Muzaffarnagar, 3 Oct: Darul Uloom Deoband’s education department has issued an edict barring students from performing part-time work or risk losing facilities like education subsidies, free food and accommodation, and possibly expulsion from the seminary. In another directive, final-year students’ scholarships will be “withdrawn” if they are missing from class for three days in a row.
A copy of the directive issued by Maulana Hussain Ahmed, education department head of Darul Uloom Deoband, one of the country’s major Islamic seminaries, has been put on the institution’s bulletin board. The directives, according to the staff, will be vigorously implemented.
The decree read, “We have information from reputable sources concerning some students who are conducting business in addition to their education. Some students even set up business outside classrooms, while others set up shop on the streets outside the seminary. The administration has voiced unhappiness over such behaviour, and has said that the aim of admission to Darul Uloom Deoband is exclusively to obtain adequate education”.
As a result, the Majlis-e-Talimi (education committee) has resolved that any student found engaging in job, business or other activity shall be expelled.” The letter further said that students in their last year studying ‘Daur-e-Hadith’ will be “banned from scholarships if found missing from their classes for three consecutive days.”
Students in any class who are absent for 15 days without alerting their teacher may be expelled.
Darul officials did not respond to requests for formal comment on the order. Many students, though, were taken aback by the sudden order. Several of them have begun to wind down their part-time business. Darul Uloom now has approximately 4,000 students, the majority of whom get free education, food, and shelter.
A student from Assam who hails from a poor family and sells tea leaves from his native state stated, that their daily expenditures cannot be met with free amenities, the shop was set up to supplement income, this will no longer be feasible. Another student from Bihar who sells skull caps said that Darul Uloom gives free lodging, but it is not enough for students’ families survival back home. ?We need money for our everyday requirements, and my family is unable to send any,’ he added.
