Kolkata: Every district, municipality and panchayat in the state should host a school by Vidya Bharati, the education wing of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), CM Suvendu Adhikari said on Thursday and set a target of establishing at least 1,000 such institutions in Bengal within the next year.The CM invited the Vidya Bharati leadership to meet the entire education department at the state secretariat and added that Vidya Bharati must take responsibility for imparting nationalistic learning. Adhikari was speaking at an event to mark the 74th year of Vidya Bharati at Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture in Golpark.Bengal currently has 313 Vidya Bharati schools. Nationally, Vidya Bharati runs over 12,000 schools and 10,000 Bal Sanskar Kendras.Adhikari also signalled the merger of state’s four education departments — school education, higher education, technical and minority education — to establish a single department. “Our belief is to have a single education department. There will be no madrassa education department and others. You keep watching,” he said and added that the previous govt had polluted the state’s education environment and Vidya Bharati’s “help will be needed to come out of this”. He insisted Vidya Bharati should set up more schools in Murshidabad and South 24 Parganas, where “more anti-national activities take place”.Anand Rao, an official of Vidya Bharati, told TOI their schools train students in “bharatiyatwa (Indianness)” as well as puja rituals. “There are 313 schools in Bengal. Some are till class 5 and some till classes 8, 10 and 12,” he said. There are also 150 Sanskar Kendras where students learn puja rituals and about Indian culture and tradition.The website of Vidya Bharati Akhil Bhartiya Shiksha Sansthan says its vision is “to develop a national system of education which would help build a younger generation which is committed to Hindutva and infused with patriotic fervour”.The CM accused the previous Trinamool govt of deliberately and strategically twisting the Bengali syllabus in schools to divide Bengali-speaking people.“Mother was referred to as ‘amma’ and not ‘ma’. Similarly, the sky was referred to as ‘asman’ and not ‘akash’. Bengali language was distorted in a planned manner. The syllabus was created in such a way that Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar’s or Swami Vivekananda’s lessons remained neglected. Division was created in the minds of children through such distortion of language,” he alleged.Adhikari said Syama Prasad Mookerjee’s call of ‘ek desh, ek bidhan, ek nishan, ek pradhan’ would apply to education as well. “We will not allow an arrangement where the higher education department will look after all universities while another department will look after Aliah University,” he said. Aliah University is managed by Bengal govt’s minority affairs department.“I felicitated the board toppers. Later the minority affairs department sent a separate file for felicitating 27 Muslim students. I asked why? Students do not have religion. I have already felicitated 20 students and they include Muslims, Jaina, Buddhists,” he said.Adhikari added that he had seen a video where a student, who wore a tilak on his head, was forced to wipe it off in school. He did not name the school. He added that the govt knew how to overcome opposition to singing Vande Mataram in schools. “Some were saying they will not sing it. I said we will stop funds. Then they agreed to sing. Still they were not moving their lips. I told the education secretary that they will have to sing ‘tomari murti gori mandir e mandir e’ (we build your idols in temples),” he said.The CM added that he had also requested Union defence minister Rajnath Singh to establish more Sainik schools in the state. “Rajnath ji was in Kolkata recently. I said give Bengal more Sainik schools. I told him that I will write to you to introduce NCC in each school. I have already sent the letters. Vidya Bharati can help with these. We will work together,” he added.
