“When Classrooms Become Battlefields: How Some Madrassas Turn Young Minds Towards Islamic Radicalism”, Goa Chronicles, November 25, 2025
“Some debates are unsettling not because they are unimportant but because they demand the courage to confront uncomfortable truths. In India, we speak often about terrorism, occasionally about radicalism, but rarely do we examine where both begin. The origin is not the training camp – it is, in some cases, the classroom. Some madrassas, far from their intended role of imparting religious wisdom and moral grounding, have become silent nurseries of ideological conditioning, planting seeds of hatred and resentment in young minds long before they develop the capacity for rational thought.
Let me be very clear: this is not a blanket indictment of madrassas or of the Muslim community. Many madrassas across India are centres of spiritual discipline and genuine religious scholarship, producing scholars, leaders, and community-minded individuals who advocate peace. However, to ignore that some madrassas have deviated from this path, functioning instead as ideological factories, would be an act of intellectual dishonesty and national irresponsibility.
A child is born without hate. Hatred is not natural; it is nurtured. It is taught, repeated, reinforced. In radicalised madrassas, students are made to memorise texts without understanding, conditioned to believe that the world is divided between the faithful and the infidel, and systematically trained to perceive difference as danger. They are not educated to ask questions but to defend answers…….”
Read full article at goachronicle.com
