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Business News/ Education / News/  Smriti Irani meets heads of RSS education wings
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Smriti Irani meets heads of RSS education wings

BJP leader says regular meetings will be held so that govt officers are aware of concerns of RSS organizations

VHP leader Ashok Singhal, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, HRD minister Smriti Irani and environment minister Prakash Javadekar at BJP leader (3rd from right) Vijay Sonkar Shastri’s book release function in New Delhi on Sunday. RSS leaders met Irani on Thursday to improve coordination between the BJP-led government and the RSS. Photo: Hindustan TimesPremium
VHP leader Ashok Singhal, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, HRD minister Smriti Irani and environment minister Prakash Javadekar at BJP leader (3rd from right) Vijay Sonkar Shastri’s book release function in New Delhi on Sunday. RSS leaders met Irani on Thursday to improve coordination between the BJP-led government and the RSS. Photo: Hindustan Times

New Delhi: Fears of politicizing education to suit the Hindu right-wing interests were rekindled on Thursday, when leaders of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its education wings met Smriti Irani, the country’s education minister.

The meeting was attended by the RSS general secretaries Suresh Soni and Dattatreya Hosabale, Vidya Bharati official Dinanath Batra and members of Saraswati Shishu Mandir, another education wing of the RSS.

A senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) official, who is also part of the RSS, however, said the meeting was held to improve coordination between the government and the ruling party’s ideological parent.

“There is need for a better coordination between the government and the RSS and it was felt that regular meetings should be held so that representatives of the government are made aware of concerns of organizations affiliated to the RSS. This meeting can be described as coordination meeting, lobby group or pressure group," the official said.

In a similar meeting on 28 October, RSS-affiliated organizations—the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), Swadeshi Jagran Manch (the economics unit), Laghu Udyog Bharati (for small-scale industries), the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (the farmers’ union) and Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram (which works with tribals) had met Piyush Goyal, minister of power, coal and renewable energy; Radha Mohan Singh, agriculture minister; Prakash Javadekar, environment minister; labour minister Narendra Singh Tomar and Sanjeev Balyan, minister of state for agriculture.

“These are the first in the series of meetings planned between the government and organizations affiliated with the RSS," said the BJP leader cited above. “During the time of the first government of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the relations between the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government and RSS-affiliated organizations had soured and organizations like the Swadeshi Jagran Manch and the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh had openly opposed steps of the government. These meetings are an attempt to stop such friction between the government and these organizations," the BJP leader added.

Concerns of saffronization were last raised during the first stint of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government from 1999 to 2004. The education ministry, then under Murli Manohar Joshi, had faced criticism for alleged attempts to rewrite the history books.

As in NDA-I, the HRD ministry is believed to be taking a fresh look at the education sector to correct perceived errors, which some see as out of sync with the cultural and religious history of India. “Some synergy is missing and it’s being looked at," said a government official, who also requested anonymity. A second government official said, “I don’t think it should be termed saffronization of education. We met them as they also have educational institutions."

The meeting closely follows another development where the HRD ministry tried to accommodate RSS interests at educational institutions.

In early October, the ministry received a bunch of letters from RSS-linked outfits complaining against non-vegetarian food being served at Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). The ministry forwarded the letters to IITs.

“On this regard, please inform the ministry what steps have been taken on those letters," the ministry wrote to IITs and IIMs on 15 October. Mint has seen a copy of the letter to the IITs.

Sankarlal Satyendra Kumar Jain, who wrote one of the letters to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah, and Irani said there were two reasons why he wrote them. Non-vegetarian food, he said, affects the religious sentiments of the Jain community and by eating non-vegetarian food, Indians were getting disconnected from their cultural roots.

IITs and other such institutions were promoting Western culture through food, said Jain, who claims to be an RSS member. Serving eggs, fish, mutton and chicken were putting students to much inconvenience and are taking them away from Indian culture, said Jain in his letter written in Hindi. Mint has reviewed a copy of his letter as well.

Sharad Kumar Gupta, dean of students at IIT-Delhi, said they are looking into the letters from the ministry and the general public. “We shall reply to the ministry soon. As such at IIT-Delhi, we are not serving non-veg food for the last five months, and this has nothing to do with the ministry letter," Gupta said.

Abhay Kumar Dubey, director (Indian languages programme) Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, (CSDS) said the BJP government will follow the diktats of RSS in the education sector, but on the economic issues and labour reforms, genetically modified food crops, there will be conflict. RSS is anti-globalization; BJP, on the other hand, has globalization agenda, said Dubey. The RSS had earlier come out in defence of the government and had asked its affiliates not to criticise the economic policies of the government for at least one year, he said.

“Whatever government decision comes, we will respond appropriately at that time," said Ajay Maken, spokesperson and general secretary of the Congress party, told reporters when asked about RSS leaders meeting Union ministers.

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Published: 30 Oct 2014, 11:53 PM IST
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