New Delhi: Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan Today (Thursday) Slammed Congress and opposition members for their comments on the UGC draft rules. He claimed they had transformed positive changes in the schools into fear-based fiction to keep their outdated electoral stories alive.
In an apparent jibe at opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, Pradhan said his “politically motivated” position is to create “confusion” in society. He went on to say that Gandhi had never really understood India.
Pradhan’s comments were in reaction to Rahul Gandhi’s allegations that the University Grants Commission’s (UGC) draft regulations on the appointment of teachers and academic staff in universities and colleges were an attempt to “saffronise” education and impose RSS’s idea “one history, one tradition, one language” on the country.
Describing it as unfortunate and “concerning”, Pradhan said some political leaders, including the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, appear to be trying “to create a false sense of fear” to perpetuate their old political narratives as they are “stuck in some sort of time-warp” instead of embracing progressive changes in the field of education.
He said the ideas in UGC draft regulations will open avenues and not restrict them. The regulation is about bringing more voices into the mainstream, not silencing them. He added that the laws protect institutional autonomy and linguistic diversity and are not detrimental to academic institutions. In a post on X, he said, “But maybe these facts are too inconvenient for those who prefer rhetoric to reality.”
Pradhan also advocated better cooperation between the ruling and opposition parties and slammed attempts to oppose for the sake of opposition as a rather petty political stance. He advised Rahul Gandhi and several others who pose as the Constitution’s champions to spend a little time reading the draft regulations rather than preparing a hurried political dialogue.
He alleged that Congress and the Leader of the Opposition in LS are unaware of the country’s history and languages and disrespect the constitutional structure. They are against the NEP, though PM Modi has repeatedly asserted that all Indian languages are national languages. Pradhan said that the UGC, CBSE, and NCERT are working to impart education in all 22 scheduled languages of India.
Pradhan said that the UGC noted that Rs 6000 are spent on publishing books in regional languages, adding that the Leader of Opposition was proud of the Veer Bal Diwas. He said that the BJP gave the most respect to Dr. B.R. Ambedkar.
Finally, Pradhan said that university chancellors were governed option, before and after independence and that the UGC is an independent body.