The sweep of Hindutva seems to have seeped into the very vitals of the education system in Gujarat. At least one overzealous principal of a grant-in-aid secondary and higher secondary school in a village in North Gujarat’s Banaskantha district demonstrated this through a message of sorts on the school’s notice board under the head “India’s National Symbols” in celebration of the 73rdRepublic Day on Wednesday.
Among other things, the common blackboard at the school declared: “India’s National Religion: Hindutva”. The inscriptions with beautiful handwriting in Gujarati had two other bloomers. The school wants us to believe that India’s national anthem (rashtriya geet) is “Vande Mataram” and national song (rashtriya gaan) is “Jan Gana Mana…”.
It also says the country’s national calendar is “Vikram Samvat”, which is essentially a Gujarati calendar, while India’s “Rashtriya Lipi (national script)” is Devanagari.
School principal Deepak Joshi, who took charge in the school at Kumbhasan village in Banaskantha district a year ago, used to teach Gujarati language at another school in Palanpur before that.
A Gujarat Congress spokesperson, Manhar Patel, who has raised this issue and posted it on his Facebook page, claimed that the school principal was reportedly from an RSS background. “Leave the background, this only reflects how low Gujarat’s educational standards had stooped to. If this was put up on the school notice board on the Republic Day, you can only imagine what they must be teaching the students,” Patel asserted.
When asked by Vibes of India if the pictures and the videos he had shared were of today (Wednesday) and not morphed, Patel sent Time Stamped pictures and videos embedded with 26/01/2022, 12.57 p.m. Patel, who is home quarantined in Bopal in Ahmedabad battling Covid-19, said, “Local Congress leaders must have gone to attend the Republic Day function of the village that was taking place in the school. They took the pictures and sent them to me. In fact, they told me they drew the attention of the school trustees towards this but they didn’t pay any heed.”
Unable to reach the District Collector or the District Education Officer, Vibes of India contacted Taluka Development Officer Abhishek Parmar, who said, “I have not come across any such information, but I will find out.”
Gujarat’s Education Secretary Vinod Rao was shocked to hear this. He told Vibes of India, “If the school has really put this and if the photo of the blackboard is genuine and of today, I will seek the explanation of the District Education Officer.” He also wanted to know, “how come a primary school was open since all primary classes are closed because of Covid-19 restrictions,” and said he would inquire into this too.
When pointed out that there was no religion like Hindutva, Vinod Rao said, “India has no national religion. It is a secular country and there can’t be anything like a national religion.”
બસ હવે રાષ્ટ્રીય દેવ જાહેર કરી દો
शिक्षा विभाग सचिव का अभिवादन, कि उन्होंने संज्ञान लेने को कहा, और भारत में राष्ट्रीय स्तर पर नोटिफाइड कोई धर्म नहीं।