(The RSS) argues that since Hindus constitute the majority community, their religious idiom ought to provide the binding cultural cement for a variegated people. And that essence should be reflected in State education policies. They also insist that since Hindus are uniquely tolerant, the minorities have nothing to fear from a takeover of public spaces and official occasions by Hindu rituals, nor should they feel insecure if the nation is designated as Hindu. Saraswati Vandanas and Vedas are, in any case, beautiful and profound, and all "pseudo-secularists" who object to their use by. the state are anti-Hindu.
It is, however, obvious that religious texts lose their "innocence" when they are used for coercive and discriminatory purposes ... Since it is the Sangh Parivar which proposes to Hinduise education, it is irrelevant to refer only to the original, literal meaning of the texts and the hymns, and not to the inclination and activities of the people who will enforce and shape their use. Whether Hindus are tolerant or not is not the point here: no one can deny the Sangh Parivar's record of violent intolerance. But much more is at issue: secularism, democracy and citizenship rights. In a multicultural democracy, the state and its associated offices and occasions have to be scrupulously non-denominational, not identified with any particular community tot he exclusion of others. That .. has nothing to do with the banishing of religion from social or public life. For. if the state affirms its affiliation to a particular denomination, the citizens belonging to other faiths or to no faith, would be relegated to a secondary status, and located at a greater distance from the State, upon which their claims would become correspondingly weaker. Again, in a democracy, toleration cannot be a substitute for equal citizenship status. Toleration implies a relationship of power, where some tolerate others who are dependent, on sufferance. In a democracy, on the other hand, citizenship is a matter of right, irrespective of what section the citizen belongs to.
If the nation designates itself as Hindu and the state acknowledges it in its official sphere, then non-Hindus will at best be tolerated as minorities, not as equal citizens. Which is why, Article 28 laid down that in government- funded schools, financed entirely by the state, there would not be religious ritual or instruction. In a multi-cultural systems can be taught equally, and to leave out any would indicate to school children that some religious communities are more important than others. In aided or recognised schools, on the other hand, the Constitution permits such instruction, but not on a compulsory basis. Secularists do not oppose this, and, indeed, RSS schools do compulsorily provide Hindu religious instruction.
Does this exclusion of religious instruction or ritual from state schools constitute an offence against Hinduism? To believe so is to believe that Hinduism cannot survive unless the state props it up. And, if it is an offence against Saraswati that a hymn to Her does not inaugurate a state function, do we not, by the same logic, insult every other faith, and the philosophy of unbelief, by not including them in state-sponsored events?
The BJP has introduced sweeping purges in all Centrally-funded research institutes ... These bodies have been cleansed of subject experts and renowned scholars and packed with men distinguished by RSS sympathies.
(There has been) a methodical doctoring of facts in school textbooks in the BJP States. They pour unverified charges against Muslim rulers, stridently catalogue alleged wrongs perpetrated on Hindu kings and gods, abuse the BJP's adversaries like Mulayam Singh Yadav by name and insert RSS heroes as great freedom fighters.
.. The RSS professes the notion of Hindu Rashtra - that India belongs to Hindus alone. That notion depends upon a relentless hatred against all those who think otherwise. It has led to many bloody pogroms against Muslims and, more recently, to gross violence against and abuse of Christians. Universally-respected secular educationists have faced intimidation and threats..
Apart from coercion, formidable hegemonic devices have been perfected over the last 73 years, precisely to teach these values. The RSS shakhas started functioning in 1925. Every day, they have 'doudhik' sessions that train members in imagined "histories" of outrage against Hindus. A documentary on shakhas for infants depicts a favourite game that enacts the "reconquest" of Kashmir through battles. We were proudly told by the headmaster of an RSS-run school in Delhi that he held forth on the Babri mosque saga at the assembly everyday: five-year-olds would clench their fists in fury and swear vengeance under the influence of his oratory. Night schools and sanskar kendras take these messages beyond regular schooltime. The RSS itself is acknowledged to be the classroom for all its affiliates and sub-affiliates: BJP, VHP, Bajrang Dal and hand-picked cadres, trained in daily shakhas over years, come to these fronts to teach RSS values and intentions ... Through long and systematic training, through education, for decades now, the RSS has been imparting an education that confuses perceptions of the real and the contrived. It has taught that patriotism is vengeance, that the nation is Hindu, that struggle for human rights and equality and social justice are alien to our culture, they are divisive ... The RSS has insisted that we only look for knowledge that is home-grown, however offensive or exploitative that might be to Dalits, to women, to democracy.
As important as what it teaches is what it silences and renders non-issue. It suppresses knowledge about what lies behind Indian poverty; it displaces discussions on what is welfare and social justice and how to attain them. The new educational suggestions and policy guidelines are essential to achieve a confusion of priorities on a nationwide scale.
A regimentation of knowledge and a suppression of critical enquiry have proceeded for a long time through specifically RSS agencies. This will continue unabated even if ... misgovernance temporarily robs the BJP of state power. Any effective ideological challenge to the Sangh Parivar must confront the fascisisation of society and not just the fascisisation of the state. (Source: The Hindu, 24 November, 1998).
