Amid controversy stirred over Haryana Government’s move to allegedly add a Hindutva orientation to the education system with introduction of Gita shlokas in school curriculum, Haryana Education Minister Ram Bilas Sharma on Wednesday said Bhagwad Gita is not a religious book.“The scripture is not a religious book and its teachings will be part of moral education. It’s a conversation between lord Krishna and Arjuna during Mahabharta,” said Ram Bilas Sharma while speaking at ‘Meet the Press’ programme here on Wednesday.
When asked about the charges from various quarters that BJP led Haryana Government is going ahead with saffronisation of the education system, the Education Minister said that if anybody has objection on teaching Gita, let me tell you that it is not a religious book. He went onto say, “The Deoband (seminary) and others also said that Gita is not a religious book. Gita is knowledge, science, curiosity, it is solution, Gita is life...”Citing example of recently observed International Yoga day, he said that 192 nations took part in the International Yoga Day on June 21, out of which 47 were Muslim countries.
He further said that a day before, two intellectuals from Germany met me at Rishikesh and hailed our decision of going ahead with the inclusion of Gita in the school curriculum.Continuing with his explanation, the Education Minister added German orientalist Max Mueller had once got copies of the Vedas in Germany and placing all the four Vedas on his head, he had danced for 30 minutes. He was overjoyed to have got such wealth of knowledge from the Vedas, added Ram Bilas Sharma.
After the declaration of dismal results of class X and XII recently, the Manohar lal Khattar led Haryana Government had attracted criticism from various quarters for giving priorities to promoting moral education with inclusion of Gita shlokas and Yoga in school curriculum instead of improving the educational infrastructure at the grass-roots level in the state.On being asked about the steps taken to improve quality of education in government schools, Sharma said that Haryana has 15,000 government schools in which about 76 per cent students belonging to Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes are studying. We have planned to establish modern Sanskriti Vidhalaya in every district to improve the quality of education in Haryana.
Meanwhile, Sharma, who also holds the Transport portfolio, said the State Government would soon announce a new policy to improve transport services in the state. To finalise the policy the government has already held a meeting with various employees unions and other stakeholders, he said. Stating that 40 lakh passengers are commuting via state transport daily, the Minister indicated involving participation of private sector to meet the ever-growing passenger rush.“Even though the government is adding 1,000 buses to the State Roadways fleet taking their number to 5100, but this will not be sufficient to meet the passenger rush. The Government, therefore, is also open to operating buses under the ‘Kilometre Scheme’ “as is being done in neighbouring Punjab, Uttrakhand, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan. Under the scheme, while the driver will be provided by the state roadways, the buses and conductors are provided by the owners, said Sharma.On the problem of plying of overloaded trucks, he said that the Central Government and has given an ultimatum of four months to ensure this. When asked about increasing number of road accidents due to overloading of trucks involved in illegal mining from Rajasthan side, the Minister said that he had talked to Transport Minister of Rajasthan in this regard and this problem would be sorted out soon.
On the issue of various languages Academies being non-functional in the state, he said that Akademies of different languages like Hindi, Sanskrit, Punjab, Urdu etc would soon be reconstituted in the state. He added that he had met Chief Minister Manohar lal in this regard and these would soon be reconstituted.Responding to the query on the promotion of Punjabi language in the state, he said that Punjabi having the status of second language in the state, steps would be taken for its promotion. Apart from recruiting teachers in Punjabi language, O.T Punjabi course would be started on the pattern of B.Ed and D.Ed, the Minister added.