Psychology of Education

There are innumerable traditional religious Islamic schools called ‘makatib’ (singular ‘maktab’), up to fifth standard, and madrasas, imparting education up to the graduation level in Uttar Pradesh, particularly in the districts of Gonda, Basti, Siddhartha Nagar, Azamgarh, Mubarakpur and Varanasi, etc. Some of them are highly reputed and well established like the seminaries, Dar-ul-Uloom of Deoband (Saharanpur) and Nadwat-ul-Ulama of Lucknow. There are sundry other big madrasas in other parts of the country, viz, Madrasa Taj-ul-Masajid in Bhopal and Jamia Dar-us-Salam in Omerabad, Tamil Nadu. In Kerala, too, there are a great number of similar but smaller institutions. The main concentration, however, is in the eastern part of Uttar Pradesh (UP).

The most reputed of these institutions are of the British period and have inspired the creation of others after independence. Therefore, whether of the pre-independence or of the post-independence era, their history goes back to the colonial period and mainly to British policy. The British policy of divide and rule manifested itself in blatant discrimination against one segment of people in favour of another. Consequently, one section got gradually drawn into the mainstream of national life (social, economic and political) and the other segment of the people withdrew from the thick of life marginalising itself. This is no occasion to go into the details. But it can be observed here that the Great Rebellion (or mutiny as some would put it) of 1857 was the outburst of long pent-up feelings.