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THE functioning and management of our educational and cultural institutions, in particular those funded and supported by the government, remains one of the most contentious issues in our politics. Hardly surprising since the ideas and views promoted and propagated by these institutions – museums, academies, libraries, universities, research centres and, above all, school textbooks – deeply influence our understanding of our histories and cultures, our notions of a collective self and what we come to believe in and accept as good and worthwhile. The BJP and its affiliates have long disagreed with the prevailing consensus, dismissing it as Nehruvian and ‘unauthentic’, not in consonance with our ancient heritage and ‘civilizational genius’. Little surprise that every time the party comes to power, the attempt to revamp and reorient these institutions gathers steam.

Many among our social and political elite had hoped that this time around the situation would be different. The massive mandate secured by the Narendra Modi-led BJP, propelling it to a clear majority in Parliament, a first in three decades, they believed was for essentially ‘clean, inclusive and vigorous governance’, not a potentially divisive cultural agenda.

In the absence of any major statement on cultural and educational policy by the top leadership of the party, many disturbing signals went uncontested. Regressive statements by various MPs like Sakshi Maharaj or Mahant Avaidyanath or sundry RSS functionaries were dismissed as rantings of fringe elements. Worse, even the growing incidence of attacks on rationalists, an increasing reliance on bans to regulate dietary preferences, the brazenness with which localized groups targeted religious and social minorities and women, and not only in BJP run states, while creating disquiet were not frontally challenged. Far too many of us continued with the delusion that all these were transitory phenomenon and once the economy regained its vigour, the regressive elements would lose their salience.

In a recent interview to The Telegraph, Union Minister of Culture and Tourism, Mahesh Sharma, has laid bare the government’s intention. ‘We will cleanse every area of public discourse that has been westernized and where Indian culture and civilization needs to be restored – be it the history we read or our cultural heritage or our institutes that have been polluted over the years.’ He went on: ‘We have 39 institutions under the culture ministry, including grand museums and the National School of Drama, but we have not been up to the mark in presenting our cultural heritage in a right way. We will totally revamp all these institutions after a detailed road map is prepared.’ Elsewhere, he went on to elaborate on the need to rid the country of vaicharik pradushan (thought pollution), the encroachment by the West on our culture and to resist the teaching of English and other foreign languages at ‘the cost of Sanskrit or Hindi’, in short, ‘change the mind set of people.’

It is often not realized that these views, and the willingness to struggle so that they receive their ‘rightful’ recognition enjoy a wide social salience and have a long history. As the recent book by Akshay Mukul, Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India, makes clear, many more individuals and organizations than merely the larger Sangh Parivar not only share these views – privileging the role of religion in the making of culture and identity, a marked anti-minority and foreigner bias and a regressive approach to the role of women – they have actively worked over the last century and a half to propagate and consolidate them. Further, the various organizations working to advance this cultural agenda, while keen to receive state largesse are not dependent upon the government in power, having cultivated a wider array of support. Contending with their challenge thus demands more than just a control of official institutions. Unfortunately, successive ‘secular’ regimes have relied primarily on differentially dispensing state patronage and placing ideologically compatible individuals in key positions and never quite engaged in a wider cultural battle.

Far, too many of our educational and cultural institutions inspire little confidence. They are seen as denuded of vitality and worse, captured by a cabal interested more in subserving the interests of the regime in power. Little surprise that when an ideologically driven regime, like the one currently ruling, seeks to remould them by replacing present leadership or even reworking the ‘aims and objects’, the protest is rarely as widespread and vigorous as it should be.

Unless we realize that these institutions are ours, and that a wider cross-section of people need to get involved with their functioning, they may well get reduced to their caricature – sites for patronage dispensation and partisan ideological projects – thereby making a travesty of our constitutional imagination.

Harsh Sethi