In the immediate aftermath of the last general election no more than six months ago ... a group of political leaders ... had argued vehemently that the BJP, having failed to win a clear majority in the Lok Sabha, should be prevented, "at all costs", from forming a Government at the Centre. They had tried, as best as they could, to back their words with deeds. But they were defeated, and not merely because of the logic of the numbers game. In the mood then prevailing, there were not many buyers of their "core" argument that once in power, the saffron party would loss no time to undermine or subvert, overtly or covertly, the country's basic value system of pluralism, secularism, tolerance of diversity and promotion of a liberal and modern outlook, enshrined in the Constitution and hitherto upheld by successive governments, however, imperfectly.

Political parties and groups that held the balance at the time evidently shared the opinion of a fairly large section of people, not necessarily sympathetic to the BJP's ideology, that power will bring responsibility, and with it will come moderation and restraint ... The groupings which opted to support the BJP-led ruling coalition within ... or without, acted primarily on the basis of political calculation. But this was facilitated, and even lent respectability, by faith in the taming properties of power, coupled with the consideration that the two other major political formations, the Congress(I) and the United Front, having been tested and found wanting, the BJP deserved a "chance".

Today, in the wake of the frightening fiasco at the Conference of State Education Ministers, the earlier situation has been turned on its head. Expectations of restraint and moderation and fond hopes that the unprepossessing features of the Hindutva agenda would be jettisoned have been bailed cruelly. Those who had warned that the very fact of the State power passing into the hands of the BJP would mean danger, if not disaster, cannot be blamed for declaring: "He told you so."

The sordid story of the abortive attempt to impose Hindutva on the Indian education system - in the name of "Indianising, nationalising and spiritualising" it ... is by non-well-known. It is equally clear that Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi's retreat from the present project, in the face of vigorous protests by Education Ministers of 22 States, including Punjab and Andhra Pradesh which are ruled by the BJP's allies, to say nothing of the dismay in the country at large in which Jayalalitha joined, is not the end of the matter.

For ... a hard-line section of the Sangh Parivar leadership, partly entrenched in the Vajpayee Government and partly in a position to manipulate official policy from outside ... is hell-bent on pushing through the Hindutva agenda in the educational and cultural fields, regardless of the compulsion of coalition politics or .. difficulties. For this purpose what better instrument can there be than (the) Ministry of Human Resource Development? After all, hasn't this Ministry already applied big daubs of saffron on such institutions as the Indian Council for Historical Research (ICHR) and the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies ...

While Joshi may have been forced to backtrack, Ms. Bharati is pushing her proposed to launch Rashtriya Punarnirman Vahini or National Reconstruction Corps. Its members, who may to run into lakhs, are expected to render voluntary service for a year or so. Each will, of course, be paid a stipend of Rs. 1,000 a month ... the objective of this ambitious scheme? To spread literacy in a land where half the population cannot read and write? Oh, no ... To augment the desperately inadequately public health system? Perish the thought. The Vahini's objective, yet to be endorsed by the Cabinet, is much nobler. To inculcate among the people "spiritual nationalism," whatever that might mean.

... Rather than own the proposals for compulsory study of Sanskrit and of ancient texts like the Vedas and the Upanishads or of amending the Articles on the educational rights of the minorities as his own, Joshi presented them as words of wisdom emanating from an RSS outfit called Vidya Bharati Akhil Bharatiya Siksha Sansthan which ... runs 14,000 schools ... (Source: The Hindu, 28 October, 1998)