Thwarted on education, Joshi
turns on research institutions
George Iype in New Delhi
Union Human Resource Development Minister Dr Murli Manohar Joshi may not have succeeded in his mission to "spiritualise, nationalise and Indianise" the curricula of schools and universities across the country.
But in the past six months, the leading votary of Hindutva in the government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee has packed several academic institutes and research centres with activists of the Bharatiya Janata Party and sympathisers of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
Dr Joshi's latest effort has been to saffronise the Indian Council of Philosophical Research, a government-aided, Delhi-based autonomous institute.
Sources in the HRD ministry said Dr Joshi has nominated six of his "friends" as members of the ICPR, which is the country's leading institute for research in philosophy and its various branches.
All the six new members -- who are academicians and professors working in various universities -- are learnt to be open supporters of the RSS-BJP.
Dr Joshi's representatives on the ICPR include Delhi University's head of the philosophy department, Professor S R Bhat, who has published a number of papers on Hindutva. In Delhi University, Professor Bhat is known as a BJP-RSS supporter. He is also a member of the BJP-affiliated National Democratic Teachers Federation.
The other new ICPR members are close academic friends of the HRD minister such as Himmat Singh Sinha of Kurukshetra University, H M Joshi, vice-chancellor of Saurashtra University, R C Pradhan from Hyderabad University, D Kar from Utkal University, and K K Mittal, a former professor of Delhi University.
"Dr Joshi's attempt is to pack all the research institutes aided by the HRD ministry with historians and academicians who support his Hindutva agenda of education," a senior ministry official told Rediff On The NeT.
"By nominating university vice-chancellors and professors to the ICPR, the minister wants to ensure that his trusted friends will help him introduce the Vedas, Upanishads and Sanskrit in colleges and incorporate the 'Hindutva way of life' in curricula," the official commented.
Vehement protests from education ministers from Opposition-ruled states had forced Dr Joshi to abandon his agenda to recast the national education policy on lines proposed by the RSS.
Now his decision to nominate six of his friends to the ICPR has resulted in a controversy in the apex research institute.
ICPR officials said the minister's representatives have launched a campaign to oust the institute's chairman, V Venkatachalam, whose three-year term ends only late next year.
While Venkatachalam has refused to quit, Joshi's nominees now want the ICPR governing body to institute an inquiry against A Vohra, the member-secretary who is said to have publicly voiced his displeasure about the new appointments.
Venkatachalam refused to comment on the controversy, but ICPR officials said BJP-RSS supporters are trying to seize control of the institution by hook or by crook.
"There is no philosophical research going on here now. A power struggle to control and saffronise the ICPR is on," an official told Rediff On The NeT.
Dr Joshi's attempt to take control of apex research institutes is not new. Soon after taking over as HRD minister, he had reconstituted the Indian Council of Historical Research, the Indian Council of Social Science Research, and the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies.
Well-known historians and academicians whose political views leaned towards the Left were removed from the institutions and replaced with academicians and historians who form part of the BJP-RSS think-tank on Hindutva.
Dr Joshi's representatives in the ICSSR include P N Chopra, a well-known pro-BJP historian, while Parimal Das of Jawaharlal Nehru University was inducted in the ICHR. Interestingly, Das recently set up an organisation called Friends of Vajpayee.
Similarly, S Gopal, chairman of the Simla-based IIAS, has been replaced with a close Joshi aide and Sanskrit scholar G C Pande.
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