INTRODUCTION:

Acquiring knowledge with the aid of social networks plays a significant step in the educational evolution of the minority communities in India. In a diverse and heterogeneous country like India ‘What does minority mean?’ ‘Who is a minority?’ Many scholars define minority group by the group’s power and numerical size in a particular society that those who are demographically minor and do not have power in society are called aminority¹. In India, according to official terminology, ‘minority’ has a more restrictive range and refers only to the religious minorities.

Because of the restriction of minorities by religion, the official Minorities Commission of India deals with issues affecting the non-Hindu religious minorities like Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Parsees, and Jains. The history of minority education in India, particularly within the context of educational backwardness is directed mainly to the case of Muslims, for the educational development of other minorities has always kept pace with the development of the society as a whole. Muslims are minorities not only in the statistical sense; they are lagging behind the other communities in India socially, educationally and economically too. For Instance, according to the 2011 Census, out of the total population, a community-wise breakdown shows that only 5.24 percent of Muslims are graduates, but the percent is 9.93 among the Hindus, 13.99 among the Christians, 9.79 and 9.75 among the Sikhs and Buddhists respectively. Another minority community, Jains with 36.01 percent tops the list of the number of graduates based on religious denomination. Therefore in India, religious minorities like Christians, Sikhs, Jains, and Parsees, with a lot of exceptions, achieve similar or even better academic results when compared with the majority². In the case of Parsees, Jains, and Christians, their educational status is even higher than that of the society as a whole³.

The educational backwardness among the Muslims in India is not uniform in its character, and the generalization is rightly criticized by many scholars. Sociologist I P Desai is of the opinion that “when we say that Muslims are backward in education, actually it is the lower class that we are referring to and we generalize from that for the whole Muslim community”⁴. But the Sachar Committee Report of 2006 and the Report of Amitabh Kundu Committee of 2013 clearly show that educationally, Muslims are the most vulnerable group in the country; even more vulnerable than the lower castes and other minorities. In its fourth chapter, the Sachar report says that “Muslims are at a double disadvantage with low levels of education combined with low-quality education; their deprivation increases manifold as the level of education rises. In some instances the relative share for Muslims is lower than even the SCs who are victims of a long-standing caste system”⁵. Muslim and non-Muslim activists and scholars had, from as early as the nineteenth century, organized programmes and formed policies with the aim of improving educational conditions of Muslims in order to alleviate the pathetic condition they have been in. Such plans and programmes have been mainly aimed at giving Muslims a secular education along with their religious one.

The reasons behind the educational backwardness of Muslims are many. Broadly we can classify these as factors ‘within’ and ‘outside.' ‘Within’ problems, as the term suggests, are best defined as the problems posed from within the religious community itself towards secular education. Fahimuddin argues that “the educational backwardness of Muslim community is attributed to their religious orthodoxy coupled with their emphasis on theological education with little effort to change the traditional education system and acquire knowledge relevant to the needs of the changing world”⁶. From this perspective, the Muslim community itself has been largely responsible for their educational backwardness. Contrary to this argument Asghar Ali Engineer pointed out that “the main problem for education among Muslims is poverty, not religion or lack of will”⁷. Imthiyaz Ahmed also pointed out that “the Muslims are neither reluctant to take to secular education because of their preoccupation with religion and religious education, nor because of their minority complex. Their educational backwardness can be explainedregarding an invidious discrimination practiced against them which is reducing them to the status of hewers of wood and drawers of water”⁸. On analyzing the educational backwardness in India, the ‘outside’ factors appear to be much more significant than the ‘within’ ones: economic backwardness, poverty, British education policy and programmes, the caste system among the Muslims and the exclusionary nature of the ‘conventional’ educational system. Here the value theory, according to which, different social classes have different value systems that influence their attitude towards the benefits of education⁹, cannot be accepted as an explanation for the low levels of Muslim education. To overcome this situation and to educate the community, many movements were initiated across the country. After India had got independence, institutionalized movements began to be implemented with the aim to educate Muslims. These networks of relations or the institutionalized and organization-based movements have at least to some extent helped Muslims in India to achieve a higher education than they would have otherwise, more successfully in some parts of the country than others.

METHODOLOGY:

This paper mainly focuses on the establishment of modern educational institutions, such as schools, colleges, and universities, by Muslims in Kerala and Gujarat after independence and examines the differential impact of such community-specific education. The Muslim communities in Kerala and Gujarat are of particular interest for many reasons: Recent studies have pointed out that there is a positive educational trend among the Muslims of both states. Muslims in both states have literacy rates above the national average. The literacy rate of Muslims in Gujarat is 80.82 percent, and that of Kerala is 93.29, both of which are higher compared to the national average of 68.54 percent. In addition to this, numerous other works point out that Muslims in both states give higher priority to modern education compared to their counterparts in other parts of the country.

Like Muslims in other parts of India, Muslim in both states are not a homogeneous entity; they are different in terms of their caste, religious practices, and customs. Kerala Muslims relatively faceless communal tension and possess more political power compared to Muslims of Gujarat. But it is equally important to note how and why Muslims improve their educational condition in these states. This work attempts to address this existing gap in the literature by using the concept of social capital to discuss the educational development of Muslims from a new perspective. Here the samples are mainly taken to show how social capital, networks of community relations and organizational strength, helped the Muslim communities in these states to achieve educational progress. This study is mainly based on secondary sources such as previous research works, 2011 Census Report, newspaper reports and unpublished thesis. After reviewing a short history of the development of educational institutions in both states, Kerala and Gujarat, the paper uses the concept of ‘social capital’ to explain the advancement of community education and its connection with other social and organizational community networks in society.

The Development of Community Educational Institutions:

By ‘community educational institutions’ the author means the modern educational institutions formed by religious/ religiously affiliated organizations with the purpose of imparting education primarily to the students of particular religious or caste communities. The portals of such institutions are not only open to one single community per se but also to the students belonging to other religions and castes. But the original idea or goal of such institutions is the educational empowerment of students belonging to the community to which the members of the organizations belong by providing them with necessary institutional facilities.

In Kerala, the schools, colleges and other educational institutions formed by Christian missionaries, local churches, Nair Service Society (NSS), Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam (SNDPY), and Muslim Educational Society (MES) and in recent times many other Muslim organizations, precisely fit into the definition of community education. This educational development has helped large sections of the population, mainly Muslims and ‘lower caste’ people, to liberate themselves from various social disabilities from which they had been suffering for many centuries. But most of these associations and organizations have also been severely critiqued by many as looters of public money in the name of religion and caste, and for their demand of high bribes from people of their caste and community to appoint teachers, students and even workers who come from low-income families.

Before independence, the educational movement of Kerala Muslims was mainly centered on Muslim religious scholars, and it lacked a strong organizational setup. Personalities like Vakkam Maoulavi, Sanahulla MakthiThangal, and Hamdani Shaik argued vigorously for modern education¹⁰. But after independence, there was a tremendous development in the area of education of Muslims. This development was mainly possible through collective and organizational movements. The establishment of Farook College in 1948 under the Rouzathul Uloom Association can be seen as the beginning of this evolution. In 1964, with the aim of educational upliftment of Muslims in Malabar, the Muslim Educational Society (MES) was formed under the leadership of Dr. P.K Abdul Gafoor. MES started many colleges indifferent parts of Malabar with the primary aim of educating Muslim students in Malabar.

Many of these educational institutions, formed by Muslim religious organizations, were setup in different parts of Kerala mainly because of the exclusionary nature of the hitherto existing educational system in Kerala. Before the formation of Muslim-management educational institutions, there were many other religious and caste communities that held a significant control over the education system of Kerala. All of these educational institutions, run by Christian, Ezhava, and Nair communities, are not exclusively for its members alone. But, according to George Mathew “in making appointments preferences will, of course, be given to the community running the colleges. But they take their staff members from other communities, at least as a token of communal representation”¹¹. He further discusses that in S. B College, one of the oldest colleges in Kerala founded in 1922, they gave preferences to Catholics and other Syrian Christians and only if students from these communities were not available they gave seats to students from other religions. Also, they hardly appoint teachers from non-Christian communities. Even today, only after all applicants of the management’s candidates were admitted, a handful of bright Nair or Ezhava or Pulaya candidates were admitted¹². After all these communities got their colleges and schools, issues like Friday prayer, wearing a veil and duration and timing of classes in the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, etc. became challenging issues for many Muslims. Muslim religious leaders and reformers gradually began to think about establishing schools and colleges that would protect their religious identity and ideologies. Because of Gulf migration, the economic prosperity of the community had improved, and this economic capital helped the community to set up new schools and colleges in the Malabar region. Most of the Muslim organizations, rather than highlighting the importance of knowledge in Islam, looked for reasons behind the educational development and progress of ‘other’ communities’ in the field of education. Most leaders also realized the importance of an organizational setup and political bargaining power as the means to achieve educational progress.

Like in Kerala, the development of modern education among the Muslims of Gujarat also shows a similar kind of historical background and transformation. The education of Muslims has been fast changing in Gujarat after the infamous 2002 Gujarat carnage. Especially after Babri Masjid demolition and the subsequent riots, there has been a growing consciousness amongst the Muslim community regarding the importance of moderneducation, and this has forced even orthodox Muslimsto send their children to schools and colleges instead of madrasas. Studies on post-Gujarat carnage explicitly say that Muslims do not want their children to be poor, vulnerable and unskilled as they are, and Muslims in the state now emphasise proper education for their children.¹³ Sociologists Dipankar Gupta argues for instance that Muslims in Ahmedabad want their children to study in non-Urdu schools because they must be as well equipped as the Hindus are when they grow up¹⁴

In his work, Gupta looks at the long term effects of ethnic violence in Mumbai after the Babri demolition and in Ahmadabad after the post-Godhra carnage. Most of the Muslims that Gupta interviewedin Ahmadabad think that modern education would make their livelihood prospects brighter. Sociologists like Gupta and T.K Oommen are ofthe opinion that Muslims in Gujarat faced discrimination and exclusion from the government-run educational institutions¹⁵. A study after the 2002 riots draws attention to how ‘most of the examination centers in Gujarat were also located in Hindu residential areas, and it was impossible for Muslim students to venture into these¹⁶. To overcome such discrimination and exclusion, many Muslim organizations like Tablighi Jamaat, Jamaat-i-Islami- Hind, Jamait Ulema-e- Hind, Islamic Relief Committee and The Gujarati Muslim Association of America (GMAA) and many others began to set up not only schools but also colleges in Gujarat and focus on mainstream education for Muslims. Instead of establishing new Madrasas, many religious organizations are concentrating now on theestablishment of schools and colleges. Astudy by Raheel Dhattiwala argues that “almost 70 percent of Muslim-managed educational institutionswere established in Ahmedabad between 1993 and 2005 after the two waves of Hindu-Muslim violence”¹⁷. Some scholars like J S Bandukwala have pointed out that there has been a remarkable change in the development and quality of Muslim education in Gujarat after the 2002 riots. He is of the opinion that there is a larger participation of girls in education that was a ‘low priority for Muslims’ before 2002. His study provides the statistical data that clearly reveals that there were 23 Darul Ulooms in South Gujarat, as against just three colleges (that too teaching arts and commerce). According to him, following the Gujarat riot of 2002, Muslim mindset changed completely, and they realized that “they can never cope with the rise of Hindutva, except with the highest level of education for their children”¹⁸. In the decade from 2002 to 2012, there has been a sharp increase of Muslim schools from 250 to about 700. Bandukwala further explains that “Zidni Ilma Charitable Trust, a Vadodara-based-body focused on quality education, is currently sponsoring 60 medical and 150-degree engineering students from poor and lower middle-classfamilies. These are students who in the pre-2002 period would have never gone to a professional college, due to high costs and also the views of the community”¹⁹.

From the Gujarat and Kerala experience, it is very clear that Muslims in both these states established their educational institutions mainly because of the ‘exclusionary’ nature of the prevalent school system practiced by the state and other communities. The realization of the importance of modern education has led many scholars to form organizations to establish school, colleges and other educational institutions. It shows that Muslims are awakening to the importance of education.The accumulation of social capital through the establishment of religiously affiliated organizations and networks and the accumulation of economic capital through diaspora money and Gulf remittance in the case of Kerala and business in Gujarat helped Muslims in both states to achieve a greater educational progress compared to their counterparts in other parts of the country.Nevertheless, it is also an undisputed fact that Muslims in both states lag behind other communities in the states in terms ofa number of graduates, the number of persons in government jobs and other higher professions, causes, and consequences of which need to be studied separately. The next part of the paper will explain the importance of social capital in community educational development.

Community Education and Social Capital:

Social capital is a resource for mutually beneficial collective action that communities possess to different extents. Communities with high levels of social capital can act collectively for achieving different common objectives. The formation of new organizations, active membership in these organizations and the creation of socio-cultural networks have helped the Muslim community to acttogether against the discrimination that has prevailed in the field of education.

For the present study, the paper has used the definition of social capital as “features of social organization such as networks, norms and social trust that facilitate cooperation and coordination for mutual benefit²⁰.In other words, social capital refers to the quality of human relations and interactions within some well-defined social group and organization that enables members of this group to act in cooperation with one another for achieving mutual benefits and achievements across multiple objectives. In a diverse and heterogeneous country like India, castes and religions have often played an enormous role in shaping the character of socio-political organizations. At the micro level, caste and religion still dominate the life of a common Indian and therefore comes as no surprise that caste and religion shape the social networks and social contacts in India. The present educational scenario in most states is also not exceptional in this regard.

In Kerala, George Mathew argues that “due to historical reasons both the demand for and supplies of educational opportunities were created primarily by religious groups andcommunity organizations”²¹.Educational development in the State was spearheaded by Christian missionaries, local churches, Nair Service Society (NSS), Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam (SNDPY) and in recent times by the Muslim Educational Society (MES). Historically, it is very clear that the dominance of non-governmental agencies over the educational sector of Kerala was a notable one. Most of these bodies belonged to religious or caste groups, and it was those groups, Christians, Nairs, and Ezhavas, who had monopolised the education sector in the state and not surprisingly had high social capital compared to the Muslims.

Sociological literature on social capital reveals that more cooperative groups will achieve better development and governance outcomes while groups with lower levels of social capital will have lower achievements in the social, political and economic realms. Organizations like Rauzathul Uloom Association, MES, formation, and re-formation of many Muslim religious organizations and their support for modern education worked as a type of social capital among the Kerala Muslims, and this social capital functioned as a tool to fight against the prevalent educational backwardness of the community. Recent development in minority education in India reveals that educational progress of minorities is achievable only if they have social capital and collective socio-political bargaining power. In Kerala, new experiments in the field of community education, like the combination of secular education with religious, for instance Darul Huda Islamic University, shows that the achievement of educational progress among Muslims is possible mainly through the combined efforts of micro level organizations, regional initiatives, and local educational bodies, with the affiliation of macro level religious organizations. The information desks like NGOs, local educational bodies and clubs and many other educational networks have enabled the community to accumulate the social capital in the field of education. While analyzing social capital, Portes argues that “the acquisition of social capital requires a deliberate investment of both economic and cultural resources”²² (Portes: 1998). It is very clear in the case of Kerala, Gulf migration and charity works initiated by many Gulf Malayalee organizations helped the Muslims to invest their economic capital for the acquisition of social capital. After achieving a substantialeconomic and material capital, many organizations started considering the importance of modern education for Muslims to gain political power and government jobs in a multicultural society. The organizational structure and strong group ties helped the community to accumulate social capital, and this development has helped the community to progress in education.

When comparing Kerala and Gujarat, it is important to remember that the assertion and reassertion of identity through education are not similar in both states. In Kerala, many organizations started the schools and colleges to protect and preserve their pupils’ specific religious identities. Muslim-managed educational institutions mainly tried to protect the specific religious identities of their community. To protect the distinct identity of Muslims, they rescheduled classes in the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan and provided prayer halls and masjids for prayer inside the campus and schools and always try to maintain ‘value'-based(religious value)campuses. However, Muslims in Gujarat through their modern education, according to Gupta, want to merge with the mainstream culture. According to Deepa, from 92 Urdu-medium schools before the riots in 2002, the number has fallen to 72 as there are fewer takers on this score²³. This shift from religious to secular education is not visible in Kerala, for here both secular and religious institutions of Muslims appear to be integrating. This difference in the mentality of the states is mainly because of the vulnerability and communal discrimination that Muslims in Gujarat have to face and the strong hold of Hindu Nationalist organizations, like RSS and Shiv Sena in Gujarat versus the relatively great freedom enjoyed by Muslims in Kerala society²⁴.

The existing research literature on social capital strongly emphasizes its positive consequences. Many of the emerging literature, however, also talk about the negative or ‘dark side’²⁵ and less desired consequences of social capital regarding exclusion²⁶. As pointed out earlier, many of the colleges and schools in Gujarat and Kerala were established because of the exclusionary nature of the hitherto existing ‘conventional’ educational institutions. In many ways, the new community education movements also follow the path of their predecessors. The examples used by the teachers in the classrooms, class schedule in the fasting month of Ramadan, religious constraints in colleges and schools, the generalization of the values and norms of the particular community as the ‘norm’ or ‘common’ etc.still create problems. The exclusionary practices may or may not be intentional, but the structure of these community-specific institutions and its regulations and rules could very well create unintentional consequences in future.

CONCLUSION:

The above discussion shows that construction of community education centers along with the accumulation of social capital has enabled communities to control decisions about the education of their children and other members of their community according to the needs of modern society. This development in the education of Muslims in Kerala and Gujarat can be seen as a form of a ‘new social movement.' In a social movement, the goal is not just to effect a particular policy change but more importantly to shift the power to control decisions, define situations, and allocate resources²⁷.Also, movements aim to redistribute power and resources by confronting power relations in which a dominant group has attained the power to define the society for the masses, to construct an ideology in which that definition makes sense, and to get most people to view that ideology as natural²⁸. So the community education movement questions the previously existing power structures in education, utilization of common resources and the dominant group’s educational ideologies. The base of this movement consists of a constituency whose members share common problems or concerns such as community’s poor condition in education and rejection and exclusion from an educational sphere by ‘other’ communities and the state apparatus. In both states, the common problem was ‘educational backwardness,’ and the community education movementhas strived to empower the community from this common problem and has achieved significant success.

All is not rosy when it comes to community education as it has at the same time created some undesirable consequences in society. These consequences may not always be ‘intentional’. In Gujarat, it is a fact that some institutions and parents do not want Muslim children to study with others. However, it is to be noted that separate religious and caste-based educational institutions for each community might further increase cultural polarization, educational ghettoization and students may grow up without ever having had the chance to make friends with peers from other communities. Thiswould eventually lead to the problem of the formation of ‘exclusive friendship circles’ based on one’sown religion, caste, and gender. In such community-specific schools and colleges, there is also the endangerment that this would further entrench communal stereotypes, ghettoisation, and feelings of insularity. Further research that addresses both the positive and negative outcomes of such community education movements across the country and also globally is warranted to better understand itspotential as a means to address educational inequality.

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2. Chauhan C.P.S, Modern Indian Education Policies, Progress and Problems, New Delhi, Kanishka Publication, 2004

3. Ibid

4. Desai I P, “Muslim Educational Backwardness” Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 16, No. 47, 1981

5. Sachar Rajindar, Social, Economic and Educational status of the Muslims Community of India- A report, New Delhi: Prime Ministers High Level Committee, Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India, 2006

6. Fahimuddin, Modernization of Muslim Education in India, New Delhi, Adhyayan Publication, 2004

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8. Ahmed Ithiyaz, “Muslim Educational Backwardness: An Inferential Analysis”, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 16, No. 36, 1981

9. Hyman, H H “The Value Systems of Different Classes” in R Bendix and S M Lipsett (eds), Class, Status and Power, The Free Press and Macmillan, New York, pp 488-99, 1953

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11. Mathew George, Communal Roads to Secular Kerala, New Delhi, Concept Publication, 1989

12. Ibid

13. Datiwalla Raheel, the Muslims as BJP Supporter in Gujarat. The Hindu, February 24, 2011

14. Gupta Dipanker, Justice before Reconciliation: Negotiating a ‘New Normal’ in Post-riot Mumbai and Ahmedabad, New Delhi, Routledge, 2011

15. T.K. Oommen, Reconciliation in Post-Godhra Gujarat: The Role of Civil Society, New Delhi, Pearson Longman, 2008. Gupta Dipanker, Justice before Reconciliation: Negotiating a ‘New Normal’ in Post-riot Mumbai and Ahmedabad, New Delhi, Routledge, 2011

16. What Happened in Gujarat? The Facts, Excerpts from the fact-finding report

17. Datiwalla Raheel, The Muslims as BJP Supporter in Gujarat. The Hindu, February 24, 2011

18. J S Bandukwala, The State of Muslims in Gujarat Today, Economic and Political Weekly, 47 (33) 18 Aug 2012

19. Ibid

20. Putnam, Robert D, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community,New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000

21. Mathew George, Communal Roads to Secular Kerala, New Delhi, Concept Publication, 1989

22. Portes Alejandro, “Social Capital: Its Origins and Applications in Modern Sociology” Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 24. pp. 1-24, 1998

23. Deepa, A, Gujarat Riots and Education, http://65.55.40.235/att/GetAttachment.aspx?file, 2007

24. Bacchetta, Paola, 'The (failed) production of Hindu nationalized space in Ahmedabad, Gujarat', Gender, Place and Culture, 17: 5, 551 — 572, 2010

25. Field John, Social Capital, Routledge, London, 2003

26. Häuberer Julia, Social Capital Theory towards a Methodological Foundation, VS Research, Prague, 2011

27. Staples L, Roots to power, New York: Praeger, 1984

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Received on 28.03.2017 Modified on 15.05.2017

Res. J. Humanities and Social Sciences. 2018; 9(1): 11-16.

DOI: 10.5958/2321-5828.2018.00003.7