On Teacher’s Day, MP minister orders students to wash their guru’s feet

This Teacher’s Day, government schools and colleges across Madhya Pradesh honoured teachers in a different way.

This Teacher’s Day, government schools and colleges across Madhya Pradesh honoured teachers in a different way. Seeking to revive the age-old guru-shishya parampara, the state’s new Education Minister Laxman Singh Gaud passed orders making it compulsory for students to show their respect by washing the feet of their teachers.

Leading by example, he washed the feet of a teacher at one such “Guru-Paad Pujan” programme organised in the city. He put tika and flowers on the teacher’s feet, and finally bowed before him.

“A society which does not respect its teachers becomes immoral and gets caught in anarchy, leading to its downfall. And teachers should command respect by their conduct. Guru-Paad Pujan will inspire teachers (to improve their conduct),” said the minister.

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The Opposition Congress dismissed the order as an attempt to improve the BJP Government’s image, which took a severe beating last year when Professor H S Sabharwal was allegedly beaten to death by some Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) members. Sabharwal was killed outside Ujjain’s Madhav College a short while after he announced that students’ elections had been cancelled.

The BJP Government had faced charges of going soft on the ABVP, the students’ wing once headed by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. “They want to divert people’s attention from the Sabharwal issue,” said Mukesh Gajbhiye of the National Students Union of India (NSUI), the Congress’ students’ wing.

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