In the scheme of things of the RSS, the business of running schools that further the political and social agenda of its fountainhead ideology of Hindutva ranks high. The programme is described in the propaganda literature as the "task of educating and ennobling young minds''. The RSS leadership, beginning with K.B. Hedgewar and M.S. Golwalkar, had identified this as an important component of the plan to propagate "Hindutva philosophy'' through initiatives on the ideological, organisational and cultural fronts. According to the organisation's own assessment, as reflected in publications such as RSS: A Vision in Action and Lakshya ek, Karya Anek, efforts in this direction have spread far and wide in the last 50 years.

These publications however, acknowledge one deficiency as crucial -- the inadequacy of government recognition and support. By all indications, Joshi's attempt to influence the conference of education ministers and provide official sanction to the activities of the Vidya Bharati, was intended to redress this deficiency.

Vidya Bharati (or the Vidya Bharati Akhil Bharatiya Siksha Sansthan) was established in 1978, with the objective of providing a coherent organisational setting for the activities of the RSS in education. Insiders claim today that the organisation runs 14,000 schools at the nursery, primary and secondary levels and has over 18 lakh students under its tutelage. These schools are spread all over the states (except Mizoram), and they employ an estimated 80,000 teachers. The Vidya Bharati also controls 60 colleges which offer graduate and post-graduate education, and 25 other institutions of higher learning. Further, the organisation runs two teacher-training colleges, in Jaipur and Ahmednagar.

Of the 14,000 schools, about 5,000 are recognised by and affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) or the respective State Education Boards. A large number of these are in states where the BJP has been in power.

Some of these claims are endorsed by an official evaluation and assessment carried out by the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) in 1996. The numbers though are more modest -- the NCERT estimates that the Vidya Bharati runs 6,000 schools in all, with a total enrolment of 12 lakh students and teaching staff numbering 40,000. The NCERT also made the alarming diagnosis that many of the Vidya Bharati textbooks were "designed to promote bigotry and religious fanaticism in the name of inculcating knowledge of culture in the young generation''. It was a matter of "serious concern'' said the only official evaluation of the Vidya Bharati, that such material was being used for instruction in schools which "presumably had been granted recognition''.

The Vidya Bharati schools operate on the basis of a "core curriculum'' that operationalises the Hindutva worldview. The core curriculum among other things, seeks to pass off as historical truth the scientifically dubious claim that the site where the Babri Masjid stood at Ayodhya is the birthplace of Ram. And arguing in favour of a ban on cow slaughter, it states that the cow "is the mother of all beings and the abode of gods''.

The core curriculum further teaches that Homer's Iliad is not an original work but an adaptation of Valmiki's Ramayana. According to these teachings, almost all the civilisations of the world were inspired by, indeed founded on, Sanskritic culture.

The NCERT evaluation found that the Vidya Bharati schools prescribed for their pupils a series of booklets under the general title of Sanskriti Jnan Pareeksha (Cultural Knowledge Examination) and Sanskriti Jnan Pareeksha Prasnottari (Cultural Knowledge Examination Question and Answers). These consist of a series of questions and their answers, which are provided in a manner that makes the rigour of original thinking superfluous. Students are required to learn by rote this "catechistic series", as the NCERT characterises it. And just what sort of "cultural knowledge'' do these booklets impart? That the Ram Janmabhoomi was "invaded'' no fewer than 77 times between 1528 A.D. and 1914 A.D., that "3.5 lakh devotees laid down their lives in defending this holy site'' in that span of time, and that November 2, 1990, when an attempt by Hindutva hordes to mount an assault on the Babri Masjid was repulsed by the police, would go down as a "black day'' in India's history.

In a section on world religions, the Vidya Bharati catechism resorts to outright communal propaganda and falsification of history: it claims that India was partitioned on account of the "conspiratorial policies of the followers of Christianity'' and that Christian missionaries "are even today engaged in fostering anti-national tendencies in Nagaland, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, Kerala and other regions of the country''.

The course material used in the Vidya Bharati schools throughout the country is the same. The schools themselves are known by a variety of names, such as Saraswati Shishu Mandir, Bharatiya Vidya Niketan, Gita Vidyalaya and Saraswati Bal Vidyalaya. Significantly, the state and regional-level governing bodies of these institutions do not always go by the name of Vidya Bharati. These bodies use different names depending on the socio-political situation in each state. For instance, the governing body in Delhi, where the RSS and the BJP have a significant political presence, flaunts the title Hindu Siksha Samiti. Those in Orissa and Punjab operate under the less strident names of Siksha Vikas Samiti and Sarva Hitkari Siksha Samiti. In a supposed concession to local sentiment, in the Jharkhand region of Bihar, the governing body is called Vananchal Siksha Samiti.

Though the apex body was established only in 1978, many of the state and regional institutions have been around for more than four decades. According to RSS literature, the Vidya Bharati was established in order to advance the growth of the "educational movement of the RSS''. The records of the saffron organisation show that the first step towards developing "alternate models of education'' based on "Bharatiya ethos and culture'', was taken even before Independence, with the establishment of the Gita Senior Secondary School at Kurukshetra in 1946. The school was set up by Golwalkar and the idea at the time was to follow up with a chain of such institutions. But that plan did not come into operation because the RSS was banned shortly afterwards for complicity in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.

The effort was renewed in 1956 with the establishment of a Saraswati Sishu Mandir at Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh. Ever since, the RSS chain of institutions has expanded rapidly. Over the years, it has given special attention to extending its reach to underdeveloped regions and regions inhabited by tribal communities. However, it is not an altruistic desire to provide educational facilities to underprivileged communities that motivates the Vidya Bharati. The calculations are rather more reflective of a bigoted outlook, as the booklet RSS: A Vision in Action reveals. Christian missionaries, says the booklet -- part of the official literature of the saffron brotherhood -- provide educational facilities in such regions and "corrupt young minds and wean them away from Hindu ethos and culture''. The Vidya Bharati's effort is ostensibly directed at countering these "corrupting'' influences.

Another vital part of the apparatus of indoctrination is the Bharatiya Sikshan Mandal (BSM), which is essentially an organisation of teachers belonging to the RSS, which focuses its attention on evolving a "Hindutva curriculum''. According to an RSS publication, the BSM's objective is to "infuse a Bharatiya content to the educational system''; it has even drawn up syllabi for classes I to X on moral education and tried to gain acceptance from the union and various state governments.

Founded in 1969, the BSM witnessed a phase of heightened activity in 1977, after the Janata Party came to power. Much in the way as Joshi did in 1998, the BSM then tried to get its curriculum accepted by the Union government. A number of seminars were organised as part of this attempt. Although these efforts finally came to nothing, the BSM syllabi became an integral part of RSS' own schools. It was after this attempt failed that the RSS recast its organisational structure in the sphere of education and established the Vidya Bharati, which not only formulates and revises the Hindutva curriculum from time to time, but also oversees the management of various RSS educational institutions.

The Vidya Bharati adopts a degree of flexibility in its organisational control it exerts over the schools. The idea is to gain maximum leverage in the local context. For instance in Tamilnadu, where the upper-caste Hindu cultural ambience was never widely diffused as a result of the Dravidian movement, there is a formal delinking between the Vidya Bharati and the larger number of the RSS schools. The Vidya Bharati directly controls only a limited number of schools in the state; a more substantial number of schools come under the ambit of autonomous trusts, such as the Tamil Kalvi Kazhakam and the Vivekananda Vidyalayas. In some districts, dominant caste groups -- for instance, industrialists who control the spinning mill industry in Rajapalayam -- have set up schools.

Apart from making token concessions to the "Dravida'' ideology, the schools in Tamilnadu are heavily suffused with the iconography and ritualism of Hindutva. All schools typically have a prayer hall with idols of Hindu deities such as Lakshmi, Saraswati and Ganesha. Religious festivals such as Krishna Jayanti, Vinayaka Chaturthi, Deepavali and Pongal -- and even the anniversary of Chhatrapati Shivaji's coronation which has now come to acquire quasi-religious symbolism -- are celebrated. These schools observe Teachers' Day not on September 5, the birth anniversary of Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, but on July 25, which they claim, is the birth anniversary of sage Vyasa. They observe Children's Day not on November 14, Jawaharlal Nehru's birth anniversary, but on Krishna Jayanti.

A lesson on the life of "Guru'' Golwalkar is prescribed reading material in Tamil for students of class VII in the Vivekananda schools. The Vivekananda Kendra in Kanyakumari, which exercises control over the schools, conducts Sishu Vatika camps for teachers, where the emphasis is on instruction methodology for the primary level. This has acquired importance because the RSS has consciously decided to expand its network of primary schools. This expansion is targeted at developing and moulding cadres for the future, and developing organic links with communities that are adjacent to these schools.

Orissa is another state where the RSS has overcome the inertia of a late start and established a network of educational institutions. The apparatus of indoctrination is identical to that adopted in most other states. Teachers are advised to visit the parents of the students once a month. The Oriya-language weekly publication of the RSS, the Rastra Deepa, is mailed to all the parents. Affiliation to the state education board is a crucial element of these schools' ability to attract students and the curriculum followed therefore conforms to that prescribed by the state authorities. The core of the ideological programme is therefore carried out through extra-curricular activities.

Such forays into areas where the Sangh Parivar's constituents are "politically weak'' have come on top of their activities for several years in the Hindi belt, Maharashtra and Gujarat, where the RSS has traditionally had a presence. But during their brief tenure in power, the BJP obviously thought that it could hasten the process along through an initiative from the top. Attempts to alter school syllabi and doctor textbooks had once been sporadic. Under Joshi, the HRD Ministry sought to systematise the process. Efforts already underway to alter textbooks in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and other states that have at some point in the last decade, suffered the misfortune of falling under BJP rule, point to the directions in which this venture could take the entire country.