New Delhi:
India is preparing to roll its first school course for Buddhist monasteries this month, which aims to unite education programs and promote patriotism in religious centers of the Himalayas near its border with China. The house for many ancient monasteries as the birthplace of Buddhism, India gained the influx of Tibetans in the 1950s, which has established many new institutions, but now it wants to insulate religious learning from China’s influence.
“We are trying to enhance Indian identity through Buddhism as well as education to ensure that China can never control our monasteries in the Himalayas,” said Maling Gombu, a Buddhist activist of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
One of the team promoting Indian Buddhist traditions and national education in Arunachal Pradesh, Mr. Gombu said, “Thousands of children living in remote monasteries deserve education and certified education recognized by India.”
Around 600 monasteries provide training in four types of Tibetan and Indian Buddhist traditions in the regions of Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
They also teach modern themes and English, but courses lack stability outside a national education effort, aimed at welding an overlapping identity from the patchwork of India’s languages and religions.
Rajiv Kumar Singh, director of the National Institute of Open School Education of the Ministry of Education, said, “Non-religious education taught by monks or nuns is not accepted outside the monasteries.”
Mr. Singh, who has worked on a new course, implemented an attempt to evaluate a five -year evaluation, said it expects to prepare Indian and Tibetan students for educational life in India.
“They (Tibetans) are free to learn Tibetan history and their tradition, but they should learn about India because they live here and require proper education to secure jobs outside the monasteries.”
A government document reviewed by Reuters has revealed that 20 monasteries have agreed to adopt new courses near the 3,000 km (1,860-mile) border with China, the rest to be phased later in the year.
Need more time
Officials said that the authorities personally interacted with the monasteries to take the syllabus, they also need time to print new textbooks and find teachers for employees, in the most populous areas, officials said.
But in some monasteries, monks, such as the Gonte Garden Rabigi Linga in Arunachal Pradesh, say their curriculum focuses on Buddhist philosophy, with modern education, carefully cuisted to meet the needs of children who can become preachers.
Thousands of Tibetans sought asylum in India, where his spiritual leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Dalai Lama, ran as Chinese soldiers as the rebellion was attempted in his motherland in 1959.
Around 75,000 Tibetan refugees now live in settlements managed by the Dalai Lama’s Sarkar-in-Xil, Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), which directly controls the monasteries, although not out of the Tibetan tradition.
Reuters reviewed the first batch of textbooks prepared by the Ministry of Education officials and Indian Buddhist scholars in the modern and ancient history of India, and in the role of a country in the freedom struggle of Tibet.
In addition to compulsory studies in English, Hindi and indigenous Bhoti languages in the texts, emphasis has also been laid on mathematics, science and computer training.
CTA Education Minister, Thulam Dolma, said that the schools of the monastery have historically managed by monks and nuns based on their funding, and CTA has a lack of governance rights on them. An official in the Dalai Lama’s office did not comment.
Bharat will start giving money to the monasteries, for decades with the help of foreign aid by various sects of Buddhism, to recruit teachers, to give stipend to monks and pave the way for annual examinations.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, an official of the Ministry of Home Affairs said that education in monasteries in remote strategic areas was part of a major plan to close religious institutions under the influence of China.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Home Affairs did not respond to the email seeking remarks.
Last year, Asian giants began opening a border standoff as two dozen soldiers died in the struggle in 2020, but India aims to spend more to develop border areas, which was to melt slowly.
(Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is published by a syndicated feed.)