Pinarayi accuses Congress of not objecting to RSS ‘injecting communally divisive narrative’ into Kerala school curriculum

Leader of the Opposition, Pinarayi Vijayan, on Saturday (August 8, 2026), accused the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) government of opening the door for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to indoctrinate impressionable young children in profoundly divisive nationalistic ideology. 

Also read | UDF govt. has surrendered to RSS agenda: Pinarayi Vijayan

Mr. Vijayan told a press conference in Kannur that the UDF government had callously allowed a politically loaded question whitewashing RSS ideologue V.D. Savarkar’s “treacherous role” in the Independence Struggle. 

Mr. Vijayan’s latest foray against the government came against the backdrop of a controversial question that figured in the “Freedom Quiz” programme for students in lower primary schools in the Manjeshwar, Kumbla and Kasargod educational sub-districts in North Kerala. 

The question ostensibly sought to test the historical knowledge of children by asking “which freedom fighter received the most punishment from the British. The “answer key” identified the “freedom fighter” as V.D. Savarkar. 

The question had caused quite an uproar in Kerala with the Students Federation of India (SFI) and Muslim Student Federation (MSF) demanding that the government order an enquiry to find out who approved the question and how it was included in the “Freedom Quiz” in schools in the run-up to the 79th Independence Day Celebrations on August 15. 

Mr. Vijayan accused the government of giving a leg-up to the RSS’s Machiavellian attempts to rewrite history in the Sangh Parivar’s Hindu majoritarian perspective. 

“Savarkar had betrayed the Independence Movement by siding with the British. He urged youth to stay away from the struggle and secured release from prison by writing clemency petitions that betrayed the national cause. Savarkar met the British Viceroy and declared loyalty”, Mr. Vijayan said. 

Mr. Vijayan portrayed Savarkar as a deeply polarising figure who propounded a two-nation theory that depicted Muslims and other minorities, including Christians, as aliens and fifth columnists. 

“Surprisingly, the Congress, which loudly claims the legacy of the Independence movement, has no objection to the RSS seeking to subtly inject its us-versus-them communally divisive narrative into Kerala’s progressive and secular school curriculum”, Mr. Vijayan said. 

Mr. Vijayan said Congress leadership’s “slow drift to the far right” was on full display at the swearing-in ceremony of the UDF government. “The incumbent disposition sanctioned the full rendering of the Vande Mataram. It gave short shrift to the Constituent Assembly’s enlightened reasoning that only the first two metrical compositions of the song were secular, civic and inclusive, and hence could be rendered at State functions. Nevertheless, the founding fathers reasoned that the subsequent versions had a pronounced Hindu religious tint that risked undermining national unity and should not supplant the national anthem”, Mr. Vijayan added.