The Bhartiya Shiksha board has been designated a pan-Indian school education board. This now means that the board – founded by controversial yoga guru and proven fraudster Baba Ramdev – is now equivalent to 12th and 10th standard graduation from nationally recognized boards like the CBSE.
The board claims to blend ancient Indian learning with modern scientific methods. Citing the need for such methods to escape a colonial slave mindset imposed on us by the British and western knowledge systems. This is apparent in their vision statement, part of which reads “Inspired by the National Education Policy 2020, the BSB textbooks make a conscious and determined effort to free the children and
youth from the western biases and influences that have been harbored in their minds due to centuries of colonial rule and also the contemporary materialistic mindset that has been developed due to the rampant western culture in the modern Bhartiya society.”
However, the question that must be raised is whether such non-traditional education pushed by a controversial charlatan like Ramdev is truly freeing Indians from anything. The same man who peddled misinformation during COVID is going to bring about the development of a new indigenous education system? The bigot who claimed homosexuality could be cured through yoga, is going to usher in a new dawn in Indian education? Are we to blindly trust the process by which this board has received its legitimization, especially with the nationwide resistance to the National Education Policy, 2020?
It is more likely that the recognition of Ramdev’s education board is a symptom of far right communal actors consolidating power over our country’s education systems. Working hand in hand with the powers that be, to infiltrate and twist the system to their own ends. To enslave minds similarly to how they claim foreign knowledge systems do to us. This fits perfectly with the visions of the NEP 2020 that actively promotes Indian Knowledge systems particularly Sanskrit Knowledge Systems without a critical understanding of it in context with the requirements of the current society. Baba Ramdev is well known for his pseudoscientific claims as mentioned above. Through this board, such claims will probably make way into school curricula leading to erosion of rational thoughts from early ages. This board will also help propagate the public-philanthropic-partnership model of education advocated by the NEP 2020. Ultimately, the saffron donning is not enough to hide the profiteering instinct of Baba Ramdev.
It is more important than ever that we remain watchful and actively engage to reject such blatant cronyism in something as crucial as education.
