Jaipur: The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party government in Rajasthan has directed all government schools in the state to organise collective performances of the Surya Namaskar on the occasion of Surya Saptami on February 15, with the participants including students, teachers/staff, parents and local villagers.
In an order issued on Tuesday, the Rajasthan Secondary Education Department, Bikaner directed all district education officials to hold practice sessions of the Surya Namaskar during school prayers everyday to prepare for the February 15 event. The order added that data pertaining to those who will take part in the event for a ‘world record’ is also to be collected.
“The students will now be practising Surya Namaskar. Sunlight is very important and plays a very vital role in the health of the body including a source of Vitamin D. Surya Namaskar is a complete exercise. This will continue till February 15 and after that we will decide on it further,” Ashish Modi, director, Rajasthan Secondary Education Department, told The Wire on Wednesday.
Earlier, Rajasthan school education minister Madan Dilawar had told reporters that all government schools will celebrate Surya Saptami on a large scale, with attempts to make it the biggest such programme in the country.
“Surya Saptami is on February 15 and 16, spanning half of each of the two days. We have planned to worship Surya Bhagwan (Sun God) with Surya Namaskar on February 15. Our schools will take the help of people from all spheres to organise such an event which can become the largest such programme in the country in terms of the maximum number of people doing Surya Namaskar at a time. We have started the preparations. During prayer meetings, students will practice Surya Namaskar for at least 15 minutes. We are able to everything due to the light of the Sun God. That is why we have always regarded the Sun as a god. This initiative will also encourage people to exercise and stay healthy,” education minister Dilawar had recently told reporters.
Sixty-four-year-old Dilawar, who has been given the important portfolio of school education in the Bhajan Lal Sharma-led BJP government in Rajasthan, is one of the most firebrand Hindutva faces of the saffron party in the state. He is often in the news for his statements.
Earlier this week, videos of Dilawar dancing with joy after the pran pratishtha was completed at the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya were widely circulated on social media.
Dilawar had said that he had taken a sankalp (vow) back in 1990 during the Ram Janmabhoomi movement to not wear a garland till the Ram Temple was built in Ayodhya, a vow that stood completed after the consecration ceremony at the temple by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
After the consecration ceremony, Ramganjmandi MLA Dilawar took another vow, this time to eat only one meal everyday till the consecration of a Krishna Temple in the claimed birthplace of Lord Krishna in Mathura – where the Shahi Idgah mosque now stands.
A veteran MLA and minister, Dilawar was sidelined during the tenure of former chief minister Vasundhara Raje, but made a comeback since 2018, when he was made an office bearer of the state BJP after the Raje-led government’s defeat. Since then, as Raje became increasingly sidelined by the central leadership, Dilawar, much like her other detractors, became more influential and was awarded the berth of a cabinet minister in the newly-formed BJP government.
In the past, Dilawar has grabbed headlines for his statements, including during the farm law protests in 2021, when he had termed the farmers’ agitation as a conspiracy to spread bird flu, alleging that ‘so-called farmers’ were enjoying chicken biryani and dry fruits at the protest site.
Back in 2019, Dilawar had prayed at a temple, requesting the deity to give illness and misfortune to those people who were not discarding single-use plastic.
