New Delhi: Students organisations associated with political parties forming the INDIA bloc held a protest at Delhi's Jantar Mantar on Monday (March 24) against the National Education Policy (NEP) and 'saffronisation' of education in India.

Several INDIA leaders including Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, CPI(M) MP Amra Ram, CPI(M) MP V. Sivadasan, former CPI(M) MP Nilotpal Basu, CPI MP Santosh, CPIML MP Sudama Prashad addressed the gathering. Members of the National Students' Union of India (NSUI), All India Students Association (AISA), Students Federation of India (SFI), All India Students Federation (AISF), Muslim Students Federation (MSF), Samajwadi Chhatra Sabha, and Chhatra Rashtriya Janata Dal (CRJD) and others took part in the demonstration.

Gandhi told the students that the RSS is out to destroy India's education system. “If the education system goes into their hands, which is actually happening slowly, this country will be destroyed. No one will get jobs and the country will be finished,” he said, according to The Hindu.

One of the dangers, he added, was the way nearly all universities now had vice-chancellors who are members of the RSS. “You are students of the INDIA bloc, there may be some differences in our ideologies and policies but we can never compromise on the education system of the country. We will fight this fight together and push back the RSS,” he continued.

In a statement, SFI said that the protest was an attempt to fight "increasing ideological infiltration of RSS in curriculums, the commercialisation of education, the growing exclusion of marginalised communities from academic spaces and lack of campus democracy" across the country.

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