Row in Rajasthan after state minister claims Urdu teachers got jobs using fake degrees

A controversy erupted in Rajasthan on Monday after state minister and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Jawahar Singh Bedam alleged that several Urdu school teachers in the state secured their jobs using fake degrees, reported PTI.

His comments came amid growing tensions after the state education department directed Mahatma Gandhi Government School (RAC Battalion) in Jaipur to offer Urdu as an optional language instead of as a third language.

The order was issued by the district education officer at the direction of the office of Madan Dilawar, the state School Education Minister.

“The minister has ordered the creation of Sanskrit teachers’ posts and close down Urdu [classes],” PTI quoted the order as stating. “Therefore, make sure to send the complete proposal for opening Sanskrit as a third language in your school to this office.”

Days later, the state education department issued a similar notification to a government senior secondary school in Bikaner district’s Napasar about replacing the language, PTI reported

However, Ashish Modi, director of the state’s Board of Secondary Education, said that the order did not apply to all schools.

“It is not a blanket order,” he said. “Except one student, there is nobody who studies Urdu as the third language in a government school in Napasar, Bikaner. This is the reason why…

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