Kolkata (AsiaNews) – In West Bengal, just four months after taking office following its victory in last spring's state elections, the BJP government – Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist party – announced an ambitious plan to expand the school network run by Vidya Bharati[*], an educational organisation linked to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).[†]
The stated goal is to create at least 1,000 new Hindu nationalist schools in just one year, in all the state's districts, municipalities, and panchayats (councils).
The announcement was made in Kolkata by West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, at a ceremony held at the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture to celebrate the 74th anniversary of Vidya Bharati's founding.
During the event, the project was presented as part of a broader educational reform aimed at strengthening what is described as teaching based on Indian culture, national heritage, and patriotic values.
Particular attention was requested for the districts of Murshidabad and South 24 Parganas, two of the most populous in India, where the administration plans to increase the presence of network-affiliated schools.
Vidya Bharati currently operates more than 12,000 schools and some 10,000 Bal Sanskar Kendras (children’s educational centres) across the country. In West Bengal, the network currently includes 313 establishments.
The opening of a thousand additional schools would represent a particularly significant expansion of its presence in the state. However, the project is not just about building new institutions. In fact, the government wants to reorganise school administration by merging four separate entities responsible for education into a single structure.
This includes ending a separate administration for more than 600 madrasas or Islamic schools serving nearly 25 million local Muslims, while curricular reforms would give greater emphasis to traditional Indian culture, national history, and patriotic values.
The directive regarding Vande Mataram (I bow to thee, Mother), a patriotic song, is also sparking further discussion. According to the announcement, all public and private schools receiving state funding will be required to recite the full version of the song daily. Failure to comply could result in the loss of funding and other forms of public support.
The issue is delicate because the first two verses of the song – composed in Bengali by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee in 1882 – make an abstract reference to the "motherland," without any religious connotations, while the subsequent verses mention Hindu deities such as Durga.
These references became a point of contention in 1937, after the Indian National Congress, at the suggestion of Mahatma Gandhi and the poet Rabindranath Tagore, adopted only the first two verses of the song as its anthem.
These initiatives by the new West Bengal government are fuelling a debate on the relationship between education, nationalism, and the secular nature of the state. Representatives of religious minorities and the Christian educational sector are expressing particular concern.
Churches have historically run numerous low-cost and free schools in rural, tribal, and marginalised areas. The expansion of Vidya Bharati therefore places it in open competition with these establishments.
But the tension is primarily over its ideological orientation. Vidya Bharati promotes an educational model strongly tied to nationalist values and Indian cultural traditions, while many Christian schools adopt an educational identity based on a pluralistic vision.
Minority leaders fear that an expansion supported by public institutions could alter local relations and fuel mistrust toward non-Hindu institutions, already accused in political discussions of representing "foreign" interests or being insufficiently nationally oriented.
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[*] Indian knowledge.
[†] National Volunteer Union.
