Cover Story

The Empire Strikes Back

The rising sun of the swamiji schools

With yoga, transcendental meditation, Indian spiritual wisdom and cuisine having won themselves global reputation, India's gurus who had kept their faiths and spiritual traditions alive in remote rural trusts seem to have acquired sufficient self confidence to spread their wings. Dilip Thakore reports

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A silent revolution is transforming the

Once upon a time quality education was synonymous with education institutions promoted by Christian missionaries and religious orders, Catholic and Protestant, who during the past two centuries established revered institutions of education — St. Paul’s, Darjeeling; Woodstock, Mussoorie; St. Columbus, Delhi; Bishop Cotton and St. Joseph’s, Bangalore among other schools, and great colleges such as St. Xavier’s, Mumbai; St. Stephen’s, Delhi and Loyola College, Chennai. Though often accused of proselytising by right wing Hindu militants and supranationalists, in reality the overwhelming majority of Christian missionary schools and colleges were — and remain — liberal institutions of learning which at best promoted soft Christianity while educating post-independence India’s establishment which has kept the nation afloat as a liberal, secular democracy.

Naipaul: renewed pride

One of the first monitors of

Prof. N.S. Ramaswamy the founder director of some of India’s finest B-schools (NITIE, Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Business Management, Mumbai, IIM-Bangalore) and currently director of the Indian Heritage Academy, Bangalore also believes the subcontinent’s hitherto rubbished culture is beginning to reassert itself, not only within the country but around the world. "There’s an ocean of wisdom locked within India’s ancient thought and texts which is beginning to be appreciated in India and abroad. Over 100 years ago Swami Vivekananda had predicted: ‘For centuries aliens and barbarians conquered and humbled us. In the 21st century, the descendants of the same people will come to India on their own and pay homage to India’s wisdom’. Likewise the British historian Prof. Arnold Toynbee had foreseen that in this millennium India will conquer the world with its ancient thought and wisdom. The promotion of culturally rooted education institutions across the country is the beginning of the process of unlocking India’s ancient knowledge to provide holistic education with ethical and moral content," says Ramaswamy.

Certainly the growth in the number of so-called ‘swamiji’ education institutions across the country during the past two decades in particular has been dramatic. For example, the Mandya (Karnataka)-based Sri Adi Chunchanagiri Maha-samasthana Math (trust) headed by the revered seer Sri Sri Sri Balaganga-dharnath Swamiji has promoted over 375 education institutions dispensing primary to tertiary level education mainly in rural Karnataka, but latterly in Bangalore as well where it has established an ayurvedic college and the state-of-the-art BGS International School at an estimated cost of Rs.15 crore.

Likewise the Bangalore-based Art of Living Foundation through its Sri Sri Ravishankar Vidya Mandir presided over by the eponymous new-age, feel-good guru which began delivering formal education only three years ago, has already promoted over 110 schools, a fine arts college and an institute of media studies. And up north the Delhi-based Vidya Bharati Akhil Bharatiya Shiksha Sansthan (est.1977) which bills itself as "the world’s largest voluntary organisation in the field of education", runs 20,993 education institutions with an aggregate enrollment of 2.64 million students.

Of course most Hindu religious trusts dispensing education have been doing so for several decades. But hitherto they tended to focus their attention upon the needs of rural children who, neglected by the government school system notorious for absentee teachers and crumbling infrastructure, were content to receive less-than-wholly contemporary education with high spiritual content. However what’s new in recent times is that pontiffs of religious maths have come out of their rural strongholds to offer their brand of education — an attractive combination of the traditional wisdom and culture of the East with state-of-the-art technology-driven pedagogies of the West — to urban elites. And according to all indicators Indian-style new age schools such as Chinmayananda International Residential School, Coimbatore; Jain International and BGS International, Bangalore and similar institutions are attracting increasing numbers of students from India’s newly emergent middle class and the Indian diaspora.

Balagangadharnath Swamiji and disciples: moral and spiritual gap

In pursuit of Swamiji’s belief that the liberal tenets of Hinduism combined with contemporary and globally accepted syllabuses can provide uniquely holistic education, the Adi Chunchanagiri trust has expanded the ambit of its operations beyond rural Karnataka to encompass the social elites and the establishment within urban India which arguably need moral and spiritual education more urgently. Currently the trust runs 375 institutions of education including engineering and medical colleges in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra which have an aggregate 40,000 students on their rolls. This represents capital investment of over Rs.100 crore and an annual education budget of Rs.50 crore.

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Building on a 1,500 year tradition

Significantly this trust which promoted its show-piece — the thoroughly contemporary CBSE-affiliated BGS International School, Bangalore (annual tuition fee: Rs.120,000) in 2000, has already established BGS clones in Delhi and Mangalore with another in Mumbai on the cards. And despite the trust being headquartered in rural Karnataka, Swamiji has no inhibitions about the intensive teaching of English and the language being the medium of instruction in the trust’s urban schools and colleges. "English is now globally accepted as the language of international business and communications. It’s very important for the future of children to learn it well," he says forthrightly.

Sri Sri Ravishankar

"The art of living Foundation as its name implies has been in education — albeit adult education — since it was established by Guruji Sri Sri Ravishankar in 1983. Guruji believes in imparting value education in stress free and child-friendly environments blending ancient wisdom and modern technology so that children can develop into happy adulthood with a sense of belonging. The values we emphasise in our schools are human and Indian rather than Hindu. In short we teach our students the art of being comfortable with themselves — successful while always smiling," says Murlidhar Koteshwar the IIT-Madras educated marketing manager of the Bangalore-based Celstream Technologies Ltd and one of four trustees of SSRVM Trust.

Mehta: formidable force

While most of the new-age swamiji schools tend to propagate ‘Indian’ rather than Hindu culture and values, the Chinmaya Mission founded in 1953 by Swami Chinmayananda (1916-93) which has promoted 75 Chinmaya Vidyalayas (schools) including the five star International Baccalaureate Organisation (IBO) affiliated Chinmaya International Residential School, Coimbatore, and several colleges with an aggregate enrollment of 55,000 students, is more forthright about its objectives. "The main focus of the mission is to propagate the message of the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads through our youth, study and veda/ Gita chanting groups and in our Balavihar (nursery) classes for children. The broad objective is value-based and holistic education for integrated development, enriched by a knowledge of Indian culture," explains Leela Nambiar, the Chennai-based trustee of the Central Chinmaya Mission Trust which has its headquarters in Mumbai and is headed by Swami Tejomayananda.

Swami Chinmayananda (1916-93)

Not surprisingly, Vishva Ratna bridles at the suggestion that the 20,000 plus Vidya Bharati education institutions have been promoted to propagate the RSS brand of militant hindutva. "Mischievous elements deliberately try to give hindutva a political colour and interpretation. But for us in the sansthan, hindutva is a way of life. It means abiding by the spiritual and cultural values preached by the rishis and sages of yore for the development of society. It means living harmoniously in a homogeneous society, working for the upliftment of the poor and backward. We believe in co-existence with cohesiveness. For us hindutva is not a political but socio-cultural ideology. And in this wider sense we do promote hindutva," says Vishva Ratna.

Such subscription to the liberal, tolerant and inclusive tenets of Hinduism is the common characteristic of all new-age swamiji schools. The unspoken message the managements of these institutions seem to be conveying to people of all religious persuasions is that the spiritual content and values inherent in liberal Hinduism can be effectively combined with western pedagogies to produce balanced, culturally confident students who can assume leadership roles in society and that children from minority communities are welcome to avail of their brands of holistic education. Indeed all the high-profile swamiji schools claim to have Muslim, Christian and students from other minority communities on their muster rolls.

"Our schools deliver contemporary education which is combined with humility, compassion and the ability to live in harmony and happiness with people of all faiths and religions. Our purpose is to provide education with universal moral values and faith in any religion. The philosophy we propagate has no room for prejudice and fanaticism," says Sri Sri Sri Balagangadharnath Swamiji, pontiff of the Adichunchanagiri trust.

Swami Nityananda: different paths common goal

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The Chinmaya Mission Trust

The Chinmaya mission movement began on December 31, 1951 when the legendary guru and seer Swami Chinmayananda (1916-93), a law graduate of Kerala and Lucknow universities and former editor of the Nehruvian National Herald who was jailed during the freedom movement, conducted his first 100-day jnana yagna (daily discourse on selected verses from the Upanishads) at Pune’s Vinayak temple. Swamiji’s choice of the English language for his discourses was an important factor which shaped the movement and built a strong foundation for its universalisation.

Two years later following a second jnana yagna in Madras (aka Chennai), the Chinmaya Mission Trust (motto: "maximum happiness to the maximum people for the maximum period of time"), was constituted in Madras. After the grass-root activities of the Chinmaya Mission (including weekend Balavihar or nursery classes, Yuva Kendra or youth study groups, spiritual camps and Devi or women’s groups) took firm root, informal mission centres were established to coordinate and plan the mission’s activities.

Swami Tejomayananda

Progressive education philosophies rooted in liberal Indian culture have undoub-tedly struck a responsive chord within the growing number of parents who constitute contemporary India’s new 200 million-strong and growing middle class as well as within the 20 million strong Indian diaspora. Indeed some educationists view the rash of five-star new-age ‘international’ schools — many of them promoted by Hindu saints and seers — which have burgeoned with amazing alacrity across the subcontinent as essentially targeting the growing number of Indian professionals abroad who cannot afford private education in western countries but are increasingly enamoured with the idea of providing their children thoroughly contemporary education in upscale sanitised environments with an admixture of Indian cultural and co-curricular activities.

"We are quite pleased with the quality of holistic education being provided to our son Sagar who is in class I at the Sri Sri Ravi Shankar Vidya Mandir school in Malleshwaram, Bangalore because the rhetoric of child-centred joyful learning is actually being practised in this school. Because they believe in Guruji’s (Sri Sri Ravishankar’s) philosophy, the teachers enjoy their work and are receptive to new teaching methodologies and parental involve-ment. This plus the high commitment to teaching Indian performing arts and games enables this school to provide qualitatively superior education," says K.G. Cariappa, a Bangalore-based insurance consultant and alumnus of the highly-rated Lawrence School, Lovedale.

Delhi-based stage artistes Meenakshi and Dinesh Aggarwal who conduct theatre workshops and direct plays for the well-known National School of Drama who put all three of their children through Vidya Bharati’s Shishu Mandi school in the national capital, are equally appreciative of the culturally relevant education provided by the school. "Children who study in Vidya Bharati schools tend to be culturally and morally in sync with the Indian environment. The holistic development of children is better here," says Meenakshi Aggrawal.

But though trustees and managers as well as liberal citizens who enroll their offspring in the new-age swamiji schools tend to stress that these institutions promote Indian cultural and spiritual values, it’s self-evident that in reality they do promote hindutva, and are essentially Hindu revivalist institutions. But it’s also patent that their promoter saints and seers have been influenced by the Nehruvian legacy of secularism and at best promote soft, liberal hindutva which is becoming universally popular. They seem to have learned a valuable lesson from Christian missionaries who have won the trust and respect of Indian society by providing high quality education while promoting soft Christianity. And it is arguable that Hindu seers are perfectly justified in presenting the acceptable liberal face of enlightened Hinduism to the citizenry. Indeed by doing so they are undoing some of the great damage done to Hinduism by the religious zealots of the RSS, Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Bajrang Dal and other lunatic fringe groups of militant Hinduism.

The projection of the liberal enlightened face and tenets of Hinduism apart, there’s another explanation for the mushroom growth of these institutions during the past two decades in particular. According to Dr. A.S. Seetharamu, professor of education at the Bangalore-based Institute for Social & Economic Change (ISEC) the promotion of high-quality education institutions enables their promoters to acquire political power and influence and may well shape Indian politics for the better.

"Most of the so-called swamiji or soft hindutva trusts, schools and education institutions are well-conceptualised and well-managed organisations solidly endorsed by the new middle class in government, industry and trade who enroll their children in them. Perhaps disgusted by the low morality and lack of scruples in Indian society, saints and gurus are beginning to exert influence in the wider political space. Over the past centuries, in rural schools and maths, religious trusts have developed valuable and workable campus management and teacher-student traditions based upon the foundation of Indian culture and values. These traditions are not militant or harmful to the orderly growth and development of society. Indeed these initiatives should be welcomed for their high ethical and moral content and could well prove an exportable model of holistic education," says Seetharamu.

Fears expressed by secular liberals that the new genre of swamiji schools are the nurseries of right-wing Hindu militancy tend to be exaggerated. It is unlikely that a visitor to any one of the serene campuses and classrooms of these education institutions will come away with the impression that they preach aggressive dogma. True, most of them do promote and preach liberal Hinduism and associated culture and values. But in doing so their faculties are no different from those of missionary schools and colleges which have been promoting high quality secular education combined with soft Christianity in India for almost two centuries.

Christian missionary schools have greatly enriched Indian society and endowed several generations with positive nation-building values and excellent English language skills which have served Indian industry and trade — and society in general — well. There’s every reason to believe that competitive new-age swamiji education institutions promoting their unique brand of western pedagogies combined with yoga, meditation and the rich cultural and spiritual legacy of ancient India will do likewise for Indian society in the new millennium.

With Neeta Lal (Delhi); Gaver Chatterjee (Mumbai); Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai) & Sujoy Gupta (Kolkata)