Delhi's BJP government plans a course in Hindutva for the capital's children

George Iype in New Delhi

Can Hindutva help lift the sagging moral values of thousands of children in Delhi's schools?

Yes, thinks the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Delhi headed by Chief Minister Sahib Singh Verma.

In an effort to inculcate the spirit of moral values among students, the BJP regime is launching a pro-Hindu values education programme in the city's government-run schools.

The first part of the two-pronged programme is in the form of a calender called Sukriti.

Sukriti's checklists include several dos and dont's, tips on healthy living, manners, respect for the elderly, care for the environment, good reading habits, traffic rules and tables manners.

For instance, in April a primary child is asked to assess himself with the following queries: Did you wish your parents in the morning? Did you exercise in the morning? Did you teach a word to an illiterate today? Did you read a religious book? Did you water the plants? Did you pray before going off to sleep?

"Moral values in Delhi schools have fallen drastically. Therefore, we have decided to distribute nearly one million Sukriti calenders in schools across the city," says Delhi Education Minister Harsh Vardhan, the mastermind behind the BJP's programme.

According to Dr Vardhan, the new moral education programme will augment the values lying dormant in the child, without disturbing his studies.

"We have also decided to revise the entire curricula to inculcate lofty Indian values in school children and make them more healthier and balanced individuals," the minister told Rediff On The NeT.

Therefore, the value education programme's second segment will include drastic amendments in the syllabus. The new list of subjects is now being fine-tuned by BJP ideologues led by Rajya Sabha member of Parliament Professor V K Malhotra.

Thus, mantras, shlokas, ayatas, bhajans and kirtans from the Vedas and the Bhagwad Gita will echo in numerous schools in Delhi when the BJP government starts implementing the curricula from the forthcoming academic year onwards.

BJP sources said changes in text books will be made to "Indianise history and show the real picture of India" to the younger generation.

With this intention, a new chapter, 'Religious Policies of Babar,' will be added in the sixth standard history book. It will explain that Babar, a Muslim ruler of the 16th century, built a mosque over the Ram temple at Ayodhya after demolishing it.

The BJP government also plans to delete chapters on Mahatma Gandhi and Abraham Lincoln in the 9th and 10th standards and instead add chapters on Keshavrao Baliram Hedgewar, the founder of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

The new chapters in the school history books will reject the theory that the Aryans, who form the major ethnic group in the country, were invaders who displaced and enslaved Dravidians and tribals, the country's original inhabitants.

Disseminating ideology through textbooks was a phenomenon initiated by the BJP government headed by Kalyan Singh in Uttar Pradesh in 1991. Singh altered history books in UP schools to help children understand the "real Hindutva truth."

But the BJP government's efforts to re-write history under the guise of moral education is likely to meet a controversial end in Delhi as a number of private schools have taken up cudgels against the proposed changes in the curricula.

Sensing that the BJP government will twist the school syllabus to disseminate the party's Hindutva ideology to the students, two prominent schools in Delhi have complained to the Union human resource development ministry.

"We feel the government's moral education programme in schools is a deft move to propagate the BJP's ideology," one principal told Rediff On The NeT, adding that private schools "will not obey the BJP government's commands."

Private schools, he said, have requested the HRD ministry to caution the BJP government not to go ahead without having the textbooks and the moral education programme screened by the federal government and its agencies like the National Centre for Education Research Training.

But the HRD ministry's missives is unlikely to have any impact on the BJP government's move as the federal government cannot order state governments to halt changes in the school curricula.

The federal government's national educational policy is only a broad outline. Under the Constitution, policy decisions on education come under the purview of state governments.