Gujarat School Declares Hindutva as the National Religion, Devanagari as the National Script

In yet another outlandish re-writing of history, a school in Gujarat declared that India's national religion is Hindutva. The secondary and higher secondary school, in a village in North Gujarat's Banaskantha district, had put up a school notice board under the head "India's National Symbols" to mark the 73rd Republic Day on Wednesday, January 26.

Apart from this declaration on India's religion, the notice board also mentioned Vande Mataram as the country's national anthem, whereas Jan Gana Mana was mentioned as the national song. Gujarati calendar Vikram Samvat was declared as India's national calendar, and Devanagari took the honours to be the country's national script. It must be asserted that India neither has a national religion nor a national script. The claim about the national calendar is also false.

The board can be seen in the context of a new school principal, Deepak Joshi, taking charge of the school a year ago. Joshi used to teach the Gujarati language at another school earlier. Manhar Patel, a Gujarat Congress spokesperson who brought the issue to light in a Facebook post, alleged that Joshi is from an RSS background.

"Leave the background; this only reflects how low Gujarat's educational standards had stooped to. If this was put up on the school notice board on Republic Day, you can only imagine what they must be teaching the students," Patel asserted. He said that local Congress leaders who attended a Republic Day function in the school alerted him to the issue.

Gujarat's Education Secretary Vinod Rao said he was shocked to hear the news. "If the school has really put this and if the photo of the blackboard is genuine and of today, I will seek the explanation of the District Education Officer," Rao said. Rao also questioned how a primary school was open when all primary classes had been closed due to COVID-19 restrictions.