Rajasthan govt scraps brown uniform at public schools, rakes up old debate
Although government officials said the decision has nothing to do with politics, Congress supporters have in the past alleged that the BJP had rolled out the brown uniform since it resembles the RSS colour code
Students in Rajasthan’s public schools will have a new uniform from the next academic year after the education ministry announced that the existing light-and-dark brown colour combination - introduced by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government back in 2017 - will be scrapped.
The new uniform will have a blue-and-grey colour combination.
Although government officials said the decision has nothing to do with politics, members and supporters of the Congress have in the past reportedly alleged that the BJP had rolled out the brown uniform to make it resemble the Rashtriya Swayansevak Sangh’s (RSS) colour code.
According to an order issued by the school education department on Wednesday night, boys at government-run schools will wear blue shirts and dark grey pants, and girls will don blue shirts and dark grey salwars or skirts.
The change in uniform covers 64,000 state-run schools, according to the order.
For 20 years since 1997, boys in Rajasthan’s government schools wore a blue-and-khaki combination, while girls put on a blue-and-white combination.
In 2017, the colour combination was changed to light and dark brown, sparking criticism from the Congress at that time.
A senior education department official said the new uniforms will be provided free of cost to students from Class I to VIII, covering around seven million school kids. The remaining 2.8 million students, studying in Class IX to XII, will have to purchase the new uniforms from government-authorised stores.
Education minister BD Kalla said the process of changing the uniform was started by the previous minister, Govind Singh Dotasara. “There is nothing political behind changing the uniform colour. It is the BJP that always works on an agenda,” he said.
Former education minister and state Congress chief Dotasara said the decision was taken on the basis of a six-member panel’s recommendation. “The committee considered complaints from parents and school teachers about the uniform introduced during the BJP government in 2017 and recommended a change,” he said.
A government functionary familiar with the development said the existing colour of the trousers and salwars was identical to that of the RSS uniform, but insisted that the Congress government’s decision to change it is not a political one.
BJP MLA and former education minister Vasudev Devnani slammed the new decision. “They have no reason or logic behind changing the colour of the uniform. It’s done only to change what the previous BJP government had done. This is an autocratic decision,” Devnani said.
He argued that the move was harsh for parents who had already been suffering financially due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.