The brainwashing of Hindu students continues unabated in our schools. If distorted history curriculum prepared by Marxist historians wasn’t enough, now we are seeing brazen liberties being taken with our most sacred texts and traditions.
Ramleela is something devout Hindus perform every year with love and devotion. The actors who get to play Sri Ram and Maa Sita are honored by the entire village/locality. The bhakti-bhaav Hindus feel for their deities is something that all sects and communities share. So for the Ramleela to be denigrated and mocked is something which will pain every believing Hindu, including those who might not be familiar with all the details of the epic.
Students of St. Mary’s School in Tohana city in Haryana’s Fatehabad district performed an extremely derogatory Ram Leela skit, a clip of which has gone viral online inviting condemnation from all quarters. The students are seen parodying Sri Ram, Laxman and Maa Sita in front of a packed audience inside their school and with teachers standing on the side of the stage.
In the Sita Haran (abduction) scene, Sita ji is seen willingly leaping into Ravana’s arms after he counts down 1-2-3, while the audience and a teacher on the stage laugh. When Sri Ram enters, he asks the audience rather cluelessly, “Who did I come to kill?”
When a student portraying Laxman comes, Sri Ram asks him, “who is he?”, to which Laxman informs him that he is his younger brother. Then Sri Ram says, “Chotu, tell me who did I come to kill?” and Laxman says “You have come here to kill the golden deer (Mareecha)”.
Then, the two of them while holding a bow and arrow and looking in opposite directions panic on seeing each other. Sri Ram then asks “who is Sita”, to which, Laxman replies “Ram’s wife.” He then asks “Who is Ram?”, and Laxman replies, “You are, Ramleela’s hero.”
It is not yet known exactly when the clip was recorded. It is said that DAV school in Tohna town has also staged a similar derogatory Ramleela, although no clip of that is publicly available.
Hurt Hindus led by Bajrang Dal have filed a police complaint and sought action against both the school administrations for allowing such a derogatory skit. National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) president Priyank Kanoongo has also been asked to initiate action.
But activists claim that police has refused to lodge an FIR till now.
Last month, an even more derogatory Ramleela skit performed by first-year MBBS students of AIIMS Delhi had invited angry protests from Hindus. One of the students involved in the skit later apologized, and the student’s body of AIIMS Delhi issued an apology.
Such assaults on Hindu Dharma and culture, both covert and overt, have been part and parcel of missionary-run ‘convent’ schools for over a century. Recently, we have seen a Hindu student being expelled from a St. Joseph’s school in Chattisgarh for keeping a shikha; a similar case occurred few years back in St. Vincent Pallotti School in Bengaluru; students have also been punished for wearing mehandi or lighting diyas on Diwali; morning assembly in the posh Mount Carmel schools in Delhi often become Christian proselytization and Hindu-bashing sessions.
But there is a growing trend of Hindu Dharma being mocked & belittled and Abrahamic religions glorified, even in non-Christian schools including govt. schools. A Muslim teacher in a government school in MP allegedly had a Hindu boy beat up by outsiders for wearing a tilak. A tribal govt. school teacher in Chattisgarh thrashed Hindu boys who fasted on Krishna Janmashtami and denigrated Hindu deities. The posh Tagore International school in Delhi made Hindu girls wear hijab for Eid, organized disturbing LGBTQ gender and sexual identity sessions for students, and allegedly showed a video in chaste Urdu containing Islamic religious concepts to ‘teach Hindi’ to Class 2 kids.
Last heard, the Hindu IT cell contacted Principal Rajeev Sharma of St. Mary’s public school, and he has issued a letter apologizing ‘if’ the Ramleela skit hurt anyone’s sentiments.
