In particular, the induction of Murli Manohar Joshi as Cabinet Minister in charge of Human Resources Development, with Uma Bharati as Minister of State, was significant. Though the two had been on opposite sides of bitter factional battles within the BJP, they had both distinguished themselves during the Ayodhya campaign in fashioning the hardline ideological idiom of Hindutva. They experienced a day of mystical communion which transcended all personal animosities, the day the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya was destroyed -- a moment of shared exultation in the most shameful act of vandalism this country a witnessed, a moment preserved for the annals of infamy by a vigilant photographer. And though they have since gone back to accustomed bickering, both have remained in their individual ways, among the most ideologically committed to the skewed notions of "cultural nationalism''.

Joshi in particular brought impressive credentials to the job. Among the top leadership of the BJP, it is possible to make out certain shades of difference in attitude towards liberal political opinion. Atal Behari Vajpayee by all accounts, likes to think that he can easily fit into the liberal milieu though, in essence, he represents the RSS core. Lal Krishna Advani again, is not uncomfortable in liberal circles, though he does affect a sense of distress that his views on culture and politics have been interpreted as a variety of extremism. Joshi in contrast, likes to wear his lack of acceptance in liberal circles as a badge of honour. He has been all through his political career, the ruthless hitman, tasked with pursuing liberalism to its last lair and destroying it.

 THE MISCUED ADVENTURE OF THE VAJPAYEE MINISTRY

Yet for one who was an integral member of the BJP's leadership troika, Joshi remained curiously inconspicuous in the early days of the ministry's existence. He first showed his hand in June 1998, reconstituting the Indian Council of Historical Research -- one of the country's premier agencies sponsoring historical research -- to bring in favoured nominees. Just when Joshi was honouring the historians who had contributed richly to the BJP's Ayodhya campaign with membership of the ICHR, the World Archeological Congress, meeting in Sarajevo, was condemning them for complicity in the falsification of historical and archaeological evidence, for the furtherance of ethnic and religious chauvinism.

This of course, spoke volumes for the BJP's attitude towards professional ethics in research work. But Joshi was undeterred. Shortly after wielding the hatchet at ICHR, he reconstituted the Indian Council for Social Science Research and the governing body of the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla. The criteria used on choosing his nominees was again very transparent -- a demonstrated willingness to disregard professional ethics to further the BJP's agenda of religious chauvinism.

EDUCATION MINISTERS' CONFERENCE

However, it was with the annual conference of state education ministers and secretaries in October 1998, that the full scope and sweep of the Hindutva agenda were revealed. In the agenda papers circulated to the ministers well before the conference, the HRD Ministry put forward a set of intentions, going over well trodden ground, reiterating certain obvious priority areas of action in the grossly neglected area of education in the country. The sting, it transpired, was retained for the tail. An annexure to the agenda papers set out a number of goals and priorities that had the non-BJP ministers participating in the conference in a state of agitation.

West Bengal Education Minister Kanti Biswas took the initiative in alerting his counterparts from the other states about the unwarranted intrusions into the agenda for the conference. Under the garb of discussing the report of a ``group of experts'' on the education sector, the HRD Ministry had inserted a number of brazenly tendentious items into the agenda. These were supposed to be presented to the conference by P.D. Chitlangia, an industrialist from Calcutta who was not exactly distinguished for his role in the education sector, though he seemingly held an important position within Vidya Bharati, the educational chain founded and controlled by the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh.

In its essential details, the report of the "group of experts'' arose from an all-India conference of the Vidya Bharati in August. How this report came later to enjoy the official sanction and sponsorship of the HRD Ministry is a mystery. Joshi's rationalisation of his decision to present the report to the Education Ministers' conference was curious to say the least -- in a democracy, every individual and organisation had a right to be heard by policymakers, he argued. For Chitlangia to present a particular shade of "expert opinion'' to the education ministers was in this respect, completely unexceptionable.

Few of the participants at the conference were willing to give any credence to this line of argument. It was one thing for an officially empowered expert group to put forward recommendations for their consideration, quite another for a shadowy organisation of pronounced illiberal tendencies to seek an audience on the strength of the patronage it enjoyed from the Minister.

Among the many recommendations made by the group of experts was one that the content of education from the primary level to the higher education stage should be "Indianised, nationalised and spiritualised'', and that courses at all levels, including vocational training courses, should incorporate the "essentials of Indian culture''. This recommendation was premised upon an understanding that the curricula followed in the education system today are in some way un-Indian. It showed the unmistakable inspiration of the RSS' well-known ideological barb, that the governing virtue of secularism in India today has only been the denial of all legitimacy to the indigenous national culture.

The recommendation that the curricula needed revamping was framed by a rather dubious reading of the Constitution. Disingenuously taking its cue from a Supreme Court verdict dealing with electoral malpractices, the expert group advocated the incorporation of the Vedas and Upanishads into basic education. This would not fall foul of the constitutional prohibition on religious instruction in schools funded by the State, since in the expert group's interpretation, the Supreme Court "has already defined Hindutva as a way of life and not as a religion''.

Other proposals with a direct bearing on the content of education included one to make Sanskrit learning obligatory for students between classes III and X, and another to introduce "moral and spiritual education'' that would inculcate "desirable social and national values''. And while the curricula would not differentiate on grounds of gender at the primary stage of education, girls at higher levels would be given training in "home-keeping''.

MINORITY BASHING

The RSS and its affiliates have always viewed the special permission granted to the minorities for the sustenance of educational institutions as a tacit act of discrimination against the Hindu religion. This constitutional right guaranteed to the minorities provides part of the substance to the gibe of "pseudo-secularism'' that Advani in particular has sought to popularise in recent times.

Joshi's expert group sought to operationalise these sentiments in terms of an amendment to article 30 of the Constitution. Where at present, the article is a special dispensation for the minorities, the proposed amendment would have made it an enabling provision for all religious groups: "Every section of citizens, whether based on religion or language, shall have the right to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice''. The expert group summed up the social impact of this proposed amendment with the deepest sense of self-satisfaction: "It would be seen that the above amendment would remove a cause of considerable tension without in any way taking away or diluting the rights of the minorities''.

The argument verged on the bizarre -- a constitutional exemption granted to the minority communities as a salve to their sense of insecurity is to be generalised, so that religious instruction becomes the rule rather than the exception. And this was justified on the grounds that it would better ensure social harmony. Ample illustration that the ideological component of the Vidya Bharati plan was a virtual minefield, even without taking into account some of its practical details -- such as the restriction of access to higher education in the interests of raising "academic standards'' and lowering costs.

VIOLATING ESTABLISHED

CONVENTIONS

Aside from the substance of discussions at the conference, Joshi also sought certain telling changes in form. The intrusion of an unauthorised "expert'' who changed his identity very rapidly when put under media scrutiny -- from Vidya Bharati representative to crusader for tribal education to just a plain manufacturer of plywood in Calcutta -- was only the beginning of these departures from convention. Another crucial change, suffused with Joshi's own sense of symbolism, was the supersession of the national anthem by a hymn venerating the goddess of learning, Saraswati, in the inaugural session.

In the days leading up to the conference, education ministers from various states sent out signals that they would not be party to the proceedings unless their well-founded reservations were assuaged. Until the eve of the conference, Joshi himself remained defiant. Apart from upholding the "democratic'' right of any individual or organisation to address an official conference, he also made much of the cultural symbolism of the hymn sung to the glory of the Hindu goddess of learning, the Saraswati Vandana.

All the bravado evaporated on the day the conference began. No fewer than 15 state ministers made it clear that they would rather kick the table over and depart than partake of an occasion that seemed solely intended to legitimise the intrusion of the divisive ideology of Hindutva into formative educational influences. Prime Minister Vajpayee made his introductory speech after several moments of bewilderment at the vehemence of the protests he witnessed. But in declaiming against bigotry in the educational process, Vajpayee did what he is best at -- he made a calculated overture to liberal political opinion while yielding nothing in terms of his loyalty to the Hindutva cause. In remarks made shortly after the conference, he made due amends to the Hindutva brotherhood by denouncing all objections to the Saraswati Vandana as an "insult to the nation''.

But with over half the participants in the conference having chosen either boycott or abstention as the fitting option, Joshi was compelled to retreat. The Vidya Bharati annexure to the conference agenda was withdrawn, Chitlangia's speech was cancelled, and the Saraswati Vandana was substituted by the national anthem as the invocatory theme of the conference.

Joshi's ideological adventure was destined to come a cropper. Apart from the parties in overt opposition, several of the BJP's allies and electoral partners found the HRD Minister's effort to doctor the agenda of the conference repugnant on grounds of procedure, content and intent. Joshi was quick to sound the retreat, though he remains committed to the long-term perpetuation of the Hindutva ideological agenda. That project, indeed, has been proceeding on a variety of fronts, notably through the quiet and insidious spread of the RSS' institutional network in the education sector. A crude effort to officially consecrate this growth and perhaps quicken its pace was defeated. But there is yet no basis for assuming that the danger has abated.