Mangaluru: Here’s a good example of religious tolerance in a district often troubled by the lack of it -Fathimath Rahila of Puttur has secured the first place in the Ramayana Exam.
The class 9 student from a Muslim family got 93% to be the Puttur taluk topper in the examination, conducted by the Bharatha Sanskriti Prathisthan in November 2015.
A student of Sarvodaya High School, Sulliapadavu, located on the Karnataka-Kerala border, she was keen on pursuing a course in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.”Her uncle supported her in this,” says her father, Ibrahim M, who works in a factory. Her mother is a homemaker. The couple wanted their daughter to top the state exam, The Times of India reported.
“She put in a lot of effort every day to top in Karnataka, but could not achieve it,” says Ibrahim.
Fathimath developed an interest in epic Hindu literature in class 9. “I prepared from the beginning of the academic year with my uncle’s help,” she says, adding: “I want to appear for the Mahabharata exam too”. Shivarama HD, principal of her school, and P Satyashankar Bhat, coordinator of the exam, said students appear for exams after self-study and none of them are forced to appear for it.
“The exam is more about literature and contains no literature and contains no religious content,” said Satyashankar.
Around 39 students wrote the exam this year from Sarvodaya High School. Shivarama said only students from class 8 and class 9 are allowed to write these exams while SSLC students are discouraged as they have to appear for the board exams.
“Fathimath, who will be take up the SSLC examination next year, wants to study for the Mahabharata exam during the summer vacation,” he said.