt for Sanskrit. Children hit adolescence in classes 6 to 8 – these are their most formative and impressionable years. When a twelve-year-old child is separated from students of other religions, what are we instilling in them subconsciously?

‘I think this compartmentalization of classes started in 2005 in Bhopal,’ Raiqa tells me. ‘I was vehemently against this when it was introduced in the schools here. I was teaching in one of the leading schools at the time. The majority of the kids in a single section end up being of a single religion. It did have an impact on the kids, as they are not ready to bond with students of other religions. Earlier Faizan had a healthy mix of friends from all religions. But after he came back from boarding school, he has made only Muslim friends. All the kids coming home are Muslims. There is definitely a divide. I can feel it. I can see it.’ Raiqa has been a close witness to the changes in Bhopal’s society over the years. ‘Most of our friends are non-Muslims. My best friend is a Pandit. But my children only have Muslim friends. That worries me,’ she says.

I checked with many more parents in Bhopal and most report that kids in the Urdu sections are looked down upon as troublemakers and nonscorers. And therefore the better and ‘star’ teachers end up teaching the Sanskrit sections. It is difficult to prove and verify these claims but the general sentiment is that Muslims are being pushed into a ‘lower-class’ position through these means. In Bhopal language is constructing identities literally.

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ThePrint.in, 7 January, 2018, https://theprint.in/2018/01/07/silent-segregation-muslim-students-bhopal/


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