Student-run magazine to ‘Spark’ inner self, bridge gaps

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: A group of youth from the city have created a monthly magazine titled ‘Spark’ to create a forum where conversations on various issues plaguing society can be “sparked”.

“There is a lack of political consciousness among the students in Bengaluru since currently; there exists no initiative to reach issues of political significance to general students. We want to bridge that gap through Spark,” said Aratrika, part of the magazine’s editorial board. The January issue focuses on the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. It looks into the demerits of the policy, which has already been implemented in the state of Karnataka, the first state in the nation where the policy was implemented.

‘The Saffron Way to Exclusion’, a writer from the magazine, dives into the “saffron” changes that have taken place since the implementation of the policy in Karnataka. It cites the changes brought in by the textbook revision committee which was constituted in September 2021, highlighting the introduction of a speech by RSS founder Keshav Baliram Hedgewar titled “Nijavada adarsha purusha yaaragabeku?

(Who should be the real role model?)” translated into Kannada. It also noted the 26 position papers submitted by the state government, making several regressive and pseudoscientific inputs towards reviewing and re-designing the National Curriculum Framework (NCF).

“One of these papers suggests removal of eggs from midday meals as Brahmins deem it non-sattvik,” the writer states. “At the very introduction, the document (NEP) states, ‘The rich heritage of ancient and eternal Indian knowledge and thought has been a guiding light for this policy.’

This ‘Indian knowledge system’ phrase recurs throughout the document without a concrete definition. It omits the rich tradition of Buddhist or Jain schools of philosophy, the materialist schools of Charvaka, Kapil, Kanad, contributions of the medieval Sultanate and Mughal dynasty alongside the role of the indigenous people of India in conserving nature and natural resources.

It also promotes the Brahmanical ideals of ‘Dharma’ and ‘Karma’ that form the ideological basis of the caste system,” the report says. “It upholds ‘traditional Indian values’ like ‘seva, ahimsa, swachata, satya...’ which is a terrible mockery of the fact that the ‘Avarnas’ or Dalits have been historically engaged solely in manual scavenging,” it added.

Many other writings in the magazine have pointed out the central government scrapping Maulana Azad National Fellowship (MANF) meant to provide scholarships to students from minority communities to pursue MPhil or PhD in Indian universities and pre-matric scholarships for students from SC, ST, and OBC communities.

A first account in the magazine was recollected when a handful of them were detained by the police while trying to protest against the Global Investors’ Meet 2022 held in Bengaluru.

The students had planned the protest to raise concerns regarding principles of sustainable development being violated by global investors. “We were detained for almost nine hours merely for exercising our right to protest. This ordeal makes one wonder what scared the state so much,” the report said.