Assam minister and senior BJP leader Himanta Biswa Sarma on Monday said that the state cabinet has decided to make education secular in state. Hence, 198 high madarsas and 542 other madarsas in Assam will be operating as general educational institute. He further said that these institutes will not give admission to students for theological studies.
In February 2020, in a significant decision, the Assam government had announced that the government is shutting all state-run madarsas and Sanskrit tols. Sarma, at that time, said that it is not the government’s job to teach religion, religious scriptures, Arabic and other languages for religious purposes.
There are around 1000 state-run madarsas in Assam and that the state spends about Rs 260 crore annually on them. Sarma had earlier said that the state govt evaluated the situation, and decided that the state should not teach or preach Quran using public money. He said that due to the presence of state-run madarsas, there were demands from some organisations to teach Bhagawada Gita and Bible as well in the schools but it was not feasible to run schools as per all religious scriptures.