Push by PM for Veer Savarkar Legacy at DU
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is going to lay the foundation stone for the establishment of Veer Savarkar College at Delhi University, an act set to draw mixed responses from the political and academic community. The college will be named after the highly controversial freedom fighter and Hindutva ideologue, and has already become a focus of contention over historical reinterpretation and academic independence.
"It is an overdue recognition of Savarkar's place in India's freedom struggle," say his supporters, "because savarkar's legacy has been buried by quite undue ideological biases." The BJP-led government has ever embodied figures like savarkar to add to agendas not covered in mainstream history.
On the other hand, critics are apprehensive that schools and colleges are considered to be politicized:" Institutions should celebrate inclusivity, not propagate one-sided historical accounts," said a senior faculty of DU. It lead to further segmentation of academic spaces.
Its stands related to a broader strategy of the ruling party to issue its ideological heroes into India's educational mainstream. This raises many questions, though: Is this necessary correcting? or does it mean that universities will become battlefields of talking ideologies? Such a prospect raises yet more issues about the intersections of politics and education in India as the event approaches.
