Don’t Communalise Sainik Schools, Withdraw Move to Invite Private Players: CPI(M) to Centre

New Delhi: Hitting out at the ruling BJP government for ‘communalising” Sainik Schools, run under the Union Defence Ministry, the CPI(M) has said the Centre should withdraw its order to invite private players to run these schools, many of which have been assigned to institutions with “RSS and BJP links”.

In a press statement in reaction to media reports that 40 Sainik Schools had been awarded to Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Hindutva groups, the Left party said: “This new policy is just not about sharing finances and infrastructure on a PPP model. The schools that are entering into agreement with SSS and the government include a significant number of institutions with avowedly RSS and BJP links.”

It said such move reinforced the trend of communalising education and had the “potential for profoundly impacting the high secular standards of our military establishments.”

Sainink Schools have been traditionally run by the autonomous Sainik School Society (SSS) under the Ministry of Defence. The schools play an important role in nurturing students to get entry to the premiere National Defence Academy and the Indian Naval Academy. Eventually a substantial number of Sainik School pass outs occupy the higher echelons of India’s defence forces, it said.

According to an investigative report by Reporters’ Collective, based on Right to Information replies, between 2022 and 2023, as many 40 Sainik Schools were awarded to educational institutes linked with RSS, Hindutva organisations and leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or its allies.

The report said prior to 2022, the Centre and state governments had jointly been running 33 Sainik Schools. In October 2021, the Narendra Modi government open the gates to allow private players to partner these schools and open their own branches with partial support from the government. The reason given was that 100 new such schools were being opened under the new National Education Policy (NEP)

The Reporters’ Collective memoranda of agreement for 40 private schools signed the Sainik Schools Society between May 05, 2022 and December 27, 2023, showed that 11 of these were owned by BJP leaders, managed by trusts that they chair, or belong to friends and political allies of the Hindutva party, said the report.

 Eight schools are managed by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or RSS, the parent body of the BJP, and its allied organisations. Six schools have close ties to Hindutva organisations or far-right leaders and other Hindu religious organisations, said the report. These include one agreement with Hindu nationalist ideologue Ritambhara’s Samvid Gurukulam Girls Sainik School in Vrindavan and Raj Luxmi Samvid Gurukulam in Solan, the report said.

Recall that Ritambhara is the founder of the Durga Vahini, the women’s wing of Vishwa Hindu Parishad, and was a key figure in the Ram Janmabhoomi movement that led to the demolition of the Babri Mosque in 1992.