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Delhi govt schools likely to get lessons on RSS history, says education minister
The decision comes hours before the RSS’s 100th anniversary celebrations kick off on Wednesday.
Students in Delhi government schools are likely to soon get lessons on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and other voluntary organisations and freedom fighters under the administration’s new civic education programme ‘Rashtraneeti’, education minister Ashish Sood said on Tuesday.
The decision comes hours before the RSS’s 100th anniversary celebrations kick off on Wednesday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to participate in the centenary celebrations at the Dr Ambedkar International Centre in Delhi, and will be launching a commemorative stamp and coin to mark the occasion.
“There will be modules on RSS and several other such organisations that have played an important role in nation-building over the last 80 years. The course is aimed at civic and social consciousness among students and to bring fundamental duties into focus,” Sood said.
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He added that the Sangh, the ideological fount of the Bharatiya Janata Party, is one of the oldest organisations in the world dedicated to voluntary service and has actively been involved in India’s development. The Rashtraneeti is part of the New Education Policy (NEP).
The initiative is being introduced across Classes 1 to 12 with the aim of fostering civic awareness, ethical governance and national pride among students. Officials said that this course will focus on fundamental duties mentioned in the Constitution that are usually ignored in school curriculums. The Rashtraneeti course will be taught through experiential learning methods.
“The schedules are still being discussed but we plan to introduce these classes on Saturday so that the existing schedules and classes are not impacted,” an official said.
The module will likely be a mandatory addition as part of the “Rashtraneeti curriculum” but the details are still being worked out, officials said. There are 1,100 Delhi government schools that mostly follow the CBSE curriculum.
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Officials said that the module on the RSS is likely to include the Sangh’s contributions during the freedom struggle and its social work through blood donation and food supply drives during natural disasters. A separate section will be dedicated to so-called ‘unsung heroes’ such as VD Savarkar, Subhas Chandra Bose, Syama Prasad Mookerjee and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, officials said.
Another official told news agency PTI children will be taught about the origin and history of the RSS, its ideology and the role of its workers in extending help during natural disasters and the freedom struggle. The lessons also aim to address misconceptions about the organisation, the official added.
The chapters will trace the history of the RSS, founded in 1925 in Nagpur by Keshav Baliram Hedgewar. They will underline the organisation’s focus on cultural awareness, discipline, service and social responsibility, and mention leaders such as former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi who have been associated with it, PTI added.
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The teacher handbooks for the programme have already been prepared, and one-day training sessions are underway at the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT), an official said. Officials said the details of which class groups will study which modules are still being finalised.
“This course is being introduced to give students practical exposure to governance, democracy and active citizenship through their duties. The role of politics will also be taught as often it is considered ‘bad’ by children who are not taught the importance and values of active politics for the nation,” an official involved with the programme said.
The Rashtraneeti curriculum was formally launched on September 18 by chief minister Rekha Gupta as part of the Namo Vidya Utsav at Bharat Mandapam, alongside two other new curricula aimed at reshaping classroom learning.
Responding to the development, the Opposition Aam Aadmi Party said that the BJP government should also add details about PM Narendra Modi’s education in the syllabus. “The BJP government should add that PM Modi is the only Prime Minister in the world who refuses to disclose details of his degree. The central government even fought cases in the high court to prevent Delhi University from sharing his degree records under the Right to Information Act,” an AAP spokesperson said.
