Abstract
The book, Religion, Community and Education, is an outcome of the doctoral research work submitted to Jawaharlal Nehru University in 2004, and was carried out in Purina and Patna districts in the state of Bihar. The book critically examines educational expansion and deprivation among the Muslims as compared to that of Hindus. It attempts to relocate the discourse of educational attainment and deprivation of Muslim community from the popular perception of religious orthodoxy framework to the scientific perspective in terms socio-economic strata and spatial location. The book considers that socio-economic strata and spatial location are more important factors in determining the educational participation of Muslim communities rather than the popular view that relates educational and developmental lag among Muslims to Islamic theology. The book also refutes the popular view prevailing in the society, and flagged by some researches, that refers to the reluctant attitude of Muslim towards modern education. This view propagates that the new education system is against the tradition and beliefs of Muslim communities and unsuited to their requirements. The author also rejects the popular view about Muslim community that generally sees Muslims as a homogenous aggregate and socio-economic equals.
The book is divided into two parts and eight chapters. The author underlines the importance of modern education and recognises the overall expansion of educational opportunities that has been achieved during past few decades, but at the same time, he also flags out the differences and discrepancies in educational development in the past six decades in terms of region, caste, tribe and religion and so on. The first chapter on ‘Inequalities in Education in India’ tries to locate the educational system as a sub-system of larger socio-economic and political system of the society. In author’s view, the present system of Indian education is not the outcome of single overwhelming factor but of interplay of variety of competing and complementary forces in complex ways. He also argues that persistence of various forms of disparities in the educational system is deeply embedded in wider structure and processes that have played an important role in shaping and reshaping educational policies and setting the direction of the development of Indian education system for centuries. Second chapter of the book, ‘Religion and Educational Inequalities’, critically examines the historical genesis of educational participation and disparities among the religious groups. The author avows that during the colonial period, Muslims were educationally better-off than other communities, particularly Hindus, wherever they were relatively better placed socially and economically. However, the post-colonial educational situation among the Muslims has not been satisfactory; they lag far behind from Hindus in terms of educational participation and attainment. The author claims that the degree of educational disadvantage of Muslim varies spatially, reflecting their varying social and economic situation.
The third chapter on ‘Religion and Education’ holds the view that educational attainment and deprivation across social groups/communities largely depends upon the differing levels of socio-economic status that impact the demand for education. According to the author, education, in general, attracts those social strata that are able to see tangible benefits of investing in education. In this context, he says that the size of social strata among the Muslims as compared to Hindus that usually goes in for education is very small. Thus, educational backwardness can be seen as an outcome of the small proportion of Muslims that traditionally value education. The chapter on ‘Unfolding the Context’ unfolds the macro context of educational participation in terms of social and economic opportunities. The author is of the view that access to educational and economic opportunities for different segment of society has been highly stratified and largely determined by the socio-economic and political processes.
The fifth chapter of the book is on ‘Religion and Educational Attainment’. In this chapter, the author presents the micro picture of educational attainment and deprivation among the two religious groups based on the primary data collected from the Phulwari block in Patna district and Kasba block in Purnia district. The author found remarkable variations in educational attainment and deprivation in terms of spatial location, gender and religion. The author suggests that rather than treating social groups as an undifferentiated aggregate, one should look into the spatial context in terms of developmental externalities in which these communities are placed. The next chapter, ‘Unpacking Differential Access to Education’, advances the discussions of the hypothesised associations between religious locations and educational attainment and deprivation with empirical evidence in more complex ways. The last chapter of the work presents summary and conclusions on the hypothesised associations, findings and discussions of the study. The bibliography of the book is very exhaustive but it requires some editing exercise, particularly the title of reports and books and year of the publication.
Finally, with several limitations, the book provides a new approach to understand the backwardness and deprivation of education among the Muslims as a community compared to other communities, particularly Hindus. In this context, the author suggests that rather than posting religious groups—Hindus and/or Muslims—as undifferentiated analytical categories, one should ask that which strata (community) and which locations are being interrogated in terms of religious influence on various attributes, including educational attainment, rather than advancing meta-narrative or blueprints of religious essentialism.