By Preksha Buttan
In a recent development, it has been declared that lessons of Ramayana, Mahabharata and Gita will be taught at school and college levels. NDA government is planning to bring the country out of "cultural pollution" and wants to induce "values" in young minds. Mahesh Sharma, State Minister for Culture, said the government will not be deterred by criticism and it was only trying to promote RSS ideology. So, the critical question is: Are Hindu epics promoters of RSS ideologies? Perhaps, not!
In a bid to substantiate the aforementioned argument, teaching Ramayana, Mahabharata and Gita will help in bringing students from other religious backgrounds together and they will also come to know what Hinduism is all about. But it can also harm the feelings of other religious groups, as they will feel their religious books
are being ignored by only giving importance to the Hindu epical stories at teaching level.
On the other hand, deletions are made in NCERT's "social and political life" textbooks. Yogendra Yadav, suggested that the current deletions are lacking sense. He posted on a social media site, "Panchayati Raj is deleted on the ground that it is not relevant to Delhi, but rural administration is retained with all its details".
There are so many people in Delhi who belong to different states where Panchayat used to happen. Yadav added, "No attention is being paid to the essential elements that a future citizen of the country must study. Students who may not opt Political Science in class XII will pass school without studying anything about the Indian Constitution, the working of our Parliament, the institution of President, and other relevant things." as mentioned in Indian Express.
Removing basics of politics from the textbooks will not result in any good and students will not know how everything in politics work. Also, adding epical texts to inculcate values in students, teaching them about the world which is gone and preventing them to study about the present world does not make any sense. Students may later on (after their schooling) feel out of the world as they will not know how everything in politics functions.