Kerala Education Minister and CPI(M) leader V Sivankutty on Sunday ordered a probe after a controversy erupted over school students singing the RSS ‘Gana Geetham’ during the inaugural run of the Ernakulam-Bengaluru Vande Bharat Express on Saturday.
Twenty students and two teachers from the Saraswathi Vidyanikethan Public School in Kochi were among those who joined the inaugural run of the train, which was virtually flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The choice of song created a political storm in Kerala, with the ruling CPI(M) and Opposition Congress coming out against the incident, and both parties accusing the BJP of using the Railways to push its “divisive” politics.
Announcing the probe, Sivankutty said in his social media handle that the students being made to sing Gana Geetham is a serious matter. The Director of General of Education was told to submit a detailed report. “Using the students for the communal agenda of a political organisation is flagrant violation of constitutional principles and is highly objectionable. There would not be any compromise on ensuring secular education of our children,” the minister said.
Later in the day, he told the media in Delhi that no school would be allowed to have proceedings that pose a challenge to secularism. “The state government gives an NOC (no-objection certificate) for starting a school. There are certain conditions for granting an NOC. If those conditions are found to have been violated, the state government has the power to withdraw the NOC,” he said.
The CBSE-affiliated school comes under Bharatheeya Vidyanikethan, the Kerala chapter of Vidya Bharathi, an education wing of the RSS. School principal K P Dinto had said the Railways had no role in students singing the song, although the government entity shared the video in its social media handles.
The CPI(M) continued to criticise the incident on Sunday. CPI(M) State Secretariat alleged in a statement that the Railways’ action was against the Constitution. “The students were made to sing RSS Gana Geetham under the guise of being a patriotic song. The RSS Gana Geetham does not evoke patriotism, only hatred and contempt. The Railways is being used for communalising Kerala, which is a stronghold of secularism. In the past, the office of the Governor had been for this purpose,” the statement said.
