In the musical, South Pacific – one of the songs is on bigotry. The lines go:

You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff’rent shade,
You’ve got to be carefully taught.

You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You’ve got to be carefully taught!

The VHP has internalised the lyrics as its mission. And they are doing everything possible to indoctrinate childern, getting them ready to hate. Two very diverse reports from the Times of India and the Indian Express shows the quiet infiltration of fascists who claim to be acting in the name of Hindu culture. And they are catching them young.

The article in the ToI reports on how children in schools in Jharkand are only taught 20 out to 26 alpahabets. And this is the nature of the teaching:

A for Arjun , B for Brahma , C for Cow, D for Dhruva , G for Ganesh , H for Hanuman …J for Jambavant ..M for Mahadev …R for Ram …T for Temple, U for Uma . Aaj Somwar Hai, Shivji ka var hai; sache man se bhajan karenge, sabka bera par hai; aaj mangalwar hai, hanumanji ka var hai….

If you missed this ‘Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan’ version of an English primer and school prayer, head for any of the thousands of VHP-run Ekal Vidyalayas (EV) in BJP-ruled Jharkhand. Sorry, the letters ‘E’, ‘F’, ‘Q’, ‘W’, ‘X’ and ‘Z’ don’t exist in the primer, but since there aren’t any names of Hindu gods beginning with those letters, they’re probably not worth bothering about anyway.

This is possibly the funniest thing that I have ever read. It’s like preventing the teaching of evolution in some of the states in the USA, because evolution contradicts the Biblical legend of creation.

A whole bunch of kids in one of the most wretched parts of the country are going to come out of school without knowing what their contemporaries from other schools know. And the most tragic part of the whole thing is that these are schools primarily in tribal ares. Various tribes like the Santhals, Kharwar, Munda – have their own unique culture and gods probably predating the culture that is being imposed on them. What the VHP accuses missionaries of doing, it is doing itsef. Indoctrination based on a narrow and ritualistic view of religious faith.

The second story is from the diaspora in the US.

Arranged in Atlanta, Houstan and Medford, the summer camps this year have received maximum number of applications from the Gujarati community requesting the VHP to train their children to recite slokas and even reading the Bhagwad Gita during their vacation. But a mild request attached with the application says: ‘‘Please do not discuss or encourage issues like the Ram janambhoomi, the Godhra train carnage and the 9/11 attack.’’

‘‘Over 1,500 parents have applied for children, some of whom are below eight years of age,’’ says Shushila Bhagat, member-secretary of VHP (America).

Again here i understand completely the desire of parents for their children to know their roots. But surely there are better organisations than the VHP to spread the message.

At the end of the day the VHP funded schools and activities for children are no more than Hindu Madarassas putting out indoctrinated zealots into the population.

Very, Very scary stuff.