A video clipping showing school students re-enacting the 1992 demolition of Babri Masjid mosque became a subject of discussion on social media on Monday.
The clip was taken from an enactment of the proposed construction of a Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, put up by students of Sri Rama School in Kalladka town near Bantwal in Dakshina Kannada.
The enactment of the Ram Mandir construction was one among 20-odd presentations made by nearly 4,000 students during their annual sports day ‘Kreedotsava’ on Sunday.
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Lieutenant-Governor of Puducherry Kiran Bedi, Union Minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda, and Karnataka Minister for Women and Child Welfare Shashikala Jolle, were among the several dignitaries who attended the event. Ms. Bedi also shared a video clip from the event from her Twitter account on Monday.
Several netizens criticised the scene depicting the demolition of Babri Masjid, stating that the school management was sowing the seed of hatred in students. “This is the future of education in India when the RSS-BJP takeover of our society is complete,” said a tweet. Another tweet said: “Horrible, filing hatred into the minds of school children is very dangerous for our India.”
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No religious discord
“Our students have just enacted events that have occurred in the past. It is pure enactment and there are no slogans in it. This enactment ended with recent Supreme Court’s decision to allow construction of Ram Mandir,” Kalladka Prabhakar Bhat, a Rashtriya Swamyamsevak Sangh (RSS) leader, who is also a member of Sri Rama Vidya Kendra Trust that runs the school, told The Hindu .
Mr. Bhat said students also enacted the Chandrayaan-2 mission. “What is being discussed (in social media) is just a small part of three-hour long programme. There is nothing in the programme to create any religious discord. Enacting important developments of the year by students is a part of the annual Kreedotsava.”