The teachers work in religious schools in the state of Uttar Pradesh, which is ruled by the Hindu nationalist party led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and the move comes before Modi seeks a third consecutive term in the general elections scheduled by May.
Iftikhar Ahmed Javed, head of the Uttar Pradesh state school education board, told Reuters that more than 21,000 teachers were set to lose their jobs. “Muslim students and teachers will go back 30 years.”
Muslims are a minority in Hindu-majority India, representing about 14 percent of the population of 1.42 billion people, and making up about a fifth of the population of the state of Uttar Pradesh.
Rights groups such as Human Rights Watch say nationalist groups have threatened and harassed Muslims and other religious minorities with impunity under Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, charges the party denies.
The Indian “Reuters” website published that, according to a document seen by Reuters, the Indian government stopped funding the program, called the Plan to Provide Quality Education in Schools, in March 2022.
The document released by the Minority Affairs Ministry shows that the Modi government did not approve any new proposals from states under the program between the 2017/18 and 2020/21 financial years, before shutting it down completely.
Modi’s government raised funding for the program to a record level of about three billion rupees ($36 million) in the fiscal year ending March 2016. His office did not respond to a request for comment.
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