IT is a strange situation: an interior minister who is not exactly known for his hostility towards the conservative segments of society is still struggling to convince, and being openly contradicted by, the representatives of the country’s madressah networks.

Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan has once again suggested that the federal government is on the verge of reaching an agreement with the five major madressah networks in the country to document and regulate religious schools, a suggestion that the networks’ leaders have already seemingly rejected.

Also read: Nisar claims accord with madressahs

It is perhaps worth revisiting first principles here: in a country where no other educational system is outside the purview of state regulation, why should the madressah networks be a class apart?

There is no obvious answer to that question, notwithstanding the claim by madressah representatives that the matter ought to fall in the provincial purview, as opposed to the federal.

The appeal to the provincial domain is an obvious attempt to avoid regulation all together — the calculation being that what cannot be enforced at the federal level is unlikely to be pushed through at varied provincial levels. But the ploys should not allowed to be endless.

A decade ago, the Musharraf regime also attempted to regulate madressahs, but was quickly thwarted by intense political opposition — and a dictator’s fear of being on the wrong side of religious lobbies that helped originally solidify his power.

A decade later, after the worst atrocity in the country’s history — the APS Peshawar attack — the country’s political and military leadership drew up a National Action Plan that specifically required that madressahs be “regularised and reformed”.

Yet, the latest efforts too were resisted by madressah representatives, who latched on inter-ministerial rivalries and have tried to play the religious affairs ministry against the interior ministry, a ruse meant to delay registration and oversight.

Clearly, not all madressahs are hotbeds of extremism or sponsors of terror. But just as clearly some madressahs and their patrons are agents of extremism and sponsors of terror.

It is, therefore, not only absurd to claim that madressahs ought to continue to avoid regulation, but that somehow the simple act of enumeration and basic oversight will undermine the rights and freedoms of religious lobbies in the country. What is that the madressah networks are truly afraid of?

It is simply inconceivable that regularisation and reform will prevent fundamental religious education from being imparted in the country. But if regularisation and reform can lead to successes on the counter-extremism front and breakthroughs in counterterrorism, is there really any moral or legal justification for resisting change?

Ultimately, it will come down to resolve by the government. Like the Musharraf regime, the last PPP government too tried to document and regulate the madressah networks, but then backed down in the name of political expediency.

The present PML-N government has at least one advantage over previous administrations: the consensus NAP. Chaudhry Nisar has a penchant for thundering against sundry opponents; surely he can prevail against recalcitrant madressah networks.

Published in Dawn, February 15th, 2016