Panaji: A forum that promotes children’s right to education alleges hypocrisy in a rightwing group’s opposition to English medium schools in Goa, western India.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS, national volunteers’ corps) runs a few hundred English medium primary schools in Delhi and other parts of the country. But in Goa, it opposes government grants to the Church-run English medium schools, says the Forum for Rights of Children’s Education (FORCE).

The forum quotes the cover story that the mass circulation India Today magazine published on April 25.

The RSS-led Bharatiya Bhasha Suraksha Manch (Indian language protection forum) has recently waged a war against the ruling BJP government against its decision to continue the Congress policy of giving salary grants to more than 130 Church-run English primary schools.

The BJP had come to power in 2012 by giving election promise to withdraw the grants once it came to power.

At a press conference held in Margao, FORCE convener Savio Lopes displayed the India Today magazine that carried the cover story on the RSS.

He said the cover story clearly states that RSS has changed its stand and now runs English medium primary schools.

He also said Prime Minister Narendra Modi, had introduced English as a subject at primary level in Gujarat when he was the chief minister of that western Indian state.

Recalling the RSS’ earlier slogan ‘Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan,’ the FORCE convener said Hindu rightwing leaders never tired of complaining about ‘colonial’ English being taught in government-funded schools.

“English is no longer a taboo language in the RSS,” says Manish Manjul, a senior RSS worker whose sons are studying at one such school in New Delhi. “There is a growing acceptance. If it is used along with vernacular languages, it really doesn’t constitute a cultural threat.”

This has prompted Lopes to ask: “If this is the stand of the RSS, what are we fighting for?”

According to him, the RSS opposition is aimed at depriving the Bahujan Samaj, the lower strata of the society, of English education.

“They are not opposed to English medium schools being opened in Goa. They are only opposed to aided schools being run in English medium. Can a common man go to unaided English schools? Doesn’t it mean that they don’t want the Bahujan Samaj to learn English?” Lopez asked.

While appreciating the stand the BJP-led government has taken to continue grants, Lopes has demanded the government announce cabinet decision on the issue when the state legislative assembly meets in July, reports goanews.com.

The cabinet had decided to include the decision of grants to English medium schools in the Goa Education Act, as an amendment.