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Islamabad, Pakistan – After fending off protests by the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, the Pakistani government now faces a new challenge: a possible agitation led by Fazal-ur-Rehman, leader of the Jamiat Ulema-e-religious group. Islam-Fazl. (JUIF) match.
Rehman, a veteran politician and part of the ruling coalition that ruled Pakistan from April 2022 to August 2023, is urging the government to pass a bill introduced in October to amend the registration process for religious seminaries.
In October, the legislation was passed alongside the controversial 26th amendment – pushed by the government and for which they needed the support of JUIF legislators – which gives parliament oversight over judicial appointments.
However, when the bill came to him for final approval, President Asif Ali Zardari raised “technical objections” and sent it back to parliament for further deliberation. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government has since indicated that it too has concerns about the bill, leading to a standoff.
Rehman has since engaged in dialogue with government officials, including Sharif, arguing that the current law governing religious seminaries undermines their autonomy.
Last week he warned that reversing commitments made to his party could further destabilize Pakistan’s already volatile political landscape.
“We want to create an atmosphere of trust. It is the government’s responsibility to improve the situation, but it seems to be pushing people towards extremism and protest,” Rehman said in Peshawar.
So what does the current law say and what would the new bill do? What are the concerns that Zardari and others have raised? And what comes next, for the bill and for Pakistan’s fractured political system?
How were seminaries governed historically?
The debate over the registration of religious seminaries, also known as madrassas, has long been contentious in Pakistan.
Historically, seminaries were registered under the colonial-era Societies Registration Act of 1860 at the district level. This decentralized system left the government with little control over seminary curricula, activities, or funding.
In particular, state or federal education officials had no control over the seminaries, which dealt only with local bureaucrats.
Over time, concerns grew over the lack of effective monitoring of the curriculum, finances or activities of these schools.
Why did stricter regulation begin?
The turning point was the 9/11 attack and the launch of the so-called “war on terrorism” by the United States. Pakistan, under military leader General Pervez Musharraf, sought to reform the seminaries.
Many of the men who joined armed groups such as Al Qaeda, or those who later founded Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), were revealed to be alumni of seminaries in Pakistan, leading the government to declare them “indispensable.” the proposed reforms. for national security.
After the deadly TTP attack on the Army Public School, an army-run school, in December 2014 in Peshawar, the Pakistani government introduced the National Action Plan, a comprehensive document that sought, among other proposals, to monitor the registration of the religious. seminars.
Between 2018 and 2022, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an intergovernmental anti-money laundering and financing monitoring body created by the G7 in 1989, placed Pakistan on its “grey list” of countries that were not fully complying with its regulations. Gray list countries risk losing critical foreign investments.
One of the demands of the FATF before removing Pakistan’s name from the list was that the government bring religious seminaries under its control, to ensure transparency in their financial operations.
In 2019, under former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s PTI government, seminaries were reclassified as educational institutions and under the Ministry of Education.
This led to the creation of the Directorate General of Religious Education (DGRE), which is currently headed by Ghulam Qamar, a retired two-star general who is also a counterterrorism specialist.
The DGRE ordered annual audits and expanded the seminary’s curricula to include subjects such as mathematics and science.
Since its inception, more than 18,000 seminars and two million students have been registered.
However, many seminaries, including those affiliated with JUIF, refused to join the system and continued to operate under the Societies Registration Act.
What is in the legislation proposed by the JUIF?
The JUIF amendment to the Societies Registration Act transfers seminary registration responsibilities back to district deputy commissioners, eliminating oversight by the Ministry of Education.
The bill also proposes that seminaries with multiple campuses be allowed to register as a single entity, a measure that JUIF says will reduce government interference and protect the autonomy of these institutions.
What are the government’s objections?
Religious Affairs Minister Chaudhry Salik Hussain defended the government’s resistance to passing the JUIF bill.
Hussain, in a statement issued by the Ministry of Religious Affairs last week, said the government wants issues related to education to remain under the purview of the Ministry of Education, including registration of seminaries.
Al Jazeera approached Hussain, as well as Information Minister Attaullah Tarar, for comment on the controversy and why lawmakers from government parties had backed the bill in parliament with an overwhelming majority in the first place if They had reservations. No one has responded.
However, at a recent conference held in Islamabad earlier this week, government officials and religious leaders expressed concerns about the JUIF’s proposed changes. Information Minister Tarar said there were “legal complications” in the bill (without specifying them) and called for further consultation.
Federal Education Minister Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui also added that rolling back the existing registration mechanism was out of the question, stressing that such a move would not serve the nation’s interest.
“The seminary reforms have also been a serious problem in terms of national security,” he said.
What does this mean for Pakistani politics?
The Sharif government may no longer urgently need the JUIF’s political support after the passage of the 26th amendment. But his failure to maintain his commitment to a party that helped him pass a controversial constitutional amendment – which former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s PTI said would weaken the independence of the judiciary – raises questions about the government’s credibility.
“It would be better if the government resolved this issue without creating more trouble,” Shahzad Iqbal, an Islamabad-based political analyst and news anchor, told Al Jazeera.
But that won’t be easy. The government, Iqbal said, appeared to be under “pressure from other quarters” over the bill.
In July, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, head of the Pakistani military’s media wing, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), had mentioned during a press conference that more than half of the country’s religious seminaries were not registered and their details, including the source of their funding, were unknown.
This, according to Lahore-based analyst Majid Nizami, is why the current debate over religious seminaries and their control could ultimately come down – “directly or indirectly” – to what Pakistan’s powerful military establishment wants. .
“The DGRE is led by a former major general with a long history of counterterrorism experience,” Nizami told Al Jazeera. “When and if a military establishment gives any approval, only then would political parties act accordingly. It is not a political concern; It is a military concern.”
