Assam: A week after the BJP came to power in Assam for the first time, putting an end to about 15-year-old Congress government; a Muslim boy has given the RSS yet another reason to rejoice.
Sarfaraz Hussain topped the state board’s Class 10 exam with 590 marks out of a maximum 600, stated the results declared on Tuesday. Sarfaraz studies in a school run by an affiliate of Vidya Bharati, the RSS’s education wing.
He is not the only Muslim student of Sankardev Sishu Niketan, one of the many schools run by the Vidya Bharati-affiliated Sishu Shiksha Samiti, Assam. Sarfaraz was one of the 44 candidates of Vidya Bharati-affiliated schools in the Top 20. The school at Betkuchi on the outskirts of Guwahati has 24 Muslim students, most of whom – like Sarfaraz – have won prizes for reciting the Bhagwad Gita.
Sarfaraz grew chanting hymns in praise of Goddess Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of learning. But, Ajmal Hussain, Sarfaraz’s father had not complaints for his aim was to educate his son and the school gave him that ray of hope. It was the monetary factors that made him send his son to Sankardev Sishu Niketan.
“If not for the free education provided by the school, educating my son would have been difficult,” said Ajmal Hussain, a waiter in a small restaurant.
When asked about the factors for his son’s success, Ajmal says it is his son’s hard work, support from teachers and abundant blessings from Goddess Saraswathi that Sarfaraz could excel. Incidentally Sarfaraz was also the Secretary of School’s Saraswathi Puja Celebration Committee.
A grateful Sarfaraz says that his school has shaped his life and one day he wishes to pay back his alma mater.
With Sarfaraz’s achievement hitting headlines, Sarbananda Sonowal government has sprung into action. Education minister Himanta Biswa Sarma promised a road to the school that existed only on paper since it was established in 1998 and said that a sum of Rs 10 lac will be given for the upgrade of the school and a sum of R 5 lac would be kept as Fixed Deposit for Sarfaraz’s higher education.
