Deendayal Replaces Nehru, Gender Studies Twisted At Bhopal University

The Madhya Pradesh government has decided to replace the studies of Nehruvian ideology and socialism with right-wing ideologue Pt Deendayal Upadhyay for the postgraduate students of the Makhanlal Chaturvedi National University of Journalism, one in many steps taken towards, what may say, 'saffronisation of education'.

Hindustan Times reported that the state opposition accused the university vice-chancellor Prof BK Bhutalia of being an RSS man and pushing Sangh's saffron agenda in the course.

While the university and the state's education minister stood by the new syllabus, opposition leaders from the Congress and CPI(M) have alleged that the move attempted to erase Congress history and misguide students.

Apart from Upadhyay, other personalities whose ideologies would form part of the syllabus include Swami Vivekanand, Maharishi Arvind, Bhimrao Ambedkar and Ram Manohar Lohia, said the report.

Other than introducing ideologies, the social issues, including social stratification, positive and negative discrimination trends in communalism,have been replaced by unemployment, poverty and black money.

 According to the draft of the new syllabus to be introduced for MA in Mass Communication semester-IV, another major change in the syllabus is in the gender issues. Patriarchy-male domination and hegemony have been replaced with male-female relationship.

History has always been written, erased to fit in the narrative of those in power. The school and college syllabus of many BJP-run states have been rewritten or are influenced by the textbooks written by Dinanath Batra, a man handpicked by the party in 1999 to rewrite the history of India by giving prominence to right-wing ideologies and theories.