West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari on Thursday set a target of establishing at least 1,000 schools run by the RSS-affiliated Vidya Bharati education wing in every district, municipality and panchayat across the state within a year. He also proposed bringing the state's four education departments under one administration and said there would be no separate administrative arrangement for madrassa education.
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Suvendu Adhikari asks Vidya Bharati to expand
Adhikari made the remarks at an event held at the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture to mark the 74th anniversary of Vidya Bharati. He asked Vidya Bharati to take responsibility for what he described as "nationalistic learning" and invited its senior officials to the state secretariat to meet government officials and work on the plan.
West Bengal currently has 313 Vidya Bharati schools. Across India, the organisation runs more than 12,000 schools and 10,000 Bal Sanskar Kendras. Adhikari said he wanted Vidya Bharati to focus on increasing its presence in Murshidabad and South 24 Parganas. He alleged that "more anti-national activities take place" in these two districts.
CM attacks previous TMC government
Adhikari accused the previous TMC government of damaging the state's education environment. He said organisations such as Vidya Bharati would have to "help the state come out of this".
He also accused the TMC government of changing the Bengali syllabus in a way that, according to him, divided people.
"Mother was referred to as 'amma' and not 'ma'... The syllabus was created in such a way that Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar's or Swami Vivekananda's lessons remained neglected..."
Proposal for one education administration
Referring to Syama Prasad Mookerjee's call of "ek desh, ek bidhan, ek nishan, ek pradhan", Adhikari said the same principle should apply to education. "We won't allow an arrangement where the higher education department will look after all universities, while another department will look after Aliah University," he said.
Aliah University is currently managed by the state's minority affairs department. Adhikari also referred to the felicitation of board exam toppers and questioned why the minority affairs department had later sent a separate list of Muslim students.
"I felicitated the board toppers. Later, the minority affairs department sent a separate file containing the names of 27 Muslim students. I asked why? ... I have already felicitated 20 students, and they include Muslims, Jains and Buddhists."
What Vidya Bharati schools teach
Vidya Bharati official Anand Rao told TOI that its schools teach students "bharatiyatwa (Indianness)" along with puja rituals. The schools operate at different levels. Some run up to Class 5, while others offer education up to Classes 8, 10 or 12.
According to the Vidya Bharati Akhil Bhartiya Shiksha Sansthan website, its stated vision is "to develop a system of education which would help build a younger generation committed to Hindutva and infused with patriotic fervour".
