1988-89 - The state government, alarmed at the 'obscurantist' syllabi followed by madarsas in West Bengal, pushes through a series of reforms. A few hundred madarsas are granted affiliation by the West Bengal Madarsa Board and the syllabus is updated to reflect changing times. 2002: The same government, which once gave affiliation to numerous madarsas, is confronted by a rising number of madarsas which don't apply to the Madarsa Board for affiliation. The syllabus they teach is similar to the one taught in madarsas in 1987 before they were recognised as participants in a bona fide educational system. The government, which kept its eyes shut to the problem for more than a decade, suddenly wakes up and talks tough. Honest intentions recoiling or vote-bank calculations gone awry? The upgradation of the syllabus for Bengal's madarsas more than a decade ago has actually 'pushed' students into the arms of unaffiliated madarsas in four districts having the largest concentration of centres for Islamic studies, the results of a survey conducted by the Union government reveal. This, according to senior home department officials, is the single report that forms the basis of the administration's 'anxiety' over the mushrooming of unauthorised madarsas in Murshidabad, Malda and North and South Dinajpur. The growing number of such madarsas - opened without the administration's permission and over which the state has no control at all - indicates their popularity and the abiding attraction of the curriculum that concentrates purely on Islamic and Arabic literature. And, for once, the maulvis teaching in the madarsas of Bengal's madarsa district - Murshidabad - agree. 'We have witnessed a growing interest in Islamic studies,' says a senior faculty member of Jamia Anwar-ul-Ulum, an unaffiliated madarsa operating out of a village near Dhuliyan, one of the state's poorest regions. The 'pressure' on the madarsa to accept students is more because of the area's proximity to Pakur - famous for its stone quarries - which is an equally poverty-ridden belt now falling within the boundaries of Jharkhand, he explains. 'Most Muslims, even today, want their children to have a thorough grounding in Islamic literature,' the elderly maulvi says, corroborating the Union government report. 'The number of mosques and madarsas is increasing and there is a dearth of well-taught maulvis and ulemas,' he adds. The Bengal government brought the syllabus of the state's madarsas on a par with that taught in the Madhyamik course in the academic year 198889 and granted affiliation to most of them. The purely Islamic and Arabic syllabus made way for subjects such as maths and geography, with only a 350mark chunk of the 1000mark syllabus reserved for Arabic, and government appointed teachers were sent to the madarsas in an effort to modernise education. Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf is undertaking a similar exercise now. But it's an effort that looks defeated in Bengal. The mushrooming of Murshidabad's unrecognised madarsas started in the early 1990s. 'A section of Muslim parents waited for some time before deciding that old was gold,' Baharuddin Ahmed, a teacher at a madarsa in Dhuliyan, said. ShagiruzZaman, a teacher at the neighbouring Jamia Rahmania madarsa, bears out his colleague's statement. Zaman, who passed out from the institute where he is a member of the faculty now, says he himself is an example of the state government's 'ill directed' efforts to 'streamline' madarsa education. Some things are best left to Allah, he says, as he explains that his madarsa's recent efforts to introduce English and Bengali as subjects along with the Quran and other Islamic literature could be behind the exodus it has seen over the past few years. 'We now have only 250 students, down to almost a third of the 700 figure we had even a few years ago,' he says. 'Many Muslims still like places where their children will learn only Islam,' he adds. No one, however - neither officials nor the teachers of Quran - would acknowledge the economic angle to the growth of religious schools. Madarsas are often the last resort of children from poor families because they at least get a decent meal - almost gratis - thrice a day. Add to that the promise of a fixed salary - in another unaffiliated madarsa or the local mosque - in times when postgraduate degrees are no longer guarantees for government jobs and you have a milieu that encourages subterfuge and obscurantism.