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The Inmates Have Taken Over The Asylum:
Here’s Exactly What is Being Taught to School-Children in India

RITU SHARMA

 

 

 

Gujarat’s new compulsory reading list for government primary and secondary students -- put into place when Narendra Modi, India’s current Prime Minister was the Chief Minister of the state -- doesn’t just seek to educate students on “facts” about India’s culture, history and geography.

It also has its own take on science, particularly landmark inventions.

STEM CELL RESEARCH

In case you didn’t know this, Stem Cell Research, for example, dates back to the Mahabharat and the Vedic times.

The text book explains, by citing the text of the mythological epic-poem which Hindus consider gospel:

“… Kunti had a bright son like the sun itself. When Gandhari, who had not been able to conceive for two years, learnt of this, she underwent an abortion. From her womb a huge mass of flesh came out. (Rishi - sage) Dwaipayan Vyas was called. He observed this hard mass of flesh and then he preserved it in a cold tank with specific medicines. He then divided the mass of flesh into 100 parts and kept them separately in 100 tanks full of ghee for two years. After two years, 100 Kauravas were born of it ...  This was found in India thousands of years ago.” [Page 92-93, Tejomay Bharat]

TELEVISION

Of course … it was invented by - er - Hindus - during the Mahabharat times.

“Indian rishis using their yog vidya would attain divya drishti. There is no doubt that the invention of television goes back to this… In Mahabharata, Sanjaya sitting inside a palace in Hastinapur and using his divya shakti would give a live telecast of the battle of Mahabharata… to the blind Dhritarashtra”. [Page 64]

THE AUTOMOBILE

“What we know today as the motorcar existed during the Vedic period. It was called anashva rath. Usually a rath (chariot) is pulled by horses but an anashva rath means the one that runs without horses or yantra-rath, what is today a motorcar. The Rig Veda refers to this…” [Page 60]

The 125-page book, Tejomay Bharat, that these passages are excerpted from was recently mandated as supplementary reading by the Gujarat government for all government primary and secondary schools.

Published by the Gujarat State School Textbook Board (GSSTB), the book seeks to teach children “facts” about history, science, geography, religion and other “basics”.

Tejomay Bharat (literally, Shining India) is to be distributed along with eight books written by Dina Nath Batra, a member of the national executive of Vidya Bharati (Indian Education), the educational wing of the RSS, which is the ideological base of the current government and ruling party. Batra’s books, translated into Gujarati and published by the GSSTB, have also been mandated as supplementary reading by the state government.

Each of these books carries a customised message from Prime Minister Narendra Modi (then chief minister), while Batra’s books praise him and the GSSTB. Tejomay Bharat carries a message from Modi praising the GSSTB for republishing the book.

The book has chapters such as Adhyatmik Bharat (spiritual India), Akhand Bharat (undivided India), Vigyanmay Bharat (scientific India), and Samarth Bharat (competent India).

The book’s content advisor is Harshad Shah, vice-chancellor of Childrens’ University in Gandhinagar who was Gujarat chairman of Vidya Bharti till 2006. The review committee includes Ruta Parmar and Rekha Chudasama, both associated with Vidya Bharati.

Vice-chancellor Shah explains: “Tejomay Bharat gives an insight to students about our rich culture, heritage, spiritualism and patriotism. The language has been kept simple, which is apt for students. These are to be given free of cost to all schools, while 5,000 copies priced at Rs 73 ($1.40) have been prepared for those other than students.”

Asked how schools would reconcile the “facts” of Tejomay Bharat with the NCERT syllabus, the Deputy Commissioner, Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan, Ahmedabad region, P Dev Kumar, said, “Being a government servant, I am here to follow and implement government policies. Though we have not been told of any change in the NCERT curriculum for this academic session, if there is any for the next year, we have to wait and watch.”

Tejomay Bharat also objects to the country being called India.

“We should not demean ourselves by calling our beloved Bharatbhoomi by the shudra (low-caste) name ‘India’. What right had the British to change the name of this country?… We should not fall for this conspiracy and forget the soul of our country [Page 53].”

There’s more.

ON BIRTHDAYS

“Birthdays should be celebrated by shunning the western culture of blowing candles. Instead, we should follow a purely Indian culture by wearing swadeshi clothes, doing a havan and praying to ishtadev (preferred deity), reciting mantras such as Gayatri mantra, distributing new clothes to the needy, feeding cows, distributing prasad and winding up the day by playing songs produced by Vidya Bharati.” [Page 59]


LANGUAGE POLICY

“The current language policy allows for the domination of English language which results in Sanskrit being sidelined. By not learning Sanskrit, students will be deprived of the vast knowledge that our epics have on our culture.”

“The mother tongue should be the first language with 20 per cent aside for Sanskrit, Hindi should be the second language … and Sanskrit or any other foreign language should be the third language.” [Shikshan nu Bhartiyakaran (Indianisation of Education), Chapter on “National Unity and Education“]


NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

These should include August 14, Pakistan’s Independence Day, which should be celebrated as “Akhand Bharat Smriti Divas”. Because “Undivided India is the truth, divided India is a lie. Division of India is unnatural and it can be united again…


MAP OF INDIA

Drawing a map of India? Make sure you include Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Myanmar. These are part of undivided India or “Akhand Bharat”. [Page 49]

*     *     *     *     *


If the name Dina Nath Batra, the author of these brilliant text books, rings a bell, there’s a reason why.
 
Batra’s civil suit earlier this year had led to the pulping of American scholar Wendy Doniger’s book on Hinduism. Batra asked India’s Supreme Court to ban the book. Penguin, the publisher, caved in and withdrew the book, promising to destroy all of the copies left in stock.


[Courtesy: The Indian Express. Edited for sikhchic.com]
July 28, 2014
 

Conversation about this article

1: Upkar Singh (New Delhi, India), July 28, 2014, 1:14 PM.

Such level of stupidity has no limit to the havoc it can cause. We are now indeed in the Hindu "Kaliyug" -- The Dark Age. Don't take my word ... that's what the Vedas say.

2: Kulvinder Jit Kaur (Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada), July 29, 2014, 10:21 AM.

Such grandiose national delusions. Hilarious!

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