THIRUVANANTHAPURAM/KOCHI: The Gana Geetham controversy took a new turn on Sunday with Minister V Sivankutty saying that the education department will launch an inquiry into schoolchildren singing the RSS song during the inaugural journey of the Ernakulam-Bengaluru Vande Bharat Express on Saturday.
Pointing out that the state government can take down the NOC for a school’s functioning if it does not meet stated conditions, irrespective of the board of education, the education minister said a report has been sought from the director of education on the issue.
While the matter has taken a political turn, the school authorities said they wish to stay clear of the row but will move legally if required.
Stressing that using children to politicise government programmes for the sake of the communal ideals of a particular group is a violation of constitutional values, Sivankutty also said that weeks of practice may have been done for the purpose. The report will be prepared and submitted within two days, said Director of General Education N S K Umesh.
“We will inquire into the issue, only after which the next decision will be taken,” he told TNIE.
Meanwhile, the school maintained that the song selection was a spontaneous choice by the students when some media persons asked them to sing a song. “We don’t wish to politicise this at all. If the government moves forward with the probe, we will be forced to go legal. We don’t wish to get into the political war otherwise,” said K P Dinto, the principal of Saraswathi Vidyaniketan Public School, Kochi.
He added that the incident reflects the discretion of the students in identifying what song to sing where, as they chose to sing a patriotic song instead of a movie song during the event, he added.
The video of the controversial incident was taken down by the Southern Railway from its social media handles, but was reposted on ‘X’ along with the translation of the lyrics the same day. Twenty students from Saraswathi Vidyaniketan, accompanied by two teachers, were among the students from five Kochi schools selected to be a part of the inaugural journey of the new Vande Bharat allotted to Kerala, the school authorities said.
Meanwhile, political parties have started making their positions clear on the issue. Union Ministers remarked that the song has no religious connection. “There is not even a single mention of the term ‘Hindu’ in the entire song. If somebody finds a problem with it, they need to specify it,” Union Minister George Kurien said in Thiruvananthapuram.
Reciting the lyrics of the song, he also took a dig at the Congress, saying that Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar had sung it in the legislative assembly.
Responding in cinematic fashion, the other Union minister from Kerala, Suresh Gopi, said, “It was not a terrorist song, but an innocent celebration of children.” Saying that people will understand the ill-intentions behind usages like “students being forced to sing”, he added that music does not have any language.
At the same time, Leader of Opposition V D Satheesan said that Gana Geetham is not a patriotic song.
“This is a free country, and you can sing it anywhere, but not in a public function. Children will not innocently sing it unless someone works behind it,” he told reporters.
Urging action against the school management, he asked why the Railways had to share the video, take it back, and later repost it, if the song came out of “children’s innocence”.
