Memories of the attempts of the first BJP-led NDA government at the Centre (1999-2004) to ‘saffronise’ school education are still green. Now with the BJP back in power — this time with an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha — there’s pervasive fear this interrupted agenda will be resumed. Summiya Yasmeen reports Indisputably the defining event of 2014 was the utter rout of the Congress Party in the General Election of April-May, and the unprecedented victory of the BJP led by its barnstorming former Gujarat chief minister and prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi. The grand old party, which led the beleaguered UPA-II coalition government at the Centre, was reduced to its lowest ever tally in the Lok Sabha — 44 seats — while the resurgent BJP bagged 282 seats, a majority in its own right. The landslide victory of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was a decisive mandate against the thoroughly disgraced UPA-II government which passively presided over a series of multi-crore scams, unremitting inflation and legislation logjam in Parliament during its five year term (2009-2014) of office in New Delhi. Typically, in the general election campaigns of all political parties, the pressing issue of reforming India’s moribund education system — notwithstanding the reality that the nation grudgingly hosts the world’s largest child population — was marginalised. Quite clearly, provision of quality contemporary education to India’s 450 million children below 18 years of age, is not a high priority of any of India’s major political parties. In particular the past five years were uneventful for Indian education with former HRD (human resource development) minister Kapil Sibal failing to push any education legislation barring the Right to Education Act, 2009, through Parliament. And even this belated Act is mired in interpretive confusion and has proved to be beyond the implementation capabilities of state governments. The massive victory of the BJP, which promised to raise education spending to 6 percent of GDP in its election manifesto, was warily welcomed by Indian academia given the party’s symbiotic relationship with its cultural parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which has a record of interference in school and education curriculums. Memories of the attempts of the first BJP-led NDA government at the Centre to ‘saffronise’ school education during its term in office (1999-2004) are still green. During those years, Union HRD minister and RSS elder Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi commissioned an extensive revision of NCERT social science textbooks to accommodate RSS interpretations of history and Hindu mythology, provoking vigorous protest from academics and opposition parties. Now ten years on, with the BJP back in power — and this time with an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha — there’s pervasive fear this interrupted agenda will be resumed. As if to confirm these apprehensions, the change of guard at the Centre began on an ominous note for Indian education with the appointment of popular BJP spokesperson and former television soaps star, Smriti Irani as Union HRD minister. Women’s rights activist Madhu Kishwar, a staunch Modi supporter,…
