The gravest political mistake any authoritarian outfit or leader makes is to start a debate on education. Their entire efforts are usually designed to subvert education and to create an anti-intellect society. Their obsession with education is for destruction of true understanding; they distort history, hype up myths about a great past, inculcate chauvinism and sectarianism in students, resort to falsification and erasure of established facts and devalue rational thinking. Far-right Hungarian nationalist Viktor Orban, who lost power earlier this year, condemned educational institutions as “sites for liberal indoctrination”.The Gen-Z protest has now compelled Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat to enter the debate on education. That’s like stepping on a landmine for RSS. Bhagwat looked desperate not to rub the younger generation up the wrong way and tried to align himself with their sentiment. Conceding that the education system needed reforms, he offered bizarre solutions, arguing that improvement depended on people’s mercies and patronage.“Society should bear the financial burden”, he suggested, instead of asking the government to initiate structural changes and reach the desired budgetary allocation of 6% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for education. He didn’t utter a word on rising cost of education, autonomy of institutions, academic freedom and reckless ideological interventions.The RSS wants students to conform to a set pattern of ideas. The purpose of education is to allow students to clear the cobwebs in the mind, step out of seclusion and orthodoxy, and freely wander in the uncharted realms of creativity and knowledge. The RSS doesn’t want students to revolt against the existing order and be respectful to tradition and authority. Obedience for them is a greater virtue than reasoning and inquiry. Education shapes a student’s outlook to life, creating an integrated thought on society, politics, philosophy and history.But RSS wants students to know what it has concocted. Shouldn’t students correctly know who won the battle of Haldighati – Akbar or Rana Pratap? Shouldn’t students know about the RSS’s role in the freedom struggle? What will an RSS-trained professor teach about Jawaharlal Nehru, one of the greatest freedom fighters and the architect of modern India? Shouldn’t students know what ideology led to the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi?Shouldn’t students know that Hindutva icon V.D. Savarkar propagated a toxic communal ideology and M.S. Golwalkar felt India could learn racist pride from Nazi Germany? Adolf Hitler used to tell Germans, “We must distrust intelligence and conscience and must place our trust in our instincts.” Bhagwat should clearly tell Indians whether they should place their trust in their instincts or history must be based on credible evidence and objective reality?To put an impressionable young mind into a groove is not education. The RSS succeeded in fooling one generation with its duplicity and hypocrisy. But the Gen Z can’t live with the dichotomy of constitutional principles and communal politics. Bhagwat should clearly tell students whether the principles of equality, liberty, fraternity and justice are to be honoured or not. If yes, how will political or cultural outfits violating the principle of equality be respected by anybody? How can the prime minister who behaves like the chief priest of Hinduism in a secular country be acceptable?An inquisitive mind is bound to ask: What’s the worth of an ideology that leads to division, conflict and misery? These children will ask: What’s criminal in falling in love with a Muslim or a Christian? If the Constitution allows freedom of choice in personal matters, what’s this nonsense of love-jihad? If a citizen is free to eat whatever he wants and do any business, how can the sale of non-vegetarian food be banned during navratri and kanwar yatra? How can chief ministers and ministers take oath of the Constitution and run a divisive agenda? All these aspects of life are linked to education and it is unlikely that the Gen-Z will tolerate this fraud on the Constitution.Lies & double-speakWhen the RSS chief was saying the Gen-Z protest was not anti-constitutional and anti-national, toxic expressions of his colleagues and followers must have flooded his mind. It was his government that fired pellet guns and teargas shells on students. It was Atul Limaye, third in the RSS hierarchy, who hurled the anti-constitutional and anti-national slur on the young protesters.Another RSS ideologue from Kerala, T.G. Mohandas said the type of girls who assembled at Jantar Mantar like being gang-raped. Kangana Ranaut, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP, called them “Generation Gutter”. Delhi BJP leader Ramesh Bidhuri said the majority of protesters were “aulaad” of puncturewallah, alluding that they were Muslims. Farmers were also called terrorists and Pakistani agents when they were protesting against the Modi government. Any journalist or politician who questions the RSS-BJP is branded an anti-national and Soros-funded destabiliser.Bhagwat should introspect why such filth comes out of Sangh Parivar ecosystem in any crisis? Is it because of the intrinsic nature of sectarianism or they are trained to malign opponents and dissenters? Does Bhagwat think his soft-soaping the Gen-Z, calling them intelligent and honest, will impress anybody? The younger generation has demonstrated their deep insight and the ability to see through the pretenses. This generation, honest as acknowledged by Bhagwat, will demand honest responses.An honest response is dismissal of Union home minister Amit Shah and strict action against the police officers who crossed the line and allowed goons to assault students. An honest response is a public confession that India is being led in the wrong direction as so much time and energy get wasted on religiosity and artificially created social discord.Lies and doublespeak can’t override lived experience. A sincere introspection is called for. Why is the RSS-BJP so insolent and intolerant? Is there a fundamental flaw in their ideology? How many great professors, poets, philosophers, artistes, scientists and economists of national and international acclaim the Sangh Parivar ideological fraternity has produced in the 100 years of its existence? Why doesn’t prime minister Narendra Modi muster the courage to tell the world India is a land of Golwalkar and Savarkar, not Gandhi and Nehru? If the prime minister of three successive terms isn’t confident about the RSS’s legacy, how will Gene-Z sing and dance about the new India?Modi’s stratagemModi should have been the best person to understand the Gen-Z and Gen-Alpha minds because he has been interacting with them through Pareeksha Pe charcha programme. But the irony is that the orchestrated interactions were designed to enhance Modi’s image, not his understanding. The purpose was not an honest conversation with all kinds of children but a choreographed show with a carefully selected audience. Modi was there to perform, not learn. Needless to say, he didn’t learn.Modi indeed had enough time and opportunities to feel the changes in society and adjust his politics accordingly. But there was an element of insincerity in his politics; he thought his tricks and guile would sustain him forever. When he promised Rs 15 lakh to every citizen, coined attractive catchphrases and sold dreams of acche din, he knew exactly what was about to come. It’s not his failure that has pushed him into the pit; politics of deception digs up pits for everybody. Modi knew his preferences – Adani or students; Israel or Iran, religiosity or secularism, power or service?What Modi didn’t know is that this kind of politics has a short shelf-life. He didn’t know the truth would break the barriers of propaganda, religiosity, communal passions, false promises, and ignite the minds that once lay hypnotised. While the Gen-Z woke up to reality, they jolted even their parents out of fear and submission. The gap between propaganda and reality had become too wide to be ignored. Young boys and girls, poor workers and farmers heard chants of Vishwaguru and the third largest economy but there was no improvement in their wretched existence.Cost of education soared but the possibility of gainful employment dipped. The most creative response Modi had to offer on jobs in the last 12 years was the absurdity of selling pakodas! The lure of acchhe din had evaporated long back. The government floated another balloon – Amrit Kaal. Alas! Balloons can’t survive even a prick. It didn’t.Sanjay K. Jha is a political commentator.