“How it is justified, why is state government forcing only ‘Bhagvad Gita’ classes, it is better to open separate schools for Hindu students,” said a student from public school.

“Simply send Hindu students to mutt or temple to learn good values,” added another student.

“Instead of introducing value based education, our leaders are destroying integrity and this is unconstitutional,” said a teacher from a government school.

It would be right to say that forcing students to learn particular religion is an attempt to communalise education. Some students may not take interest in values of other religions. The schools should not use their learning and teaching hours and resources for a particular religion. Tomorrow any ruling government with religious inclination and some vested interest might like force all schools in a state to teach Bible, Quran, Guru Granth Sahib etc. Can it be accepted by other communities? Above all, Gita is meant for people who aim on achieving spiritual growth. Second point is that Indian philosophy is not based on particular religion. It is an individual’s choice to learn values from Gita or other holy books.

Karnataka government is slowly moving towards the idea of saffronisation, which is likely to create social tension. If the government wants to give moral values to students, it should adopt value based education system instead of religion based. What is wrong and right will be decided by high court, but the best decision the court can make is to reject the idea of ruling government.