Lajja Ram Tomar

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Lajja Ram Tomar or Lajjaram Tomar was a schoolteacher and educationist. He was the head of Vidya Bharati, the education wing of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), from 1979 until his death in 2004. [1] [2]

Vidya Bharati, short for Vidya Bharati Akhil Bharatiya Shiksha Sansthan, is a non government educational organization which runs one of the largest private network of schools in India, operating 12,000 schools with 3.2 million students as of 2016. It is the educational wing of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). It has its registered headquarters in Lucknow, a functional headquarters in Delhi and a sub-office in Kurukshetra.

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Hindu nationalist organisation in India

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, abbreviated as RSS, is an Indian right-wing, Hindu nationalist, paramilitary volunteer organisation that is widely regarded as the parent organisation of the ruling party of India, the Bharatiya Janata Party. The RSS is one of the principal organizations of the Sangh Parivar group. Founded on 27 September 1925, it claimed a commitment to selfless service to India. The organisation is the world's largest voluntary missionary organization.

Contents

Life and career

Tomar was born on 21 July 1930 in a peasant family. He studied in a Baptist Mission School in Agra and joined the RSS as a swayamsevak from his childhood. [3] [2] He received M. A. and B.Ed. degrees and worked as a lecturer. [3]

A Master of Arts is a person who was admitted to a type of master's degree awarded by universities in many countries, and the degree is also named Master of Arts in colloquial speech. The degree is usually contrasted with the Master of Science. Those admitted to the degree typically study linguistics, history, communication studies, diplomacy, public administration, political science, or other subjects within the scope of the humanities and social sciences; however, different universities have different conventions and may also offer the degree for fields typically considered within the natural sciences and mathematics. The degree can be conferred in respect of completing courses and passing examinations, research, or a combination of the two.

In 1957, he founded the Saraswati Shishu Mandir in Agra, working as its principal. In 1961, he founded a Saraswati Vidya Mandir, senior secondary school in the RSS schools network. In 1972, he was appointed as the secretary of the entire schools network of RSS in Uttar Pradesh, called the Bharatiya Siksha Sansthan. He became an RSS pracharak in 1977 and was appointed as the Organisational Secretary of Vidya Bharati, the all-India schools network of the RSS, in 1979. He worked from its registered office in Lucknow. [3]

In 1990, he was promoted as the Rashtriya Margadarshak (National Guide) of Vidya Bharati, with Dinanath Batra succeeding him as the Organisational Secretary. In the new role, he worked from the Sanskriti Bhavan in Kurukshetra, until his death in 2004. [2]

Dinanath Batra is a retired school teacher and the founder of educational activist organisations Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samiti and Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas. Batra has also served as the General Secretary of Vidya Bharati, the school network run by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

Kurukshetra City in Haryana, India

Kurukshetra is a city in the state of Haryana, India. It is also known as Dharmakshetra. It is also known as the "Land of the Bhagavad Gita". Kurukshetra lies at distance of 160 km from New Delhi and about 93 km from Chandigarh - city with the nearest airport.

Ideas

Superiority of "ancient Hindu knowledge"

In The Path of Vidya Bharati Thought, Tomar claims that ancient Hindu knowledge predated Western scientific advances; that Rigvedic verses provide the speed of light, Samkhya scholars dated the universe to 2 billion years old, and sage Bharadwaja wrote a text on aviation engineering. [4] [note 1]

Rigveda most ancient Veda of the Hindus

The Rigveda is an ancient Indian collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns along with associated commentaries on liturgy, ritual and mystical exegesis. It is one of the four sacred canonical texts (śruti) of Hinduism known as the Vedas.

Samkhya or Sankhya is one of the six āstika schools of Hindu philosophy. It is most related to the Yoga school of Hinduism, and it was influential on other schools of Indian philosophy. Sāmkhya is an enumerationist philosophy whose epistemology accepts three of six pramanas (proofs) as the only reliable means of gaining knowledge. These include pratyakṣa (perception), anumāṇa (inference) and śabda. Sometimes described as one of the rationalist schools of Indian philosophy, this ancient school's reliance on reason was exclusive but strong.

Bharadwaja

Bharadwaja, also referred to as Bharadvaja or Bharadvaja Bṛhaspatya, was one of the revered Vedic sages (rishi) in Ancient India, who was a renowned scholar, economist and an eminent physician. His contributions to the ancient Indian literature, mainly in Puranas and Rig Veda, played a significant role in giving an insight to the then Indian society. He and his family of students are considered the authors of the sixth book of the Rigveda. Bharadwaja was father of warrior Brahmin Droṇācārya, a main character in Mahabharata who was an instructor to both Pandava and Kaurava princes. He was grandfather of Aśvatthāma, a legendary warrior in Mahabharata. Both Droncharya and Ashwatthama fought in different battles of Mahabharata alongside Kauravas. Bharadwaja is also mentioned in Charaka Samhita, an authoritative ancient Indian medical text. Maharishi Bharadwaj is considered as the "Father of Medicine" (Ayurveda)

Reception

Tomar's views have been criticised. According to Akshay Bakaya:

Tomar’s writings are rich only in the RSS' usual, rather un-spiritual glories, despite the claims that spirituality lies at the basis of all Hindu life. [4]

Bakaya goes on to say that:

In fact, the RSS, like the Arya Samaj before it, seems essentially to generate Hindu-golden-age fantasies as mirror images parasitic upon a rival’s 'original', in every field [...] The delusion is that the world will be impressed with the claim that ancient Indian sages propounded 'scientific' theories similar (indeed identical) to what is now standard in the West, only much earlier. [4]

Publications

Note

  1. ↑ The text attributed to sage Bharadwaja, Vaimānika Shāstra, was analysed by aeronautical engineers from the Indian Institute of Science, who concluded that it dates from no earlier than 1904 and that the craft described there are not capable of flying. [5]

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References

  1. ↑ Organiser 2004, p. 40.
  2. 1 2 3 Bakaya 2004.
  3. 1 2 3 Organiser 2004.
  4. 1 2 3 Bakaya 2004, pp. 33-34.
  5. ↑ Mukunda et al. 1974, p. 5–12.
  6. ↑ Bakaya 2004, note [7].

Sources

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