Education is headed for a bitter division. Walking out from the new policy-making panel of the HRD Ministry, education ministers from five BJP states said today they would stick to their own curriculum—books prescribed by former HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi. Their complaint: new HRD Minister, Arjun Singh was ‘‘pursuing a divisive education policy.’’ It was clear that the Central schools would teach the new NCERT books. Education boards in non-BJP states would decide on their own texts broadly along the lines prescribed by the new UPA dispensation. And the five states of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan will persist with their own education policies, completely at variance what the Centre is recommending. What was meant to be the inagural meeting of the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) got reduced to a political slanging match. Five education ministers of BJP-ruled states walked out alleging Arjun Singh was imposing his political agenda. As soon as Higher Education Secretary B S Baswan began outlining CABE’s priority areas, Rajasthan Education Minister Ghanashyam Tewari stood up to say that Arjun Singh had ‘‘surrendered his conviction to the Communists.’’ He accused the Union Minister of ‘‘trampling upon the most glorious chapter of Indian education movement ushered in by your predecessor, Murli Manohar Joshi.’’ And ‘‘allowing himself to be led by Sahmat-type anti-nationals.’’ Ironically, this was a throwback to the Education Ministers’ conference of 1999 when the Left and a few Congress ministers walked out protesting against the singing of Saraswati Vandana at a ‘‘secular function.’’ That protest had been taken so seriously by Murli Manohar Joshi that he never convened a conference of state education ministers for the next five years. Tewari’s allegations were echoed later at the BJP press briefing by party president M Venkaiah Naidu who accused Singh of colluding with the Communists. Later, at Rajasthan House, the five BJP education ministers, Tewari (Rajasthan), Anandibehn M. Patel (Gujarat), Alka Jain (Madhya Pradesh), Ajay Chandrakar (Chhattisgarh) and P N Singh (Jharkhand) said that the Centre could not ‘‘thrust the new NCERT books down our throat.’’ And that they ‘‘shall continue to teach the earlier history texts.’’ Singh, too, struck back. Reacting to the RSS which has threatened to sue him, he said: ‘‘I am convinced that the philosophy of hate and violence by which the RSS swears by killed Mahatmaji. This conviction has been strengthened more and more because of the various acts of the members of this organisation. The latest manifestation of this was witnessed during the riots in Gujarat.’’ On the BJP’s charges that he was aligned with the Left, Singh said: ‘‘I would like to inform the bosses of the RSS that I am not anybody’s puppet.’’ Speaking on today’s walkout, Singh said: ‘‘They are frustrated. The RSS is frustrated all the more because their hidden agenda has now become an open agenda.’’ Gradually, the minister toned down and said: ‘‘I wished they had stayed on and discussed their states’ education programmes.’’ Singh said that the walk-out would not have any adverse impact on the flow of funds to these five states under programmes like the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan.
