West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari on Thursday announced an ambitious plan to expand the network of Vidya Bharati schools across the state, setting
a target of establishing at least 1,000 institutions run by the RSS-affiliated education body within the next year. The announcement was made at a programme marking the 74th anniversary of Vidya Bharati at the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture in Kolkata. Calling on Vidya Bharati to take the lead in imparting what he described as “nationalistic learning”, Adhikari invited the organisation's leadership to meet state officials at the secretariat and work out a roadmap for expansion. He said every district, municipality and panchayat in Bengal should have at least one Vidya Bharati institution. According to the chief minister, Bengal currently has 313 Vidya Bharati schools, while the organisation runs more than 12,000 schools and 10,000 Bal Sanskar Kendras across India. He specifically urged the body to focus on Murshidabad and South 24 Parganas, alleging that the districts witness a higher incidence of “anti-national activities”. Adhikari also signalled a major restructuring of the state's education administration. He proposed merging the four existing departments - school education, higher education, technical education and minority education - into a single department. Under the proposed framework, there would be no separate administration for madrassa education, he said. The chief minister accused the previous Trinamool Congress government of weakening the education system and introducing ideological distortions in school curricula. He alleged that Bengali textbooks had been altered in ways that sidelined figures such as Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and Swami Vivekananda. He also criticised what he described as community-based distinctions in education administration and student recognition. The remarks come amid a broader push by the BJP government to emphasise nationalism in education. Just a day earlier, Adhikari warned schools of possible withdrawal of government aid if they failed to ensure compliance with the mandatory singing of the full version of Vande Mataram during school prayers. Vidya Bharati describes itself as one of India's largest non-governmental educational networks. According to its stated vision, the organisation seeks to develop an education system that nurtures patriotism and commitment to Hindutva among students. At the event, Vidya Bharati representatives said their institutions focus on value-based education, cultural awareness and what they term “Bharatiyatva” or Indianness.
