New Delhi: A wing of Rashtra Sevika Samiti, the women’s wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), on June 11 launched a Garbha Sanskar (Pregnancy Cultural Guidance) programme, for pregnant women, aimed at imparting “cultural and patriotic values” to the child even before it is born.
Garbha translates to womb and sanskar means culture/values.
Telangana governor Tamilisai Soundararajan, who attended the event, said that pregnant women should chant ‘Sunderkand’, and read the Bhagavad Gita, Ramayana, and Mahabharata to have mentally and physically sound babies. The Governor’s is a constitutional position in every state.
Soundararajan is a gynecologist by profession and a fetal therapist, the Times of India reported She also holds the post of Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry.
Under the Garbha Sanskar programme developed by Samvardhinee Nyas, doctors associated with the organisation will now provide a mix of “scientific and traditional” prescriptions to expectant mothers so that they give birth to “sanskari and deshbhakt” babies, PTI’s report stated. The governor lauded the efforts of Samvardhinee Nyas and said that implementation of this “scientific and holistic approach” towards pregnancy will “definitely” yield positive results.
This is not the first of such programmes organised by the RSS. In March this year, 2023, a similar Garbha Sanskar workshop was held at the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi. This event was attended by doctors and ayurveda practitioners from across the country, including from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Delhi. Indian Express had reported on this event.
At the recent event in Hyderabad, Samvardhinee Nyas’s national organising secretary, Madhuri Marathe, was quoted as saying, “The aim and objective of this campaign is to develop a programme which ensures that the baby can learn sanskar (culture and values) in womb and the process continues till the baby gets two years old.”
In 2019, this sort of archaic rationalisation was also applied by the RSS towards couples. It had then started a widely publicised campaign telling young couples that if they want sanskari (morally well-mannered) and intelligent children, they should start the process of garbh sanskar before a woman conceives and continue the ‘course’ during the pregnancy.
The videos of garbh sanskar are in circulation at RSS shakhas in Uttar Pradesh where the pracharaks and sanchalaks (the office-bearers) show videos of two girls – Rashi (8) and Kriya (4) – reciting Sanskrit shlokas and mantras. The mother of the girls is seen explaining that her daughters are intelligent because she and her husband followed garbh sanskar. They are also available online.
“You can see how uncultured today’s generation is. Recently, some videos were in circulation on WhatsApp which depicted how ignorant our youth are about India, its history and its culture. This is because they have not got the right sanskars. Now, the RSS has decided to rectify the situation,” Mahesh Sharma, an RSS leader had then said to the media. He had claimed this was a ‘science’ that has existed in the country since Vedic times. “There are many instances in Hindu scriptures when mothers were blessed with babies of their choice following the wisdom received from sages,” the RSS leader said.
RSS volunteers Vinod Bharati and Dr Neeraj Singhal, an Ayurvedcharya, have set up ‘Vedant Garbh Vigyan Evam Sanskar Kendra’ in Meerut in Western Uttar Pradesh – said to be the first of its kind of institute in the state whose promo line is: ‘Baby by choice, not by chance’.
Gujarat is where these programmes are seeded it appease. Both the RSS leaders have taken ‘training’ in one of the Gujarat based ‘Garbh Vigyan Anusandhan Kendras’. These ‘kendras’ advocate a programme based on Ayurveda that guarantees couples the ‘perfect progeny’. The people who run these centres even claim that this ‘course’ can ‘upgrade’ and repair hereditary dysfunctional genes.
Dr Neeraj Singhal had, in 2019 told the media that the couple need to follow garbh sanskar before a woman conceived and during the course of her pregnancy. The garbh sanskar are set of rituals which revolve around a regulated diet and practice of Yoga. “The high point of this ritual is Sanskar Vidhi — a three-stage havan that is conducted over nine months. The process begins three months before conception. During pregnancy, the mother is provided a diet plan that is nutritious and satvik,” he said. “In the next phase, the pregnant women are trained to do various breathing techniques as per their choice of progeny. They regularly recite ‘Hanuman Chalisa’ and ‘Durga Chalisa’ and listen to stories of valour of heroes like Shivaji and Maharana Pratap,” Dr Singhal said. He also claimed that over a dozen couples have benefitted from this ‘procedure’.
Dr S.K. Pandey, Auryvedhacharya in RML Institute of Medical Sciences in Lucknow, contended that it is recorded in history that satvik food and regular pranayam can transform one’s line of thinking. “It makes the body pure and helps to conceive a good soul,” he claimed.
The internet is dotted with such Videos of the organisation RSS that promote these irrational views.
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