The Rajasthan government wants school students to attend an event where they will get pamphlets telling them about “love jihad” and Christian conspiracies while it seeks support for a Hindu nation, The Indian Express reported on Sunday.
The organisers of the Hindu Spiritual and Service Fair wanted students and teachers to visit its stalls, and the government has decided to “help” it. Some of the stalls want visitors to join caste organisations while others seek their signatures to gather support for the cow as the “national mother”.
The five-day fair, ending on Monday, also has stalls where one can take the oath of vegetarianism. A stall of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad gives away pamphlets that accuse actors Saif Ali Khan and Aamir Khan of trapping Hindu women by marrying them.
“Whenever such programmes are organised, where we feel students will learn something or get exposure, we ask the schools to take the kids,” District Education Officer Ratan Singh told the Hindustan Times, adding that the visit is optional.
State Primary and Secondary Education Minister Vasudev Devnani issued the orders asking government as well as private schools in Jaipur to help organisers get visitors, the city’s Additional District Education Officer Deepak Shukla told The Indian Express.
The fair is hoping a footfall of 2,100 teachers, Shukla said.
Instilling patriotism is a theme of the fair, which wants to “provide a platform to organisations engaged in imparting services to society”. A VHP pamphlet claims that love jihad takes place at beauty parlours, mobile recharge shops, ladies’ tailors and Muslim hawkers’ outlets. “Giving a seat on the bus” is a jihadi tactic too, it says, adding that one can prevent love jihad by checking books and mobile phones of women.
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