Suvendu Adhikari announces plan to set up 1,000 RSS-run schools in Bengal

West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari has set a target of establishing at least 1,000 schools run by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) education wing Vidya Bharati across the state within a year. The RSS schools are proposed to be set up across districts, municipalities and panchayats, with the stated aim of promoting what Adhikari called “nationalistic learning”.

Adhikari made the announcement on Thursday while speaking at an event at the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture in Kolkata to mark the 74th anniversary of Vidya Bharati. He urged the organisation to take responsibility for imparting nationalistic education and invited its senior officials to the state secretariat to discuss taking the initiative forward.

West Bengal currently has 313 Vidya Bharati schools, while the organisation runs more than 12,000 schools and 10,000 Bal Sanskar Kendras across India, according to the Times of India report. Adhikari specifically asked Vidya Bharati to expand its presence in Murshidabad and South 24 Parganas, alleging that these districts see more “anti-national activities”.

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Suvendu Adhikari proposes single education department

The chief minister also proposed restructuring the state's education administration by merging its four existing departments — school education, higher education, technical education and minority education — into a single department. He said there would be no separate administrative arrangement for madrassa education.

“Our belief is to have a single education department. There will be no madrassa education department and others. You keep watching,” Adhikari said, according to the TOI.

He also referred to Syama Prasad Mookerjee's call for “ek desh, ek bidhan, ek nishan, ek pradhan” and said the principle should apply to education as well. He questioned why Aliah University should be administered separately from other universities when it is currently under the state's minority affairs department.

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Adhikari criticised the previous Trinamool Congress government over its handling of education and alleged that it had damaged the state's education environment. He said institutions such as Vidya Bharati would need to “help the state come out of this”.

He also alleged that changes to the Bengali syllabus under the previous government were aimed at dividing people. Referring to the treatment of Bengali cultural figures in the syllabus, he said lessons on personalities such as Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and Swami Vivekananda had been neglected.

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Vidya Bharati official Anand Rao told the TOI that the organisation's schools teach students “bharatiyatwa (Indianness)” along with puja rituals. He said the schools operate up to different levels, with some running till Class 5 and others up to Classes 8, 10 or 12.