The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) School Board has issued a circular directing all its schools to ensure the celebration of Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay’s birth anniversary on September 25, which is also the first day of Navratri. This is the first time that the civic School Board is celebrating the birth anniversary of Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay, a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) pracharak who also worked with RSS founder K B Hedgewar.
The circular, issued to more than 450 municipal schools across Ahmedabad has directed all schools “to get all relevant information about Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay and stories on his life from the internet. In order to make students aware about Deendayal’s life, these stories are to be read during the morning assembly session,” the circular reads.
Apart from the morning assembly session, schools have also to arrange an exhibition of books on Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay in the school libraries and teachers should ensure students are encouraged to read these books on September 25.
“To motivate students, winners of these events should be awarded,” the circular instructs school heads.
When contacted about this circular and the celebrations, School Board Administrative Officer L D Desai who has issued this circular said, “It is true that the municipal schools are celebrating Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay’s birth anniversary for the first time. But along with these events, the schools are also organising Navratri celebrations on the same day which is the onset of Maa Durga’s Navratri festival.”
Similar views were echoed by the School Board chairman Jagdish Bhavsar as he justified the celebrations and said, “Pandit Deendayal was a philosopher, historian, a great thinker and one of the most important leaders. Children should certainly learn about such leaders who dedicated their entire life to the mankind.”
Also, as per the sources, the School Board has also planned inauguration of two school buildings on September 25. A newly constructed school building in Piplaj’s Ganeshnagar area and another building in Behrampura.
The Ganeshnagar area is where residents from Sabarmati riverfront have been rehabilitated. Till now, municipal school was running from a tent which was later replaced by fabricated structures. After more than six years, the residents will get a school building.
The list of events does not end here. An inter-school science fair, including private and government schools will be organised at Saraspur municipal school. This winners of this city level fair would qualify directly for the state level event.
Earlier, during the week-long Teachers’ Day celebrations students were made to read about other RSS leaders like Veer Savarkar scheduled from September 1 to 5 in the from a book Asmita Darshan that was distributed by the Gujarat education department in all schools.