The secular cover-up
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Clad in a black burqa, the biology teacher walks briskly into a classroom where seventh-graders greet her with a noisy chorus of assalamu
alaikum. The teacher, lifting her face veil, embarks on her lecture on the food chain and regales her students with facts about the predatory habits of different animals. After the class, she leaves the room, vanishing into a group of identically dressed women teachers relaxing in the common room downstairs.
This scene could well belong to any moribund Muslim-run madrassa or maktab anywhere in the country, but it doesn't. The school in question is the Al-Jamiatul Fikriya, an Islamic international school run from a three-storied building at Mazgaon in Mumbai; more importantly, the burqa-clad teacher is not a Muslim but a Maharashtrian Hindu called Shefali Shirodkar. And Shirodkar isn't alone - she's one of half a dozen Hindu teachers who observe full purdah while they are on the premises of the school.
While liberal men and liberated women in the Muslim community desperately want to tear off the custom of wearing the "oppressive" burqa or hijab, these Hindu women seem to have no issues with it and even claim they are "comfortable" in its voluminous folds. "As a teacher, my job is to impart education. Why should a burqa be a barrier in giving education?" asks Shirodkar, who joined the school in 2008 and claims that she immensely enjoys her job along with the Islamic dress code. So does Rakhi Hawale, the school's librarian, who, however , was a bit hesitant when she first donned the tent-like gown five years ago. "I tripped a few times initially, but now I wear it with the ease of my Muslim colleagues," says Hawale who is unmarried and hasn't given a thought to whether her future spouse will object to her wearing a burqa. "I convinced my parents and hopefully will be able to convince my husband too," she smiles.
Suhail Sheikh, the school's founder, claims he is just following the Islamic principle of justice which does not allow a Muslim to discriminate against his or her non-Muslim employees. "These teachers were recruited after rounds of interviews. We told them about the Islamic dress code in advance. I think it's a healthy trend that non-Muslims have started teaching in Islamic schools," explains 41-year-old Sheikh, who himself is not highly educated but values education a lot. "It's open to everyone," he says of his school. "I hope we'll soon have non-Muslim students too."
It was this 'secular' approach of the school management that attracted retired colonel N S Rawat to the administrator's job here a year ago. "I have served in the army, which is one of the most secular institutions in our country. I also saw this job as an opportunity to understand Islam and Muslims better," he says. For the 30-odd faculty and other staff and 300 students, from standard one to ten, studying Islam is part of the ritual. So, from the morning assembly, when a hymn in Urdu is chanted loudly, to the quotes from the Quran and the Hadith written prominently on the walls, the school wears Islam as a mascot.
Both Hindu and Muslim teachers see their tenure here as a unique opportunity to bridge the communal chasm. "I knew very little about Islam and Muslims before I joined here," says Reema Dicholkar, who teaches Marathi. Dicholkar says her students - boys in kurta-pyjama and skullcaps and girls above the fifth standard in mandatory burqas - are curious to know about Hinduism. "They listen to stories from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata with rapt attention. Just as I like to hear stories about the Prophet, they are interested in stories about Hindu gods and goddesses," says Dicholkar, who was a little hesitant about working in an Islamic school when she was offered the job a few years ago. "For me it was an alien world. I never had a Muslim friend or neighbour. I thought Muslims were angry and violent. Many of my relatives didn't approve of it, but my father backed me, and now I enjoy my job," says Dicholkar who lives in Lalbaug, a Maharashtrian Hindu hub in Mumbai.
The first two hours of the day are devoted to Islamic teachings, imparted by maulanas, most of them graduates of the Islamic seminary Darul Uloom at Deoband (UP). The school, which follows two syllabi - those of the Maharashtra Board and Cambridge University's International General Certificate Education (IGCE) - despite its orthodox discipline, has instilled modern ambitions in its students. Says Mehek Beg, 9th-standard student: "I am interested in science and want to become an astronaut." When asked if the burqa will be a barrier in achieving her goal, she ripostes: "The burqa is not a barrier to my Hindu teachers, who had never worn it before they stepped in here. It should not be a hurdle on my way to becoming an astronaut, Inshallah ." To which, everyone, including chinky-eyed Beg's Hindu teachers, nod.
  ALL’S VEIL: The half-a-dozen Hindu teachers at the Al-Jamiatul Fikriya school in Mumbai say the veil doesn’t come in the way of education | |||||||||||||||
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This scene could well belong to any moribund Muslim-run madrassa or maktab anywhere in the country, but it doesn't. The school in question is the Al-Jamiatul Fikriya, an Islamic international school run from a three-storied building at Mazgaon in Mumbai; more importantly, the burqa-clad teacher is not a Muslim but a Maharashtrian Hindu called Shefali Shirodkar. And Shirodkar isn't alone - she's one of half a dozen Hindu teachers who observe full purdah while they are on the premises of the school.
While liberal men and liberated women in the Muslim community desperately want to tear off the custom of wearing the "oppressive" burqa or hijab, these Hindu women seem to have no issues with it and even claim they are "comfortable" in its voluminous folds. "As a teacher, my job is to impart education. Why should a burqa be a barrier in giving education?" asks Shirodkar, who joined the school in 2008 and claims that she immensely enjoys her job along with the Islamic dress code. So does Rakhi Hawale, the school's librarian, who, however , was a bit hesitant when she first donned the tent-like gown five years ago. "I tripped a few times initially, but now I wear it with the ease of my Muslim colleagues," says Hawale who is unmarried and hasn't given a thought to whether her future spouse will object to her wearing a burqa. "I convinced my parents and hopefully will be able to convince my husband too," she smiles.
Suhail Sheikh, the school's founder, claims he is just following the Islamic principle of justice which does not allow a Muslim to discriminate against his or her non-Muslim employees. "These teachers were recruited after rounds of interviews. We told them about the Islamic dress code in advance. I think it's a healthy trend that non-Muslims have started teaching in Islamic schools," explains 41-year-old Sheikh, who himself is not highly educated but values education a lot. "It's open to everyone," he says of his school. "I hope we'll soon have non-Muslim students too."
It was this 'secular' approach of the school management that attracted retired colonel N S Rawat to the administrator's job here a year ago. "I have served in the army, which is one of the most secular institutions in our country. I also saw this job as an opportunity to understand Islam and Muslims better," he says. For the 30-odd faculty and other staff and 300 students, from standard one to ten, studying Islam is part of the ritual. So, from the morning assembly, when a hymn in Urdu is chanted loudly, to the quotes from the Quran and the Hadith written prominently on the walls, the school wears Islam as a mascot.
Both Hindu and Muslim teachers see their tenure here as a unique opportunity to bridge the communal chasm. "I knew very little about Islam and Muslims before I joined here," says Reema Dicholkar, who teaches Marathi. Dicholkar says her students - boys in kurta-pyjama and skullcaps and girls above the fifth standard in mandatory burqas - are curious to know about Hinduism. "They listen to stories from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata with rapt attention. Just as I like to hear stories about the Prophet, they are interested in stories about Hindu gods and goddesses," says Dicholkar, who was a little hesitant about working in an Islamic school when she was offered the job a few years ago. "For me it was an alien world. I never had a Muslim friend or neighbour. I thought Muslims were angry and violent. Many of my relatives didn't approve of it, but my father backed me, and now I enjoy my job," says Dicholkar who lives in Lalbaug, a Maharashtrian Hindu hub in Mumbai.
The first two hours of the day are devoted to Islamic teachings, imparted by maulanas, most of them graduates of the Islamic seminary Darul Uloom at Deoband (UP). The school, which follows two syllabi - those of the Maharashtra Board and Cambridge University's International General Certificate Education (IGCE) - despite its orthodox discipline, has instilled modern ambitions in its students. Says Mehek Beg, 9th-standard student: "I am interested in science and want to become an astronaut." When asked if the burqa will be a barrier in achieving her goal, she ripostes: "The burqa is not a barrier to my Hindu teachers, who had never worn it before they stepped in here. It should not be a hurdle on my way to becoming an astronaut, Inshallah ." To which, everyone, including chinky-eyed Beg's Hindu teachers, nod.
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