New Delhi, October 30
The BJP government today opened its first formal dialogue on education with representatives of RSS organisations working in the field of education.

Among invitees to the meeting chaired by HRD Minister Smriti Irani were senior functionaries of the Vidya Bharati, the school education network run by the RSS, and Sanskrit Bharati, another right wing outfit engaged in the promotion of Sanskrit.

The most famous among attendees to the meeting held at Madhya Pradesh Bhavan here was Dina Nath Batra, convenor of the Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samiti and senior member of the Vidya Bharati who recently shot to fame for getting Penguin to pulp Wendy Doniger's book on Hinduism.

Batra's views on geography and history created a furore, especially since a set of nine books he authored were declared as supplementary literature for government schools in Gujarat.

Batra is known for his shocking academic assertions such as "the Mahabharata was the first to understand stem cell research"; "infertility can be cured by caring for cows" and "India's map should be redrawn as Akhand Bharat by including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Tibet, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka".

Batra spoke in the meeting about what he feels should be taught at schools.

The RSS functionaries also conveyed to Smriti Irani their take on Indian's history and spoke of their concerns and the way forward. A source told The Tribune that one of the concerns among attendees was "historical anomalies in textbooks with respect to certain nationalist leaders". A hit here was to the alleged distortions in the projection of Hindutva ideologue Veer Savarkar.