Need to counter RSS schools: CPM

Claiming there is an urgent need to counter RSS-run schools that are spreading “communalism”, a section of the CPI(M) leadership has proposed that there is a need to set up a network of schools that can inculcate the “spirit of scientific enquiry and rational thinking” amongst the children. A proposal put before the central committee ahead of the party’s 21st party congress, beginning next month, pointed out that at the time of the National Literacy Mission during the Rajiv Gandhi government’s tenure in the mid to late 1980s, the party-affiliated People’s Science Movement wing had given such a proposal to set up a network of schools which was placed before the party’s highest decision-making body, the politburo. There is an urgent need to look at the proposal afresh, it says.

The CPI(M) is set to hold its party congress next month where its political- tactical line will be reviewed. An important agenda at the meet will be to put in place strategies to counter the “rapid polarisation” taking place under the BJP-led government, said a senior party leader.

“There is an urgent need to set up a network of schools that can inculcate the spirit of scientific enquiry and rational thinking amongst the children. Many years ago, at the time of the National Literacy Mission under the Rajiv Gandhi government, our People’s Science Movement fraction had given a proposal to start such a network of schools. This was circulated to the PB, but unfortunately did not merit the required attention,” wrote senior CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury in his note to the party’s central committee.

He further said, “This should be taken up in the right earnest today. We are seeing the impact of the RSS-run educational institutions in spreading the communal virus.”

The renewed effort to revive the proposal comes in the backdrop of the steady inroads being made by the BJP in West Bengal. The Left parties have claimed that there has been a sharp rise in communal attacks and attempts of communal polarisation not only in West Bengal but across states since the Narendra Modi government has come to power.