How the Centre’s backflip led to Ramdev-led Vedic school board

Official records reportedly show Patanjali’s Rs 21-crore development plan was a deciding factor in the approval

The Centre took a sudden U-turn in early 2019 and set aside objections raised by an autonomous institute to allow Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali Yogpeeth Trust to establish the Bharatiya Shiksha Board (BSB), a new national-level school board on Vedic education, The Indian Express reported on Monday.

The process of handing over the reins of the new national board was expedited and approved within two months, just hours before the Model Code of Conduct for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections came into force, the publication found through an investigation of official records.

The driving idea behind the BSB is to incorporate the country’s first national school board that would standardise and regulate a blend of traditional Indian teachings and modern education by drafting curriculum, affiliating schools, conducting examinations and issuing certificates.

Ramdev had floated a similar idea through his Haridwar-based Vedic Education Research Institute (VERI) to the government in 2015, proposing a system wherein a VERI-controlled board would oversee the teaching of a mixed syllabus that would include Indian thinkers and modern curriculum. However, the proposal was eventually dropped after the Education Ministry flagged concerns that a state sanction for a private education board would open a can of worms and encourage similar requests from other unrecognised school boards.

Meanwhile, the Ministry reportedly began making preparations to set up its own school board for Vedic education under the Ujjain-based Maharshi Sandipani Rashtriya Veda Vidya Pratishthan (MSRVVP).

However, the script changed in January 2019 at a meeting to discuss the creation of the Ministry’s own board. The MSRVVP’s Governing Council, chaired by then HRD Minister Prakash Javedkar, decided to invite bids to appoint a private sponsoring body for setting up the BSB instead, backtracking on the ministry’s earlier decision.

Despite reservations from MSRVVP Secretary V Jaddipal, the released an expression of interest and received three bids in one week’s time from Maharashtra Academic of Engineering and Educational Research Pune (MAEER) that runs MIT Group of Institutions, Patanjali Yogpeeth Trust, and the Ritanand Balved Education Foundation that runs the Amity Group of Institutions.

An expert panel appointed by MSRVVP recommended Patanjali’s bid to the body on account of its Rs 21-crore development plan, which dwarfed the other two institution’s proposals of up to Rs 2 crore, the daily reported. The recommendation was accepted in-principle by the Javedkar-chaired Governing Council.

However, Jaddipal wrote to the Education Ministry three times expressing asking for an “unequivocal” order from the Centre before he could issue the final letter of approval to Patanjali Yogpeeth Trust to establish BSB, as per the rules.

The final approval letter was emailed to Jaddipal on March 9 for his sign-off but the publication reports that Jaddipal did not respond to the instructions on email and his phone was switched off. After a few hours, Javadekar authorised the then vice-chairman Ravindra Ambadas Muley to issue the letter on Jaddipal’s behalf, hours before the Model Code of Conduct came into effect.

The Patanjali Trust has reportedly informed the panel that it would want Ramdev to be appointed as the chairperson of the board.

Apart from traditional gurukul-based teaching centres, the BSB is likely to affiliate Ramdev’s Acharyakulam, RSS-run Vidya Bharati schools, and gurukuls run by the Arya Samaj and put their certifications on level footing with those from the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE).