New Delhi : The National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language (NCPUL), a government body created for promotion of Urdu language in India, has sent a shock wave among the Muslims for seeking the profiling of students of all Urdu centres run by either Madarsas or Muslim NGOs for detecting their ‘radicalisation’ to carry out ‘deradicalisation’.
A notice sent out last month to Madarsas and other Muslim-run institutions conducting the council’s diploma courses asks them ‘to detect and counter radicalisation efforts’ and submit the action taken report. The Muslim organisations see the hidden hand of the Home Ministry in slapping the notice in the name of NCPUL.
“The government is dragging the centres of learning into the war on terror to brand all Muslim students. It is now asking us to submit the action taken report for their deradicalisation, tomorrow it will ask us to send the students’ information to police stations. This social profiling of Muslim institutions is unacceptable,” says a to Muslim leader running many Madarsas.
He and many others running the study centres say they shall not file any action taken report and will ask the council to withdraw its controversial notice titled “Implementation of the recommendation of the Task Force on National Security approved/accepted by the cabinet committee on security.”
The notice served on the Urdu, Arabic and Persian Study centres getting funds from the council refers to the recommendation of high profile Naresh Chandra Committee, which was formed by the UPA-II in June 2011 to review the defence management of the country. It says, “The Task force recommends that the Intelligence Bureau (IB) should develop capabilities for detecting and countering radicalization efforts and to take counter measures through Government and Non-Government structures.”
The notice went on to explain, “Both radicalization and deradicalization is multi-disciplinary efforts requiring inputs from Intelligence Agencies, the Ministry of Human Resource Development, the Ministry of Minority Affairs, the state police forces and all developmental departments. The Ministry of Home Affairs will take the lead, but this requires the involvement of entire government.”
Across India, there are 278 study centres of functional Arabic funded by NCPUL, another 759 study centres for Diploma in Urdu, 308 Arabic certificate course centres, 27 advance computer training centres, 53 calligraphy and design centres, and 50 centres for diploma in repair and maintenance of electronic appliances.
