Now PG Commerce students at Bikaner Varsity to study Gita in their course books!

Post graduate students in commerce faculty of Maharaja Ganga Singh University in Rajasthan’s Bikaner district will have to study Bhagwat Gita as part of their curriculum. University of Rajasthan the MGSU in Bikaner will be the second varsity in the state to include religious text in commerce books.

In an attempt to give a touch of ‘Indianisation', the new syllabus of Management Studies will include a Chapter from Gita, Kautilya and philosophical aspects of Vivekananda and Mahatma Gandhi. A chapter on Lord Krishna’s conversation with Arjun before the battle of Kurukshetra has been included in the course.

The inclusion of Indian authors has been at the cost of foreign ones like Mary Parker, an expert in organisational behaviour, and Oliver Sheldon, whose globally read theories have been axed.

One of the members of the Board of Studies of Business Administration faculty, Dr. Ashok K. Sharma, presently teaching at Govt. PG College, Sujangarh, Churu, said that the course underwent changes keeping in mind the ‘Indianisation’ of the syllabus. “A chapter on management thinkers will have the preachings of Swami Vivekananda. Similarly, a chapter on Mahatma Gandhi will explain the role and rights of labourers”, Sharma shared with DH.

Similarly, batting the relevance of texts from Gita to be included in the course Sharma said, “Our religious texts offer some of the strongest management lessons to be learnt such as Lord Krishna's sermons to Arjun in the battlefield and concepts of Kautilya which can help oneself to escape recession and other financial problems," he said.

Congress calls it another move to saffronise education

Appreciating the move of Bikaner University, Navin Mathur, Former Head & Convener, BOS in Business Administration, Rajasthan University, told Deccan Herald, “ We were the first to include the Bhagvada Gita, Ramayan, Vedas, spirituality in management, and thinkers like Kautilya, Vivekananda, Gandhi, in courses like M. Com(Business Administration), MIB, MHRM and BBA. This year, students of Dept of Business Administration are writing dissertations/ making presentations on Gita, Vivekananda and Gandhi”.

However, opposition party congress sees it as a step of state government and education department towards saffronisation in the name of 'Indianisation'.

Congress Spokesperson Archana Sharma said, “By removing foreign authors from the course, students will be deprived of the text that is read globally and internationally. World accepted theories should have been not removed.”