Learning at the Swami's feet: Hindu Youth and faith-based educational institutions in South India

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One of the more unusual features of the educational system in Karnataka, in South India, is the role played by schools organised by caste-based Hindu religious organisations (Mathas). While some of these have a very long history, since the early 1990s there has been a dramatic growth in their numbers, and Matha schools are no longer the preserve of high castes, as castes lower down the caste hierarchy have set up their own Mathas and schools, often with Government assistance. The role of religion became a crucial concern in South Asia with the rise of Hindu nationalism and Islamic militancy since the early 1990s. There have been several studies on madrasas, but Matha education is an intriguing yet under-researched phenomenon. Several scholars consider that madrasa education serves to marginalise poor Muslim youth and make them vulnerable to Islamic fundamentalism. The rise of Hindu nationalism and anti-Muslim violence, however, urges us to consider how and where the political consciousness nurtured amongst Hindu youth enables them to be mobilized as a political force There have been a few studies of newly formed Hindu nationalist (RSS-run) schools but little scholarly attention has focused on the vital everyday roles of established Hindu religious institutions. No such studies have been conducted in south India. The Mathas have often acted as a 'vote-bank' at the time of elections. In May 2008, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) became the ruling party of Karnataka, a first for South India. It is widely believed that many Mathas supported the BJP and that was one of the main reasons why the party successfully extended their power into South India, where previously Hindu nationalism had never been popular. Since then, there have been several bomb blasts in the capital city of Bangalore, which suggests that communal violence is spreading in the South. In this project we will attempt to understand some of the roots of this political environment and the extent to which the ideologies of these Matha schools influence youth who can (as we have seen in many parts of India) so easily be encouraged to attack members of different religious communities. Using a mixture of qualitative social research methods (including semi-structured interviews, archival work and participant observation) the project will investigate the role of these Hindu schools in sponsoring religious and caste identities, by studying three Mathas run by different religious sects and castes, and with different orientations to key issues such as the appropriate schooling for girls, the history that pupils should be taught, and the role of Sanskrit in their curriculum. We will also investigate how the schools interact with state agencies, and the extent to official goals of secularism and nation-building are compromised by the faith-based nature of these institutions.For academic users, we will produce two peer-reviewed articles, a chapter in a co-authored volume, and organise a conference panel and presentations. For dissemination to key stakeholders in Karnataka, we will organise inter-faith gatherings of educationalists who rarely otherwise meet, to discuss our findings. The proposed research will examine the everyday lives of faith-based educational institutions, endeavouring to understand their role and importance in ordinary people's lives and addresses an urgent task in a region and on a topic that have hitherto been neglected by scholars working on communal issues in South Asia.