Foreign Exchange of Hate
IDRF and the American Funding of Hindutva
The Promotion of Bigotry: Sangh Parivar/IDRF's Contributions to Education
Foreign Exchange of Hate
Appendix G:
The Promotion of Bigotry: Sangh Parivar/IDRF's Contributions to Education
G.1 Vidya Bharati
In 1996, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) conducted an evaluation of school textbooks, including those prescribed in Vidya Bharati schools in the country; it was reported that there were 6,000 such schools with 12 lakh children on their rolls under the tutelage of 40,000 teachers. The NCERT made the alarming diagnosis that many of the Vidya Bharati textbooks were ‘designed to promote bigotry and religious fanaticism in the name of inculcating knowledge of culture in the young generation.’ The evaluation found it a matter of ‘serious concern’ that such material was being utilised for instruction in schools which, ‘presumably, have been accorded recognition (emphasis added)[143]
G.2 Sewa Dham (Delhi)
Education is a centerpiece of the Hindu revivalist campaign, which is natural, considering its cause: to build a Hindu nation out of what is officially a secular country with rights accorded to religious minorities.
[it] tests their knowledge of the continuing campaign to build a Hindu temple in Ayodhya, the mythical birthplace of Ram, where Hindu militants razed a 16th-century mosque in 1992. Students are grilled on everything from the date on which the temple reconstruction movement began to the names of those killed by the police[145]
G.3 Bharatiya Education Society
Students get a large dose of ‘Hindutva’ values - teachings that argue for the preeminence of India's 5,000- year-old civilization. Girls learn that Hindu females are at their best as mothers. ‘The woman has a special place in the home,’ says Jagdish Prasad Gujar, the principal of BET. ‘Our women, our mothers, help to keep India strong.[146]