The Shiksha Sanskrti Utthan Nyas (SSUN), an organisation reportedly close to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), has denied recommending to the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) to exclude Rabindranath Tagore’s works from its syllabus, as was reported by certain newspapers. The Bengal wing of SSUN said it would take legal recourse against the newspapers for “false news.”
SSUN is headed by Dina Nath Batra, who earlier headed Vidya Bharati, the education wing of the RSS.
“SSUN is an independent NGO and has nothing to do with the RSS. There was no mention of excluding Tagore from the syllabus of the NCERT in our recommendation. The report is absolutely false,” eastern region secretary of SSUN Shib Sankar Das said. He also said that his organisation had “utmost respect” for Tagore.
SSUN’s lawyer Susanta Sengupta said that “our central leadership has already said in Delhi that they will take legal recourse against the English daily which published the false report.” He further said that “two Bengali dailies also carried the false report. We will take strong legal action against them if they do not publish an unconditional apology.”
However, the development has generated outrage among the civil society in Bengal. “It is embarrassing as an Indian to hear such a public comment. I can’t understand why such a silly and objectionable comment is getting so much publicity,” poet and academician Nabaneeta Dev Sen told The Hindu .
However, actor and dramatist Rudraprasad Sengupta pointed out that the SSUN had already issued a rebuttal to the media reports. “Moreover, Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar has also said that the Centre will not implement any such recommendation. I think that settles the matter,” he said.
