Appendix G:
The Promotion of Bigotry: Sangh Parivar/IDRF's Contributions
to Education
Considerable documentation exists outside of this report on the
communalization of education in India. [141]
This Appendix therefore is not aimed at developing an overall
analysis of the RSS inspired communalization of education. Its
intention are more narrowly focused on the nature of communalized
education being spread by some Sangh organizations that are directly
funded by IDRF. Accordingly, we focus on three IDRF funded Sangh
organizations: Vidya Bharati, Sewa Dham, and the Bharatiya Education
Society/Trust.
G.1 Vidya Bharati
The Vidya Bharati is the Sangh’s leading organization in
the area of education and runs several schools including Saraswati
Shishu Mandirs. IDRF funds have been given to many schools affiliated
with Vidya Bharati.
A sampling of ‘Sanskrit Gyan’ textbooks used in Vidya
Bharati and Shishu Mandir schools offers some startling revelations
[142]. The students
are presented with ‘facts’ such as:
- Homer adapted Valmiki’s Ramayana
into an epic called Iliad,
- The language of the Native American Indians
evolved from ancient Indian languages
- a map of India which includes not only
Pakistan and Bangladesh but also the entire region of Bhutan,
Nepal, Tibet and even parts of Myanmar.
These sample “facts” from the Sanskrit Gyan textbooks
are picked to show the extent to which the project of building
Hindu pride is taken to. Once we comprehend that claims are being
made over Homer and Native Americans then it is not difficult
to understand that the ancient Indian history that students are
taught is closer to mythology, while medieval history is totally
communalized. Islam is made out to be a violent and militant religion,
and Muslims are depicted as intolerant rulers. In modern history,
glory is placed upon the RSS, which is shown as being central
to the Freedom movement. Inflammatory, anti-Muslim literature,
which had been banned earlier for inciting communal passions,
makes its way into the literary texts in these schools.
State institutions have for some time taken note of these gross
distortions and raised concern over it. An article in, Frontline,
a leading mainstream magazine records this concern:
In 1996, the National Council of Educational
Research and Training (NCERT) conducted an evaluation of school
textbooks, including those prescribed in Vidya Bharati schools
in the country; it was reported that there were 6,000 such schools
with 12 lakh children on their rolls under the tutelage of 40,000
teachers. The NCERT made the alarming
diagnosis that many of the Vidya Bharati textbooks were ‘designed
to promote bigotry and religious fanaticism in the name of inculcating
knowledge of culture in the young generation.’ The
evaluation found it a matter of ‘serious concern’
that such material was being utilised for instruction in schools
which, ‘presumably, have been accorded recognition (emphasis
added) [143]
Of course, more recently, the NCERT itself has been gutted with
most liberal intellectuals removed from the Council and the Council’s
leadership being handed over to an Hindutva ideologue. [144]
G.2 Sewa Dham (Delhi)
Sewa Dham is also one of the educational organizations of the
Sangh funded by the IDRF. The level of distortion and bigotry
prompted attention from the New York Times. An article by Somini
Sengupta who visited the Sewa Dham school concludes:
Education is a centerpiece of the Hindu
revivalist campaign, which is natural, considering its cause:
to build a Hindu nation out of what is officially a secular
country with rights accorded to religious minorities.
The school curriculum, as we saw in the case of Vidya Bharati,
promotes mythology as history where “Lord Ram, the blue-skinned
warrior-king of Hindu lore, lived 886,000 years ago,” a
conclusion based on ''ancient texts and astrology.” Further
Ram is described as “the source of inspiration for Indian
culture'' and a Hindu golden era is constructed as one that dates
back to the “time of the Indus Valley civilization of the
third millennium B.C.” Furthermore, the students are also
fed the Sangh propaganda about its campaigns. Sengupta records
the contents of a quiz for eighth graders as follows:
[it] tests their knowledge of the continuing
campaign to build a Hindu temple in Ayodhya, the mythical birthplace
of Ram, where Hindu militants razed a 16th-century mosque in
1992. Students are grilled on everything from the date on which
the temple reconstruction movement began to the names of those
killed by the police [145]
G.3 Bharatiya Education Society
The Bharatiya Education Society is an RSS School in Rajasthan.
While we have already documented the elevation of mythology to
the status of history and the communal bigotry in the RSS curriculum,
we include this report on BES to point to the fact that regressive
education goes beyond these parameters and includes the construction
of women in specific ways. A Christian Science Monitor describes
education in this school as follows:
Students get a large dose of ‘Hindutva’
values - teachings that argue for the preeminence of India's
5,000- year-old civilization. Girls learn that Hindu females
are at their best as mothers. ‘The woman has a special
place in the home,’ says Jagdish Prasad Gujar, the principal
of BET. ‘Our women, our mothers, help to keep India strong.[146]
The conclusions again are apparent. Education clearly is a critical
component in the Sangh’s efforts to build a Hindu Rashtra
and the IDRF contributes significantly to the creation of infrastructure
and promotion of a curriculum that can without exaggeration be
described as bigoted.
141. Most recently, a well
documented and brilliant analysis, Prejudice and Pride by Krishna
Kumar, Penguin India, 2002
142.
In
the Name of History: Examples from Hindutva-inspired school textbooks
in India, Akhbar
143.
A
Spreading Network, by Venkitesh Ramakrishnan, Frontline, Nov 7-20,
1998
144.
Reading
the NCERT Framework, by Balmurli Natrajan, Rahul De' and Biju
Mathew, Ghadar, Volume 5: Number 1, Feb 21 2002
145.
Hindu Right Goes to School to Build a
Nation, Somini Sengupta, New York Times, May 13, 2002
146.
Hindu-based
education, going strong, Robert Marquand, Christian Science Monitor,
Feb 16th, 2001 |
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