Qawmi madrasas operate under five boards with the Bangladesh Qawmi Madrasa Education Board (Befaq), based in Dhaka, being the main one.
The four other boards are the Befaqul Madarisil Arabia, in Gopalganj, Azadbini Edaraye Tamil Madarisil, in Sylhet, Ettehadul Madarisil Arabia, in Chittagong, and the Tanjimul Madarisil, in Bogra.
Chittagong Hathazari Madrasa Director General and Hifazat-e Islam chief Shah Ahmad Shafi is the Befaq chairman, while Gowhardanga Madrasa Principal Ruhul Amin heads the Gopalganj board.
Maulana Zia Uddin and Abdul Baset Barkatpuri lead the Sylhet board, Abdul Haq Hakkani, Mahmudul Haq Bewtha and Abdur Rahman the Bogra board, and Abdul Halim Bokhari the board in Chittagong.
Around two million students are enrolled in about 5,000 madrasas under Befaq, while in the regional boards have nearly 1,500 madrasas under them.
On Apr 15, 2015, the government had formed a 17-member commission to suggest ways to better manage Qawmi madrasa education.
Shah Ahmad Shafi was made the panel chairman with Sholakia Eidgah Khatib Farid Uddin Masud the co-chairman and Ruhul Amin the member secretary.
But the commission ran into difficulties right at the outset with Shafi demanding Masud and Amin’s removal, alleging they were pro-government.
He also demanded the commission’s reconstitution with Ashraf Ali as the co-chairman-1 and Befaq General Secretary Abdul Jabbar as member secretary.
The Hifazat chief also placed an eight-point charter of demands.
They included government recognition of Qawmi certificates issued by Befaq, an affiliated university status for the board, no government aid to Qawmi madrasas, and no alteration of their teaching methods.
But Befaq leaders, including Shafi, lost interest when the four other boards objected to the Hifazat chief’s demands.
Later, others in the commission submitted a report to the education ministry.
Jabbar claimed they had finalised a two-page handwritten report on a Qawmi Madrasa Board pad for submission to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina but Ruhul Amin and Masud changed it to a five-page document before it was filed.
Branding the two as ‘government agents’, Jabbar said the ‘real demands’ of the Qawmi leaders had not reached the prime minister because of this manipulation.
Amin, however, denied he or Masud were in any way pro-government, and wanted to know if the Befaq leaders had any objections to the report submitted to the government.
Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid had repeatedly told reporters that the commission report was under reviewed but no government action was evident.
About the report being altered before submission, he said, “Qawmi leaders had not complained before. So, why are they raising these issues after such a long time?”
Masud said most Qawmi leaders were unable to ‘sincerely’ accept pro-liberation people.
He said Qawmi leaders were reluctant to let the madrasas come under the control of an Awami-League-run government.
“I joined the commission meetings. I think the Qawmi board leaders, barring a few, don’t want discipline established in Qawmi madrasas.”
Hifazat goes berserk at Motijheel on May 5
Students of Qawmi madrasas had a significant participation in Hifazat's programme
Leaders of the boards admitted the maulanas of the four boards, except those of Gopalganj, owed allegiance to the BNP-led 20-Party alliance.
Hifazat came into the limelight after it took out a long march and began a sit-in agitation in 2013.
The government had always maintained that Qawmi madrasa students were involved in militancy.
The education minister had announced in 2013, months after Hifazat’s violent agitations in May that year, that the government would recognise Qawmi madrasa certificates.
But it backed out after Hifazat, which now realised such recognition would deprive it of its control over the madrasas, threatened ‘civil war’.
Jabbar admitted that they had links with the BNP and the Jamaat-e-Islami. “Our link with the BNP and Jamaat is a result of the Awami League’s failures,” he said.
