HINDUTVA DISCRIMINATION

‘Govt Looking Into Schools Cancelling Christmas Celebrations Due to RSS Pressure’: Kerala Edu Minister
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The Wire Staff
17 hours ago

"The government is treating the matter very seriously. Action is underway against school managements which abandoned Christmas celebrations under threats from the RSS," the minister said.

Visitors click pictures at an illuminated street ahead of Christmas celebrations, in Thiruvananthapuram. Photo: PTI

New Delhi: Schools in Kerala allegedly buckled under pressure from right-wing groups to cancel Christmas celebrations, state education minister V. Sivankutty said.

The minister cited incidents where school managements had returned money pooled in by students for the year-end celebrations under pressure from groups associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

“Several parents, students, and teachers complained to me. The government is treating the matter very seriously. Action is underway against school managements which abandoned Christmas celebrations under threats from the RSS,” Sivankutty said.

The minister accused the RSS of preventing minority communities like Christians and Muslims from holding religious celebrations. “The RSS is seeking to intertwine state holidays with religion to create communal schisms in society. It has zeroed in on Kerala’s schools, erroneously reckoning they are soft targets for their divisive purposes,” he said.

Sivankutty said that the RSS was trying to replicate its “North Indian” model of “othering” minorities in Kerala and added that the state government would resist all such attempts.

“The government will resist any attempt to transform schools into stifling compartments of religious segregation by any fundamentalist group. Imbibing secular and democratic values at a young age lays the ground for a humane and secular society,” he said.

This comes days after the cancellation of the Kerala postal department’s Christmas celebrations after employees refused to sing an RSS anthem as part of the event.

The Bharatiya Postal Administrative Offices Employees Union (BPAOEU), affiliated with the RSS, had called for ‘RSS Ganageetham’ to be sung as part of the celebrations as well as the inclusion of a Ganapati stuti (worship of the Hindu god Ganesha) in the Christmas and New Year celebrations.

The celebrations, mean to be hosted at post offices across Kerala on December 18 were ultimately cancelled.