Sudeshna Sarkar

Kathmandu: Vande Mataram, the Indian national song, has raised the ire of Nepal’s former Maoist guerrillas who are set to head a new government.

The powerful student wing of the Maoists, backed by the student unit of their traditional rivals — the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist — has given a school in east Nepal, located on the Indo-Nepal border, seven days to close down for allegedly teaching students the song, written by one of India’s bestknown authors, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay.

The two student unions have warned the Delhi Public School in Biratnagar, which happens to be Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala’s home town, that if it did not shut down within a week, they would force its closure from Monday.

According to a statement by the unions, the school, promoted by some of Nepal’s well-known business groups, has been running classes in gross violation of Nepal’s education laws. It says that though the school registered itself last year as Gurukul Society and had permission to conduct classes up to the fifth standard, it has been running classes till the seventh standard under the name of Delhi Public School.

Only select schools, that are under the aegis of different foreign embassies, like India’s Kendriya Vidyalaya, have the permission to teach the curriculum of other education boards. The rest have to teach the curriculum endorsed by the Curriculum Development Board under Nepal’s Ministry of Education and Sports.

Source : IANS