– Raheem Khan
Bikaner, Jan. 25: The Rajasthan government has issued an order to hold a Surya Namaskar event in all government schools on February 15, marking Surya Saptami.
The order says Surya Namaskar will be done during the prayer assembly. Separate arrangements will be made for boys and girls in co-educational schools, determining the number of exercises to suit age and health status of students.
District Education Officers (DEOs) will ensure physical education teachers working in the schools under their jurisdiction are trained by qualified trainers knowledgeable about Surya Namaskar. Teachers, staff, parents, SDMC members, visiting guests and villagers can participate in this program.
Data collection of the participants will be done through Shala Darpan portal by 2:00 pm the same day.
Mohammad Nazimuddin, president of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind Rajasthan, said the Vasundhara Raje government had issued an order to make Surya Namaskar compulsory in schools in 2015. “We strongly opposed it then and we still oppose it. Surya Namaskar is associated with the worship practices of Hinduism. Children of all religions study in government schools and it’s not right to make Surya Namaskar compulsory for all. In Hinduism, the sun is worshiped as a deity, while Islam is a monotheistic religion and it doesn’t consider the sun a deity,” he said.
Kaashif Zubairi, AIMIM Rajasthan general secretary also wrote a letter to the chief minister, demanding the withdrawal of this order.
Education Minister Madan Dilawar said, “On this day, we will create a world record of Surya Namaskar together. Our full attention is currently on this. After that, whether Surya Namaskar will be done regularly in schools or not. The decision will be taken later.”
Govind Singh Dotasara, former education minister and Congress state president said, “BJP government should tell what message they want to convey to the public by taking such decisions. This government doesn’t talk about quality education. Rather, it talks about closing English schools. The BJP government wants to make schools RSS schools. They had done this earlier. We have done the work of fixing it.”
