RSS workers send box of shorts to Congress Karnataka HQ for its 'burn half-pants' protest

A day after Congress launched a "khaki shorts" campaign in protest against the RSS in Karnataka, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh workers retaliated by collecting shorts and dispatching them to Congress' headquarters.

RSS workers of the KR Pet unit in Mandya district went door to door in the villages and collected used shorts and trunks for the Congress party. Later, they packed hundreds of shorts into a box and dispatched it to the Bengaluru Congress office. The workers claimed that the Opposition leaders won't be able to burn the huge pile of khaki shorts sent to them.

On Monday, activists of the NSUI had burnt shorts outside the residence of Education Minister BC Nagesh in protest against the revision of the syllabus for school students. The ruling BJP had strongly condemned the incident and arrested 15 persons in connection with the matter.

Later, the Congress state unit also began burning khaki shorts, in protest against the “saffronisation” of school textbooks by the ruling BJP state government. The party accused the ruling BJP of incorporating RSS ideologies in its policies, and programs.

Karnataka textbook controversy

Karnataka textbook review committee has been receiving a lot of flak for introducing changes to class 10 Kannada and Social Science textbooks. The committee has been specifically under attack for including the speech of RSS founder KB Hedgewar in the Kannada textbook. Also, the alleged replacement of references of eminent historical personalities like Narayana Guru with right-wing thinkers like Hedgewar.

Following the backlash, Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai announced that the Textbook Review Committee formed by the state government has now been 'disbanded' as its designated work has been completed. He added that 'the government is open to further revisions' if any objectionable content comes to light.