BJP Future - 7

[Guest]

An encouraging sign: http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2011/...t-the-bjp/



As a Ekal Vidyalaya sponsor, I am happy. <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />

For his doctoral research at Cornell University, political scientist Tariq Thachil looked at links between educational services provided by the RSS and political support for the BJP, and found that more schools meant more votes in tribal areas where public services were otherwise poor.



Mr. Thachil, now an assistant politics professor at Yale University, said there are several kinds of Sangh-affiliated educational services. Some are urban and fee-charging, such as the Saraswati schools, and others are free, the Ekal Vidyalayas, or one-teacher schools. Then there are childcare centers, known as Bal Kendras, that offer parents supplementary or after-school services. In tribal areas, something called the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram provides educational services, often through boarding schools since villages are often far apart and poorly connected.



Although some of these programs have been around for decades, they really spread in the 1990s “in an attempt to integrate sections that were not considered part of the Hindu base,” said Mr. Thachil in an interview Thursday.