In a landmark meeting at the Prime Minister’s House, the top civilian and military leadership categorically conveyed to a delegation of clerics their intent of reforming the madrassas (religious seminaries) under the ambit of the National Action Plan (NAP). The agenda of the meeting was to push for registration of all seminaries, the audit of their funding sources and reform of their education curriculum and related activities. The meeting, which was chaired by Prime Minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif, was notable for the prence of the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Raheel Sharif, to underscore how the move to register and audit seminaries was intractably linked to Operation Zarb-e-Azb and the ongoing drive to root out extremists and terrorist networks throughout the country. The delegation of clerics in attendance were from the representative Itthed-e-Tanzeem-ul-Madaris, a coalition of five bodies of religious seminaries of different schools of thought, and their agreement to all points proposed and a vow of unconditional support to the NAP is another significant departure from failed initiatives of the past to bring the seminaries in line. The perception of seminaries in Pakistan over the past four decades has been that of extremist producing factories. The history of this turn in the character of seminaries is tied, like many other social ills plaguing Pakistan, to the Afghan war when the floodgate of Saudi petrodollars created thousands of madrassas propagating a very narrow Wahabbi ideology and serving as training grounds for mujahideen. Predictably, this state-sanctioned venture soon took on a life of its own and became the bane of the state’s existence as tens of thousands more of supremely well funded but unregistered, unregulated and hence uncontrollable seminaries kept popping up through the years and indoctrinating children with a hateful, divisive and sectarian outlook. Their organisational ability to push back and capacity to invoke mob action had so far ensured that the seminaries were untouchable and that despite belated action against terrorism on the military front, little was being done to combat the root cause of extremism. The popularity and influence of madrassas has been due to their capacity to fill the void left by a shambolic education and social welfare system. They promise free education, when public schools are either woefully inadequate or simply non-existent in many parts of the country, and provide food and lodging to the children at no cost to the poor parents struggling to make ends meet and feed their children. The deal offered is well nigh impossible to ignore for most poor families and thus enrolment in the seminaries is high. However, the education provided here is the militant version of Islam without offering any other learning. As a consequence generations of Pakistani children have been denied an opportunity to be anything other than a maulvi instilled with the values of the seminaries. Apart from the narrow path available to their students, their role in propagating extremism is undeniable. Two-thirds of suicide attackers in Punjab were found to be students of these seminaries. The past two decades in particular have been bloodied by sectarian wars birthed in the seminaries. As such, the failure hitherto to curb the extremist ideology and violence emanating from the seminaries was a gaping hole in the anti-terrorist strategy. The move by the present government, with the backing of the military, to finally bring the house in order can only be welcomed. The seriousness exhibited in implementing the NAP means that previously hostile clerics have to toe the line or suffer the state’s wrath, and though the discussions were cordial and the concerns of the Tanzeem were taken into account, they have been sternly warned about the fate of errant seminaries that do not restructure and persist with promoting extremism and sectarianism. The possibility of successfully rooting out extremism is necessarily tied to achieving success on this ideological battlefield. *