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Document Type

Article

Abstract

Madrasas, traditional Islamic institutions, in India, as elsewhere, have sought to negotiate modernity as well as their identity by introducing modern disciplines like English in their curricula without trying to dilute their essentially religious character. In this article, I attempt to capture and reflect on the socio-psychodynamics of English education in contemporary madrasas in the Malayalam-speaking South Indian state of Kerala. In doing so, the locus as well as focus of analysis will be Darul Huda Islamic University, a twenty-five year old Islamic institution in Malappuram, a district of the largest Muslim population in Kerala. This university and its fifteen affiliates across the state with a combined strength of over 4,000 students at levels ranging from preparatory to postgraduate present a microcosm of “modern model madrasas” that have caught the imagination of the public in Keralite Islam. Embracing English and resisting its cultural baggage, I argue, have been a litmus test for the graduates of this university and their struggles, whether successful or not, to cope with a love-hate relationship with English, a language they are drawn to, yet warned against, have far-reaching consequences for their future endeavours as ulema, professional or not. The article, based also on my own encounter with English whilst at this university, borders on the auto-ethnographical and engages certain questions about the precarious standing of English studies in the Indian classroom. Rather than answering those questions in any significant, determined fashion, the article, however, offers a point of departure for further, much more concerted auto/ethnographic research in this regard. In other words, the article is less an experimental design than a conceptual analysis.

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