BJP-Led State Replaces Chapter About Indian Freedom Fighter With One About RSS Founder in Schoolbook

Bhagat Singh, who was convicted of killing a British officer during India's freedom struggle, was hanged in March 1931, aged 23. He is regarded as a national hero and youth icon across the country.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Karnataka government in southern India has drawn outrage from various student groups and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) after a chapter on the country's freedom struggle icon Bhagat Singh in a school textbook was replaced with one about Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) founder Keshav Baliram Hedgewar.

The changes have been made in a revised version of the textbook meant for high school students. The book, written in the Kannada language, now carries a chapter titled "Nijavada Adarsha Purusha Yaraagabeku?" ("Who is the real role model?") based on a speech by Hedgewar.

The RSS is the ideological parent organisation of the BJP.

On Tuesday, the Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) head and Delhi state chief Arvind Kejriwal hit out at the BJP, saying it is an insult to the sacrifice made by iconic freedom fighter Bhagat Singh and demanded a rollback of the Karnataka government's decision regarding the chapter.

"The country will not tolerate such a humiliation of its martyrs at all. The BJP government will have to take back this decision", Kejriwal tweeted in Hindi.

Many student organisations, including the All India Democratic Students Organisation (AIDSO) and All India Save Education Committee (AISEC), have also slammed the state government's decision and demanded the removal of the chapter from the book.

"Lesson on a great revolutionary who sacrificed his life at the age of 23, Bhagat Singh, has been omitted, while a speech made by the founder of the RSS, which does not unite people but spreads communal hatred, has been added", the AIDSO said in a statement.

"This makes it clear that the governing BJP and the Sangh Parivar (RSS) have no regard for the great revolutionaries of the country's independence movement", it added.

"These changes need to be opposed by all conscious citizens, and we need to ensure that our education is in tune with scientific and secular values respecting pluralism and multiculturalism of India nation-state [sic]", S.G. Siddaramaiah, a writer and former president of the Kannada Development Authority, told The Hindu.

After being criticised, BJP State Minister for Primary and Secondary Education B.C. Nagesh defended the changes made in the textbook, saying the "decisions have been taken by the (education) committee independently". "There is no objectionable content. There is no content that hurts secular values”, said the minister.

He also stated that RSS founder Hedgewar was “a doctor who sacrificed his family and personal desires for the sake of the country”. It 's because of Hedgewar that India has had great leaders like Prime Minister Narendra Modi and late former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the minister added.

Vajpayee was the BJP's first prime minister, governing the country in 1998-2003.

Meanwhile, other than Bhagat Singh, chapters written by a well-known journalist and critic of the BJP, the late P. Lankesh, and leftist thinker G. Ramakrishna have also been dropped.