New Delhi: In a first of its kind development, the Hindu right-wing outfit Rasthriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has announced its decision to begin a Sainik school. The school will produce students who would go on to join the Indian army.So far, the job has been carried out by a band of 25 Sainik schools run on public money by the Ministry of Defence, scattered across different parts of the country. Said to be the brainchild of former defence minister V.K. Krishna Menon in the 1960s, these schools, run by Sainik School Society, aim at preparing students to join the National Defence Academy and the Indian Naval Academy. The idea behind having the schools in various parts of the country is to make to the Indian army more representative.Now, come April 2020, there shall be a private army school to be run by the RSS’s education wing, Vidya Bharti. The school will be named after Rajendra Singh or Rajju Bhaiyya, the first non-Brahmin and non-Maharashtrian chief or sarsanghchalaks of the Hindu right-wing outfit. It is being planned in Shikarpur area of Bulandshahar in Uttar Pradesh. Rajju Bhaiyya, who died in 2003, was born in that district in 1922.Media reports said construction of the boarding school, meant only for boys from Class VI to Class XII, has already begun. It will follow the syllabus of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE).Also read: PMO Wants HRD to Introduce Sainik School Model in All SchoolsAjay Goyal, regional convener of the Western UP and Uttarakhand for Vidya Bharti Uchha Shiksha Sansthan, told the Economic Times, “This is an experiment we are doing for the first time in the country and the model can be replicated in other places in future.” Vidya Bharti runs around 20,000 schools across the country.The report said the school would invite applications for admission from August onwards. About 160 students would fill the first batch, out of which 56 seats would be reserved for sons of army personnel who have lost their lives in action.So far, only former UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav has opposed the idea, asking what was its need and purpose when the state itself has three Sainik schools including, the Sainik School, Lucknow, the only such institution to be run by a state government.“Creating military and sainik schools apart from the ones run by the government is definitely suspicious. It is opening the school for its own selfish reasons. In this establishment, mob lynching and how to hurt communal harmony would be taught. The objective would be to spread hate between communities,” he said.