TIMES NEWS NETWORK

MYSORE: Education Minister H Vishwanath on Monday said here, Karnataka was opposed to the "crude attempt being made by the human resource ministry to communalise the education system and rewrite history to suit the interests of a narrow segment of the Indian polity".

The minister was speaking on behalf of the Karnataka government at a seminar on, "Saffronisation of education" organised by Sahamath, a voluntary organisation in New Delhi on Monday, and the copy of his speech was released here.

In his speech, the minister said, a multi-party system prevailed in the country. "We cannot allow our education system to be infiltrated by any one political ideology."

"The prevailing consensus is reflected in the preamble of the Constitution and in other provisions like Article 51A of the Constitution, and it cannot be subverted or replaced by the ideology of a party, least of all RSS," he warned, adding, any effort to reverse the idea reflected the preamble was fraught with dangers against a federal structure.

Questioning the urgency of the NCERT to push through a curricula based on a new document on education, the minister said, it appeared the document was prepared under rather compelling circumstances. "NCERT owes an answer to the nation. Is the decision backed by narrow political considerations?" he asked. In the name of nationalisation, the BJP-led government wants to saffronise the education system, he added.

After saffronisation of education in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, Vishwanath said, the latest news of saffronisation of the curriculum came from neighbouring Goa. " Based on an order, 53 schools in Goa have been handed over overnight to Vidhya Bharati network, a RSS-linked organisation which is teaching distorted versions of history in hundreds of schools run by it in UP and Rajasthan.

The minister urged all secular forces and organisations to reject such efforts of saffronisation and restore secular, democratic traditions in India.