Govt tells schoolkids to visit Hindu organisation’s fair
The education department recently asked government schools in Jaipur to take students to a fair organised by the Hindu Spirituality and Service Foundation (HSSF), prompting critics to call it another move by the government to saffronise education.
A stall of the Bajrang Dal in the fair had manuals for girls on how to protect themselves from ‘love jihad’, an alleged conspiracy theory that Muslims woo Hindu girls to convert them to Islam. The manual specified the ways through which Muslim youths trap Hindu girls.
“The HSSF works to promote human and family values, ecological causes, and patriotism,” said Dinesh Peetaliya, treasurer of the Foundation. The objective of the five-day fair that kicked off on Thursdayis to give a platform to all Hindu organisations to come together and showcase their work to common people,he added.
Ramkrishna Mission, Patanjali, Shankhnaad Foundation, and Subhadra Gau Utpad were
JAIPUR:
some of the organisations that had put up their stalls in the fair. The treasurer said the fair was apolitical, neutral and for all the communities.
Jaipur district education officer Ratan Singh said government schools had been asked to take school kids to the fair but the visit was not made mandatory. “Whenever such programmes are organised, where we feel students will learn something or get exposure, we ask the schools to take the kids,” said Singh.
Activist Komal Srivastava said the government was trying to poison the minds of students.
“The government’s idea is to catch them young and further their binary narrative (us-them divide). They also want to curb the freedom of girls by using the love jihad propaganda as a pretext,” said Srivastava, president of Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samiti that works for women.