Sunday, January 06, 2008

Don't pay us to be patriotic

There has been enough said by many (including yours truly) and little done by people who matter about the issue of madrasas being given special grants by the govt of India under the 11th five year plan to celebrate Independence and Republic days. Finally there was some news today about the All India Muslim personal board criticizing the plan and asking the govt to not pay them to be patriotic.

But, interestingly, there was no explicit statement by the spokesperson saying that we will not accept such funds or some other statement to that effect. Would be interesting to know if atleast a few of the madrasas give a forthright no to such funding.

2 comments:

BadhriNath said...

India already pays muslims to follow islam. they provide subsidies for haj [even when it is prohibited to get subsidies for the pilgrimage in the religion]. When asked the muslim personal law board says we dont want subsidies. But year after year subsidies are doled out from my tax money.

Same song, same tune, just that lyrics have changed a bit.

Anonymous said...

I don't see anything wrong with what the madarsaas are doing. They are making it known that they find it degrading that government offered them money to be patriotic; thats good PR. and they are not saying no to money; thats just good administration. Better PR would be getting media to write about how the money was spent on library etc.

--bhavya