The silent segregation of Muslim students in Bhopal’s schools

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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.

Asma Rizwan, a language instructor and professor of English and business communication in Bhopal, tells me about her IIIT-ian son refusing to sit in an Urdu section because of the labels that would automatically attach to him. He had made deep friendships with a range of children and suddenly in class 6 those friendships were tested by the segregation. For the first time Sameer felt as if he was the ‘other’. He refused to take on the uncomfortable burden. He wanted to be in the ‘genius’ group, the Sanskrit section. He switched subjects in two days.

It was the first day of class in his new section and roll call was in progress. There is a particular rhythm to the Indian roll call. Once the teacher starts, it’s like a train chugging along, each name like a station that it briefly stops at. Roll no. 1… roll no. 2… roll no. 3. ‘Ahmad Sameer…’ rang out the teacher’s voice. He answered, ‘Yes ma’am.’

The teacher stopped short, her rhythm broken. She looked up and asked, with a shadow of doubt in her voice, ‘Ahmad, you’re in the Sanskrit section?’ ‘Yes ma’am,’ came the young student’s reply. ‘OK, good…very good,’ said the teacher and restarted her beat, roll no. 4, roll no. 5, roll no. 6… The teacher had signalled her approval of Sameer’s decision, but her pause in the middle of the roll call was an even bigger signal. The point was driven home – Sameer was an outsider, not like the rest of the batch. And this he would be reminded of time and again.

There are few kids like Sameer who leave the Urdu sections and opt for Sanskrit. When sections get further segregated in the senior classes (10–12) between ‘achiever’ students who score over 90 per cent in their exams and those who don’t, the missing Muslim children are further evident. This keeps students from long-term equal achievement, heightens inequality and perpetuates religious rivalry. ‘In the morning when you drop your kids you see all students entering the building through the same door,’ says a teacher from a leading school in Bhopal. ‘But the second door they enter is linguistically or rather religiously graded.’

Students of one section don’t get time beyond classes to bond with students from other sections. Raiqa observes, ‘If they are compartmentalized this early they don’t get to learn about “others”. They don’t share tiffins. They don’t make friends. If you ask the kids, they say, “Woh bante hi nahin hamare friends. Bas hi-hello ho jata hai. [They don’t become friends with us. We just greet each other in passing.]” This is prevalent in the majority of the schools in Bhopal.’

Various researches in the West have shown clear linkages between racial segregation and academic achievement gaps. Could it hold true for religious segregation too? The catchment area of one of Delhi’s best known schools includes Jamia and Nizamuddin, two largely Muslim localities. The school offers foreign languages along with Sanskrit and Urdu and one imagines that it would ensure a better balance of religious groups in classes. But a teacher of the school, Ranu Bhogal, tells me, ‘My section has mostly Urdu students and a few French students. While it was not an all-Muslim class, the ratio is definitely skewed. So one of the parents wrote a letter to the administration saying they wanted their child’s section changed as there was too much of “M factor” [as they put it] in their present section. And they were obliged.’

Many of us grew up being the only Muslim child in a class of forty. But when it’s reversed, why does the ‘M factor’ become a problem? Why does our denominator become only a religious factor to consider? If one parent is obliged, how will you stop all parents from having similar complaints?

Ranu tells me, ‘Some very good, well-educated teachers also frequently lament that there are too many “M’s” in the school. Some of the Muslim children are from EWS [economically weaker sections] families where, for example, the father is a butcher and the mother is a maid. The teachers are worried that these students might have behavioural issues. As school policy we need to take a percentage of students from the EWS that fall in the school’s catchment area. But all the Muslim kids get branded together. Even if the child is good, most of the teachers are biased that all Muslims will behave like the EWS kids. Many teachers refuse to be allotted the Muslimdominated sections.’

Across India, and especially in the north, any CBSE school that has thirty or more Muslim students in a class clumps them together to form a new section. While such trends in cities are limited to a few schools, smaller towns with large Muslim populations like Darbhanga in Bihar and Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh have begun to implement the same policy as more Muslims embrace formal mainstream English-medium education. We need to talk about the consequences of this beyond classrooms. When a twelve-year-old grows up in classes demarcated on religious lines, how deep will the dividing lines be drawn in our society? Will we ever be able to share a table or a plate? ‘Never were differences so open in schools before,’ says Raiqa Saulat Khan sadly.

A 2017 survey conducted by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) revealed that only 33 per cent Hindus count a Muslim among their close friends, whereas 74 per cent Muslims have a close friend from the Hindu community. The most obvious consequence of this is that the religious majority grow up knowing little about other religions. With the widening divide in schools, this chasm will only deepen further. Today while parents can ensure meals at malls, membership to sports complexes, education at leading institutions and clothes in vogue, what they cannot ensure is that their children will make friends with others beyond their own religious affiliations.

‘Mothering A Muslim by Nazia Erum’ has been published by Juggernaut. Excerpted with permission from Juggernaut.