Hindu Teacher Ordered to Remove Bindi at Christian School

[Guest guest]

HinduThought, "Ashok Chowgule" <ashokvc@c...>

wrote:

 

And it will be the Hindus who will blamed for reacting.

 

Namaste.

Ashok Chowgule

 

 

Hindu Teacher Ordered to Remove Bindi at Christian School

http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?

ID=IEP20051220053916&Page=P&Title=Nation&Topic=0

 

BHOPAL, INDIA, December 21, 2005: (HPI note: Christian schools in

India

receive government funding for teacher's salaries and textbooks.

Most of

the students are not Christians.)

 

A Christian missionary school here is in the throes of a controversy

after it sacked a Hindu teacher for wearing sandalwood paste on her

forehead. Activists of the radical Hindu organization Bajrang Dal

have

taken up the case of the teacher and are up in arms against the

school.

Jyoti Sahasrabuddhe, 40, a computer science teacher at Saint Jones

School in the Govindpura area of the city for the last 14 years,

went to

school on Monday with sandalwood paste smeared on her forehead. The

principal, Suman Martin, allegedly objected to the paste and asked

Sahasrabuddhe to wipe it off but she refused. This led to a heated

argument between the two and the teacher tendered her resignation.

 

She later filed a complaint at the Govindpura police station against

Martin's behavior. In her complaint Sahasrabuddhe said no teacher at

the

school was allowed to wear 'bindi' on her forehead. "Students are

forcibly taught from the Bible in the name of prayers," she said in

the

complaint. Sahasrabuddhe has also accused the school authorities of

carrying out religious conversions. Bajrang Dal activists took up the

matter after learning of the incident. "We have got complaints

against

this school earlier too. We were told that the Bible was read out to

the

students against their wishes. The students were also forced to read

the

Bible in the name of morning prayers," said Devendra Rawat, an

office-bearer of the Bajranj Dal. "We want that the teacher should be

reinstated and the Bible should not be read out to the students. If

the

school management fails to do these two things, we will take action

against them," Rawat said. Martin could not be immediately contacted

for

comments. However, another teacher at the school said on the

condition

of anonymity that the school management had rejected Sahasrabuddhe's

resignation and she would be reinstated. "We are investigating the

matter," a police official at the Govindpura police station said.

 

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