RSS’ Dinanath Batra, who pulped Doniger’s book on Hinduism, dies

Former chief of RSS-run school network, Vidya Bharati, which today runs 12,000 schools with 32 lakh students, Batra was best known for the legal battle he waged against Penguin India for its 2010 publication of Doniger's book "The Hindus: An Alternative History."

Batra took Penguin to court through the education activist organisation -- Shiksha Bachal Andolan Samiti -- that he founded. Batra called the book "un-Indian" and objected to its interpretation of Hinduism from a sexual lens.

The publisher finally settled the matter with him by withdrawing the controversial book from the Indian markets in 2014. Penguin not only consented to stop publishing, distributing and selling Doniger's work in the country. It also agreed to destroy existing copies in the stock.

Throughout life, Batra worked to resist the introduction of sex education in Indian schools, terming such content as against Indian values.

Rich tributes poured in today for Batra, who was the principal of the first-ever school that the RSS established in India under its Vidya Bharati network -- Geeta Senior School at Kurukshetra. Batra remained its headmaster for several years.

Atul Kothari, chief of the Shiksha Sanskriti Uthan Nyas, another RSS-linked educational organisation founded by Batra, today said the late leader's body would be kept at the Narayan Vihar office of the Nyas for last respects.

The Nyas, in a statement, said Batra had dedicated his life to the cause of imbibing education with Indian values and Indian-ness. "The National Education Policy of 2020 is a culmination of his lifelong efforts in the field," the Nyas said in its tributes today.

Academic legacy

• Batra was headmaster of Geeta Senior School, Kurukshetra, the first ever school RSS set up in India under its education wing Vidya Bharati.
• He later steered Vidya Bharati as its chief. Vidya Bharati today runs 12,000 schools and nearly 32 lakh students are enrolled in these schools.
• On 30 June 2014, the BJP-led government in Gujarat issued a circular declaring six textbooks authored by Batra to be a part of the state education curriculum as supplementary literature. Same year, Haryana roped in the RSS ideologue to advise revamp of education in the state.

On 30 June 2014, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government in Gujarat issued a circular declaring six textbooks authored by Batra to be a part of the state education curriculum as supplementary literature. In 2014, BJP-ruled Haryana roped in Batra to advise revamp of education in the state.

Prior to this, Batra, born in Dera Ghazi Khan in undivided India, was headmaster at Dayanand Anglo Vedic School in Punjab's Dera Bassi.

A prolific writer and petitioner (he had filed at least ten lawsuits on various issues concerning education, books and textbooks), Batra had in 2006 taken the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) to court in a PIL which raised 70 objections to contents of secondary school history and social science syllabus.

Among these objections was the description of Shaheed-e-Azam Sardar Bhagat Singh, Lala Lajpat Rai, Bipin Chandra Pal, among other freedom fighters as revolutionary terrorists.