MARCH 16, 2019
Hidden Agenda behind the Proposed Vedic Education?
What are the inferences of Vedic education for the annihilation of caste?
T
he recent announcement about the proposed establish-
ment of the Bharatiya Shiksha Board in order to revital-
ise and teach Vedic education has had its usual share of
supporters and sceptics. This initiative is considered as a step
towards getting students to learn about Vedic culture, as well as
the canonical texts and practices of Hinduism. Keeping ideo-
logical issues aside, we can ask specific questions about the
teachers who are going to teach, the expectations from the
students, as well as the implications of teaching religious studies
in schools and colleges.
First, if the Vedas are to be taught as part of our education
system, the teachers presumably would be those who are well
versed with—and allowed to study—the Vedas. Since there is a
proscription on studying the Vedas, will this create an exclusive
class among the twice-born who will teach this course? After all,
Vedic pathshalas exist in many places in the country and they
have an essential caste aspect to the instruction in that almost
exclusively only boys and men from the privileged groups at the
top of the social hierarchy are allowed to learn the Vedas. And,
these privileged typically are also the ones who strictly follow
caste practices and the vocation of “priests.” This is important to
emphasise since, unlike the non-priestly Brahmin community,
the priestly class has to follow a large number of rituals through
the course of the day.
Having such teachers will also entail that schools and colleg-
es have special places/rooms for them, thus continuing the seg-
regation of castes within the space of educational institutions
and bringing religious rituals directly into these spaces. Brah-
minism, it should be remembered, is deeply immersed in ritual
practices. Will the students who learn Vedic education also fol-
low these Brahminical practices? If so, what are the implica-
tions for the caste dynamics in our society?
One reason for introducing this proposal seems to be based
on the belief that our education system is somehow biased
against Hinduism and that a course correction is needed. This
would imply that our education system is as much biased against
other religions too. Is it that the so-called secular education does
not know how to deal with cultural and religious aspects of a
Economic & Political Weekly EPW MARCH 16, 2019 vol lIV no 11
society? If so, then it is a problem that needs to be fixed by taking
the disciplines of religious and cultural studies more seriously.
It is ironic that we do not have well-established religious studies
departments in any of our modern educational institutions. It is
ironic that these departments when situated outside India
produce most of the scholarship about these religions, at least in
the medium of English. We need to produce a scholarly and crit-
ical approach to frame meaningful syllabuses in Vedic studies
too, otherwise we will end up depending too much on the reli-
gious leaders themselves for interpreting these religions.
There is also an added worry. Some of the supporters of this
decision feel that this initiative is welcome because it would
mitigate the “harm” that the Right of Children to Free and Com-
pulsory Education (RtE) Act has done, revealing a hidden agenda
in the introduction of this course. The belief that the RtE has
caused damage to “Hindu-run educational institutions” is factu-
ally wrong and ideologically based on false premises that some-
how this act is for poor students who, by default, belong to other
religions. (There is a hidden assumption about caste in this be-
lief.) And even if the poor students are Hindus, they are not seen
as descendants of Vedic civilisation. Thus, this belief reinforces
the suspicion that the introduction of Vedic education is another
way of introducing Brahminical education.
Finally, who are those who will embrace this initiative? If the
government believes that this will inspire Hindus, it would be
sadly mistaken. If anything, the majority of middle, upper and
the aspiring classes of Hindus (particularly those at the top of
the twice-born hierarchy) would rather send their children to
missionary and international schools. Moreover, there are al-
ready many such schools offering Vedic education and very few
Hindus, including the hierarchically privileged who send their
children there. It thus seems that the major target of this initia-
tive is the non-Hindus and the non-Brahmins. Vedic education
seems to be primarily targeted towards the non-Hindus of our
society in order to show them the greatness of this culture, and,
in doing this, “Vedic” is being equated with “Indian” rather sur-
reptitiously. While we do not have to dispute the value of the
contribution of the Vedic period in matters such as philosophy,
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EDITORIALS

language, and the arts, we cannot create a system to suggest to
all Indians (including the non-Brahminical Hindus) that their
heritage is the Vedic.
However, we must also note that the reason why such an
initiative can become a political tool is that our education
system is still dominated by naive Eurocentric reason. Students
and parents are genuinely frustrated by this structure of educa-
tion and the suspicion that it has towards non-Western sources.
So, this initiative is a wake-up call to all of us worried about the
content and methods of our education system, which will hope-
fully find ways to integrate multiple perspectives that are sensi-
tive to the experiences and reason of the non-West.

8 MARCH 16, 2019 vol lIV no 11 EPW Economic & Political Weekly