By raking Good Governance Day controversy it looks as if the agenda of saffronisation of education is being carried forward slowly. Within just weeks of being sworn in as a minister, Smriti Irani reportedly formed a committee for studying the ancient Upanishads and Vedas, and choose the appropriate texts emphasising the Hindu contribution to science, mathematics and philosophy. What relevance even the minister may not be knowing. Even she may not have seen the scriptures in its original form and what to talk of bringing them into the school curricula. Issuing a circular to the effect that students attend school on Christmas Day under the guise of observing Good Governance Day is another move on the same direction. This Christmas Day controversy, which has now led to the opposition threatening to move privilege motions against Irani and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Venkaiah Naidu for misleading the House, has once again revealed the perils of an inexperienced minister being asked to lead one of the most complex and unwieldy ministries in the country. For too long the HRD Ministry – set up in 1985, a behemoth of departments and bureaucrats and once described as Rajiv Gandhi’s folly – has been used by different governments to either impose ideological agendas or unnecessarily meddle with school and higher education. India is already far behind Western countries in research and technology innovations and such bizarre thoughts from the senior leaders of the country will only widen the gap and weaken India’s opportunity to emerge as a world leader. RSS’ agenda of saffronising education is completely against the basic premise of the National Curriculum Framework for Education 2005 (NCF) constitutional vision of India as a secular, egalitarian and pluralistic society, founded on the values of social justice and equality. There is thus a crying need for infrastructure, quality and autonomy in education. Let the spirit of festivity continue without any political interference or religious bias and children enjoy Christmas, and let the Human Resource Development Ministry focus on creating infrastructure and facilitator of capacity building and not as a dictator of good governance.
