Indianisation of education key to human development: RSS

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) on Sunday called for "Indianising" the education system based on socio-cultural roots of the country and use it as the key to India's human development.

An editorial in the latest issue of RSS mouthpiece Organiser argued that Indianisation does not amount to "saffronisation" and accused some eminent historians of coining and abusing the term. It also attacked some "vested" interests benefitting from the British legacy in education for misleading the country on "saffronisation".

"We need to develop consensus about the need for fundamental change in our approach towards education in terms of structure and content. People losing their 'professional' and 'intellectual' monopoly may create ruckus but Indianising education based on our socio-cultural roots is the only way to transform India's population into a human development hub," the Organiser said.

The RSS mouthpiece said that it was necessary to bring this transformation by debating, discussing and fine-tuning and there is no need for a "revolutionary" change.

Attacking the British education system as a design to uproot Indians from their traditional knowledge system and using it for their own convenience to run the state machinery, the editorial noted it was the root cause of the high level of trust deficit in society. "Whenever there is a talk of transforming education in India, vested interests that benefited from the British legacy in education, start shouting about the 'saffronisation'. Before pressing for such misleading terms, we need to debate and discuss the contour of Indianisation of education," it said.

Attacking historians, the editorial said, "The likes of Ramachandra Guhas and Romila Thapars who talked about 'change' but benefitted from the status quo are the people who coined and abused the term 'saffronisation'. Without getting into their malicious intentions, one needs to take an objective stand on connecting education to Indian realities." It also held the British legacy of education as being responsible for being "neither here nor there". It noted that there are many graduates who are not productive and few high performing professionals are "morally and socially disconnected".

"The post-Independence education system did not produce the desired society," it said.