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'Gita'
teaching sparks row in Karnataka
Sunday July 17, 2011 03:58:10 PM,
IANS
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Bangalore:
Karnataka's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government has landed in
a row over its support to teaching of Hindu holy book 'Bhagvad
Gita' in schools.
The controversy took a new turn after Primary and Secondary
Education Minister Vishwanath Hegde Kageri said July 14 that those
opposing the Gita teaching should quit India.
Kageri said teaching the holy book was necessary to inculcate
moral values in students. He made the comment at a function in
Kolar, 65 km from Bangalore.
On July 8, he had announced in Bangalore that the government was
"open to making Bhagvad Gita teaching compulsory in schools".
But Higher Education Minister V.S. Acharya said the programme
should not be seen as religious teaching.
"There is no connection between Bhagavad Gita and religion. Gita
has more to do with human values," Acharya asserted.
Not everyone is convinced.
Many see it as an attempt to "communalise" education, and are
opposing it on the ground that it was unconstitutional for the
government to back such a programme.
The issue reached the high court July 14.
On a petition by the Karnataka State Minorities Educational
Institutions Managements' Federation challenging the official
support to the programme, the court sought the response of the
state and the central governments.
Kageri insists there is no compulsion to attend the programme,
that it is voluntary and the teaching would take place only after
school hours.
"The government is only supporting the programme, and is nor
organising or financially backing it," Kageri has been saying.
The programme is conducted by Sri Gangadharendra Saraswati Swami
of Sonda Swarnavalli 'Math' in Sirsi in Uttara Kannada district,
about 430 km from Bangalore.
The programme is for primary, secondary and high school students.
Though it has been on since 2007, the row erupted now as the
programme's launch was opposed by the Students Federation of
India, which is affiliated to the Communist Party of
India-Marxist, in Kolar July 6.
SFI Kolar unit president V. Ambarish was arrested for trying to
disrupt the sermon by Gangadharendra Saraswati Swami and released
on bail five days later. Protesting the arrest, hundreds of
students took out rallies.
Ambarish has filed a counter-case against Gangadharendra Swami
saying he violated prohibitory orders banning assembly of five or
people, which was in force in Kolar on July 6. He is seeking the
Swami's arrest.
Asked why SFI kept quiet all these years, its state president H.R.
Naveen Kumar told IANS: "We have been opposing it since it was
launched in 2007. But only now it has become a major issue because
our Kolar unit head was arrested on false charges and held in jail
for five days."
The Kolar incident and the subsequent statement of Kageri have
been condemned by the Congress and groups like Dalit Sangarsh
Samiti and Komu Souharda Vedike (Forum for Communal Harmony).
All of them have demanded Kageri's dismissal from the ministry.
Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa, bogged down by allegations of
corruption, has not commented on the mounting controversy -- thus
far.
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