India's Ignorance Campaign: The Agenda Behind 'Saffron' Education

 Fueled by the Hindutva political agenda, a growing trend of "saffron" education is taking hold in India. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) are promoting a cultural and historical crime by distorting historical facts, creating lies, and replacing established history with unsubstantiated myths. This systematic indoctrination poses a significant threat to India’s pluralistic identity, risking a future steeped in ignorance and intolerance.

A Controversial Textbook Image

An image in a Class VI science textbook used in ICSE (Indian Certificate of Secondary Education) schools, showing a "mosque" as a source of noise pollution, has sparked outrage on social media, prompting an apology from the publisher and a promise that the picture would be removed in subsequent editions. The textbook has a chapter on the causes of noise pollution which ‘cited mosque’ as a source of noise pollution.

Rewriting History

The regressive era of Narendra Modi is plunging India into abysmal ignorance. To push their agenda of a Hindu Supremacist State, the perjurers of Hindutva are molding malleable young minds. The BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) regime is rewriting history the Hindutva way – replacing historical facts with Hindu mythology.

For example, endorsing that airplanes existed in India since ancient times as Lord Ram (a Hindu God) flew from Lanka to Ayodhya. Sushruta, the father of surgery, practiced over 300 surgical procedures including the process of stitching intestines by using ant-heads as stitching material. And cosmetic surgery was also an indigenous secret! How?? Hindu God Ganesha has an elephant trunk for a nose!!

They even claim that the Holy Kaabah in Makkah isn’t the holy place of Muslims, but was once Makeshwar Temple of their Lord Shiva, as before the advent of Islam the Kaabah was already a central place of worship housing over 360 idols! Zapped? They unabashedly drew a parallel between the Black Stone (Hajr-e-Aswad) and Shivling which represents the union of masculine and feminine which recreates all of existence. And if this wasn’t disturbing enough, know it’s time to un-learn the history lessons too. Did you know apart from Kaabah, Taj Mahal, Vatican City and Westminster Abbey were once the abodes of Shiva?

Spreading the Saffron Agenda

These are not the views of Hindutva zealots alone, but children attending schools run by RSS are acquiring saffron hues too. And now they are setting up training camps in various schools and colleges across the nation.

Recently, in April 2025, an “arms training” camp was conducted by the RSS at Mar Ivanios College in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. The SFI’s (Student Federation of India) district committee said that using schools and places of worship for “arms training” was unconstitutional and dangerous.

The Hindutva brigade romanticizes the idea of ‘saffron India’, even before the BJP rose to power in 2014. Illiteracy and bigotry, which is congenital to the RSS, has hyper-communalized textbooks, tampered with NCERT books, and its ideologues rewriting an imagined and exaggerated past. States where the BJP has a strong foothold have seen pernicious effects. Gujarat has introduced a wide number of books, authored by Hindu ideologues; the introduction of Hindu religious books, the Gita and the Mahabharata, into the school curriculum, while upholding the Sanskrit language.

We know very well that the system of education in any state serves as a tool to ensure that the ‘model citizen’ is developed through the building of thoughts and values fundamental to the prevailing system. This immensely important organ of the education system has not been overlooked by the Hindutva brigade to ensure that those attending educational institutions are indoctrinated with the values of Hindu nationalism.

'Saffron Pearls' of Wisdom

Let’s have a sneak peek into some ‘saffron pearls’ of wisdom imparted in Vidya Bharati Schools and Shishu Mandirs (Educational wings of RSS):

• Iran was first settled by Indians (Aryans).
• Homer adapted Valmiki’s Ramayana into an epic called Iliad.
• Greek philosophers like Herodotus and Aristophanes were influenced by the Vedas.
• The Egyptian faith was based on Indian traditions, according to Plato and Pythagoras.
• The language of the Native American Indians evolved from ancient Indian languages.
• The cow is the mother of us all, in whose body the Gods are believed to reside.
• Jesus Christ roamed the Himalayas and drew his ideas from Hinduism.
• In the textbooks distributed in Vidya Bharti schools, the map of India is shown as including not only Pakistan and Bangladesh but also the entire region of Bhutan, Nepal, Tibet, and even parts of Myanmar ("punnya bhoomi Bharat")

A Sample from the History Texts

These texts are being used in Shishu Mandirs and Government Schools in BJP-controlled states.

Fake myths and heroism

• Rama and Krishna took birth here to destroy evil and defend justice, religion and Sarasvati, and god took birth here many times to make this land pure. India is referred to as Sone ki chidiya and jagadguru (p 4, Gaurav Gatha)
• Our land has always been seen with greedy eyes by the marauders, barbarous invaders and oppressive rulers. This story of invasion and resistance is our 3000-year-long Gaurav Gatha. When this proud tradition actually began is difficult to say because no books were written at that time but we believe that the first man was born in this land. (p. 8 GG)
• Bacchus and Dionysus, among the earliest invaders, suffered such a defeat that feelings of terror ran in Greece (p. 9, GG). Darius had to face such a defeat that Iran could never raise its eyes towards India. (p.10 GG)
• About 2200 years ago, India’s trade was spread far and wide; foreign markets were filled with goods made in India. Heaps of gems and jewels and gold and silver filled the treasures. People of the entire world used to look to India with greedy eyes (p. 12 GG)
• Mahapadma Nanda had so much wealth that if divided among the population, every person would get Rs. 50 lakhs each (p. 13 GG)
• Alexander’s army was defeated at the hands of Puru, and Alexander himself had to seek forgiveness (p.15, GG)
• Pushyamitra destroyed the Greeks. After this, the people of Greece could not attack Bharat. Later, they came only as refugees. As beggars, they begged for their lives but never dared to look with proud eyes. The great man who destroyed the Greek power from its very roots was Emperor Pushyamitra. India is proud of him even today. Every day we remember his name. (p. 35-37, GG)

 Falsification of Indian Medieval History

• Islam spread in India solely by way of the sword.
• The Muslims came to India "with the sword in one hand and the Quran in the other.
• Numberless Hindus were forcibly converted to Islam on the point of the sword. This struggle for freedom became a religious war, Numerous sacrifices were made in the name of religion. We went on winning one battle after another.
• We did not let the foreign rulers settle down to rule, but we were not able to reconvert the separated brothers to Hinduism."(Itihaas Gaa Raha Hai)
• Mohammad Ghori killed lakhs of people, and Visvanath Temple and Bhagwan Krishna’s birthplace were converted into mosques. In turn he was killed by Prithviraj Chauhan (p.s 67-68, GG )
• Qutub Minar was constructed by Samundragupta, and its original name was Vishnu Sthambha ( p. 73, GG).
• When Peshava Madhav Rao came to the throne, no one could raise their eyes. The English, the French, and the Portuguese shivered; they presented gifts in homage in his court with their heads bowed. Delhi’s emperor was his puppet. Moghul power had ended. Nizam and other Muslim states with bowed heads sought his (Peshava’s) refuge. The entire country was, in a sense,      independent (p. 111 GG)
• Child marriage, jauhar, sati, purdah, jadu-tona, and superstition were all due to the fear of the muslims (p. 284 HSIB 1)
• The Babri Mosque was constructed after destroying a temple, which in turn stood on the exact spot where Rama was born. (High School Itihaas Bhaag 2, p. 146.
• Destruction of temples and schools attached to them and the building of mosques in their place was a general policy with Aurangzeb. (HSIB 2 p. 120)

Modern Indian History: Falsification and Distortion

• The Muslims are solely blamed for the partition of India.
• The RSS as an organization is presented as central to the Freedom Movement. Dr. Keshavrao B. Hegdewar is one of the tallest leaders of the freedom struggle. Statements of a large number of national leaders have been quoted in praise of the RSS.
• Although there are 60 pages on the entry of the British and the establishment of British rule, there is nothing that would promote an understanding of colonialism (HSIB 2)
• The shishu mandir textbook is worse on all these counts, and the RSS and its leaders are said to have removed the evils that hundreds of years of slavery had given. This Sangathan (organization) became an object of pride for the country ( p. 86 )

(courtesy: Teesta Setalvad)

A Wave of Intolerance & Fanatism

The imagined narratives don’t stop here: there’s a long list of anti-Muslim rhetoric of hate. The books are full of factual errors, inconsistencies, and chronological lapses. Words like ‘intolerant,’ ‘barbaric,’ and traitor are used to refer to Muslim rulers like Aurangzeb and Shahjahan; it is taught that every single ruler of the Mughal empire was anti-Hindu, and that they, on the point of a sword, plundered the wealth of India, humiliated Hindu women, demolished temples and promoted Islam.

The magnitude of Hindutva ‘hate-wave’ is such that prominent academicians, writers, and historians are either being asked to resign or replaced by some ignorant RSS worker. Educational bodies such as NCERT (National Council of Educational Research and Training), National Book Trust, ICHR, and Nehru Memorial Museum and Library are being infiltrated by Hindutva advocates.

The vision of a Hindu-centric India has taken root, heralding an era of intolerance and regression under Modi’s rule. It appears that before this regime exhausts its tenure, the toxic ideology of Hindutva will engulf the nation, plunging it into a darkness of ignorance and fanaticism.