Caution against BJP's 'hidden agenda' on Hindu Rashtra

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, JAN. 7. The four-day Tenth All- India Conference of the Students' Federation of India (SFI), the CPI(M)'s students wing, began here today with Prof. K. N. Panickar, historian, making an impassioned plea to be conscious of the BJP's ``real hidden agenda'', as that was subtly linked to the country's educational process now sought to be changed by the BJP-led NDA.

``What is being said as the hidden agenda of the BJP - the Ram Mandir issue, a uniform civil code and scrapping Article 370 - is no more hidden, but what is hidden is to create a Hindu Rashtra,'' Prof. Panickar of the Jawaharlal Nehru University said, inaugurating the conference.

Charging the BJP with attempting to redefine India as a Hindu nation ``in a clever fashion'', Prof. Panickar said by positing ``cultural nationalism'' as ``positive nationalism'', history had become the ``major ideology of the communalists''.

Thus raking up discredited theories on the ``indigenous origin of Aryans'', and the ``absence of beef-eating'' in ancient India, besides rewriting history textbooks were part of this ``Hindu communal agenda'', he said. The RSS mouthpiece, Organiser, in a recent issue had claimed that America was a Hindu country, converted by Christians to their faith, Prof. Panickar said. In the past, the RSS had opposed any attempt to modernise education.

He said the Human Resource Development Minister, Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi was ``doing nothing but implementing the RSS ideas'' including suggesting a separate education system for girls that betrayed a ``patriarchal ideology''. He wondered how the DMK leader, Mr. M. Karunanidhi, viewed the RSS line of opposing the mother tongue being the medium of instruction in schools.

Cautioning against undermining liberal education, Prof. Panickar said the immediate task was democratisation of education. A pre- requisite for achieving it was to involve both teachers and students in ``academic democratisation'' that ensured total freedom in the teaching-learning process.

Prof. Panickar said that still the larger question of the ``general communal onslaught'' would have to be carried out by the Left and secular/democratic forces, while suggesting that the SFI play an important role in organising ``secular action groups'' in all institutions.

About 800 student delegates from all over the country, including the largest contingent from West Bengal, are participating in the conference being held at `EMS Nagar' here. The SFI flag was hoisted by the All-India president, Mr. K. N. Balagopal, and homage was paid to the martyrs. Tamil folk dancers put up a performance.

Welcoming the delegates, Mr. N. Ram, chairman of the reception committee and Editor, Frontline, highlighted the importance of the strong student movement in Tamil Nadu during the freedom struggle, when the ``anti-imperialist upsurge swept the State.''

Drawing attention to the SFI's sustained campaign against the capitation fee racket in self-financing medical and engineering colleges in the 1990s', Mr. Ram said it forced the Tamil Nadu Government to appoint a committee to fix the fee structure in `self-financing' colleges.

Identifying five major challenges facing the student community - separatism allied with religious fundamentalism, politically organised militant communalism, caste-strife, the need for federalism and greater State autonomy and the post-1991 right- wing economic policies - Mr. Ram said one of the main themes of the SFI conference would be how to respond to the ``saffron challenge'', the saffronisation of education in particular.

Captain Lakshmi Sheigal, the CPI(M) politburo member, Mr. Sitaram Yechury, the Kerala Youth Affairs Minister, Mr. K. Radhakrishnan and the SFI's general secretary, Mr. Samik Lahiri, MP, participated.

The delegates later discussed the SFI's draft organisational report. One of its key resolutions demanded that Parliament pass legislation to deter the misuse of religion in politics in the light of the Supreme Court verdict on secularism being a basic feature of the Constitution.

Intensifying the struggle against the new economic policies that only generated ``jobless growth'', building a strong resistance to `communalisation of education' and waging struggles against sexual harassment and ragging in universities/colleges, besides against gender discrimination are among the other resolutions mooted.

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