ARE OUR SECULAR MILIEUS LEAVING SCHOOLS IN INDIA? Not long ago during my stay in Kerala, I paid a visit to a recently founded private kindergarten school run by a few people with right wing Hindtva ideology falling in line with a request of a friend. The looks of the office and the classrooms of the school themselves give enormous clues about what the institution is standing for. Portraits of many RSS ideologues ( not any national heroes like Gandhi and Nehru ) lie hanging against the wall above the principal who appears seated at her table with a sandalwood paste mark on the forehead reflecting the faith she belongs to. Before the classes kick-off, students along with their teachers stand up with folded hands in front of their nose in devotion and recite hymns praising Hindu deity of Sarswati. Here children are found being indoctrinated with an exaggerated version of Hinduism and Hindutva culture. This is not an isolated case in Kerala now. Religions are given freehand to run schools and schools are taken over by religious bigots under false pretence and run schools strictly on their religious lines. There are many schools in the state run by suspect religious people and schools have become centres of indoctrinations. All religious groups are opening up schools across the state parallel to the government schools aiming to indoctrinate children with religious ideologies before they reach their age of reason. Religions are well cognisant of the fact that by constricting children from developing free and critical thinking through indoctrinations, they can keep enjoying power and wealth they amassed by imprisoning thought of humans within their esoteric and obscurantist ideology over centuries. A large number of Muslim educational institutions have been opened at Kayamakulam in Allapey district under the pretext of uplifting Muslisms education is aiming to rigidly Islamise children. Christian community is in the forefront in commercially running schools and colleges and now it is opening more preprimary schools everywhere aiming to christianise and proselytise. This education oriented to compartmentalise the budding brains is disastrous for the state. I studied in PHS Elappara, in the district of Idukky, Kerla till matriculation where all schoolmates gained our education without giving any importance to caste or religion one belonged to. We all had true secular feelings and my best friends had never been followers of the religion that I believed in during my childhood. But that secular milieu prevailed in schools during my childhood seemed to have now taken a big beat with mushrooming schools being opened by religious groups and growing preference of parents to institutions run by religious groups over governments. Religious groups, particularly Christian missionary may claim that have contributed a great deal to the states education, but they have reaped more benefits from the state than they contributed. These religious groups grew rich amassing the wealth of the state. The 3 predominant religions are in deep contention to take over the education of the state. Religiously run schools are not interested in teaching children scientific truths like evolution rather they want to indoctrinate the fairy tales from their bronze age scripts and compel children to believe in scriptural dogmas. People of Kerala have to be careful in the way education is going in the state. The present education will only increase religious extremism in the state. And the government appears to go along what these religions lay down before it eying to keep their vote share intact. Religions are getting more exemptions and impunities that general public dont get, which they exploit to widen their exemptions further.
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 08:59:58 +0000
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