A well-known private school in Bengaluru has claimed that an email was sent to all its alumni urging them to go on to Google Maps and change the name of Gyanvapi mosque to “Gyanvapi temple”. The New Horizon Public School (NHPS) landed itself in the centre of a controversy after it sent an email on May 20 on the mosque.
“Please update on Google maps Gyanvapi temple instead of Gyanvapi mosque. You are requested to do it and ask our Hindu brothers and sisters to do it till google update this changes (sic),” according to the mail, which also contains a list of instructions that need to be followed by the alumni to change the name of the mosque. The Gyanvapi mosque in Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi is currently embroiled in an ongoing court case, where the petitioners have demanded rights to perform daily darshan, pooja, and other Hindu rituals at the site of Maa Shringar Gauri, Lord Ganesh, Lord Hanuman, and other “visible and invisible deities within the old temple complex,” which is essentially part of the mosque.
After facing backlash over the email, the school issued a statement claiming that the email was sent without proper screening procedures that are required of all email communications. “Reports of the email sent out about disrespecting certain religious sentiments have come to our notice and the issue is being handled with the highest priority. We’re an institution that embraces diversity and fosters a safe and inclusive environment for our students,” the school posted on its Instagram page.
Many of the school’s alumni spoke to The Quint and expressed dismay at receiving the email, while alleging that it is in line with the “overt political and ideological positioning” adopted by the school in recent years and that they have observed a rising “trend of right-wing politics being promoted by the school”.
“As a school, you should be promoting secularism! You should not be sending out sensitive emails like this,” said Suraj Sudarshan, an alumnus of the school.
“….This email shows a turn into hard Hindutva that’s unsafe for all,” tweeted independent journalist Rohini Mohan, also an alumnus of the school.
I'm an @NhpsOfficial alumnus. It had a benign Hindu culture (asathoma sadgamaya in assembly) but we had diverse classes. In 2014, it had a big flex with Modi giving students some prize. This email shows a turn into hard #Hindutva that's unsafe for allhttps://t.co/OSUM0UsRww
— Rohini Mohan (@rohini_mohan) May 22, 2022
The NHPS is part of the New Horizon Educational Institute, which is a private group that had earlier donated to the Ram Mandir Trust, organised a bhoomi poojan ceremony in the school on the occasion of the Ram Mandir groundbreaking, and also asked its staff to compulsorily attend a screening of The Kashmir Files.