Dinanath Batra
Dinanath Batra (also spelled Dina Nath Batra) is a retired school teacher and the founder of educational activist organisations Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samiti and Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas. Batra has also served as the General Secretary of Vidya Bharati, the school network run by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
Personal life
Dinanath Batra was born in 1932 in Dera Gazi Khan in Punjab, in present-day Pakistan. He worked as the headmaster of the Dayananda Anglo-Vedic School at Dera Bassi in Patiala district. In 1966, he was appointed headmaster of the Geeta Senior School in Kurukshetra, the first school set up by the RSS. He is an RSS pracharak.
Activism
Vidya Bharati
He was appointed as the full-time general secretary of the RSS schools network Vidya Bharati in 1990.
Notice to Sonia Gandhi
On 30 May 2001, Batra served a legal notice to Sonia Gandhi, president of the Indian National Congress. Batra stated that a resolution passed by the All India Congress Committee at its plenary session included statements that were defamatory towards Vidya Bharati. According to Batra, the resolution had stated that textbooks used by Vidya Bharati promoted negative attitude and violence towards minorities, justified the caste system, sati and child marriage as being a part of Indian culture, and contained superstitions and concocted facts inimical to scientific temper.
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