Source: The San Francisco Chronicle
https://www.sfgate.com/education/article/Hinduness-with-vengeance-Schools-offer-2767035.php
On April 16, 2004 The San Francisco Chronicle reported, "[H]uman rights organizations in the eastern state of Orissa say [certain Hindu schools] are political tools in the hands of India's foremost Hindu nationalist organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). In the past several years, the RSS and its allies, collectively called the Sangh Parivar, have built a network of more than 30,000 Hindu religious schools, called shishu mandirs or 'temples of learning.' Most are located in remote tribal regions where government schools are few. Using the promise of free education and housing, the shishu mandirs have enrolled more than 5 million impoverished youths, including many orphans. In class, students are 'subtly indoctrinated into the RSS Hindutva ideology,' said Sudarshan Das, president of Agami Orissa, an umbrella organization of nongovernmental organizations working with tribal peoples. Hindutva, or 'Hinduness' is a nationalist ideology that asserts history, science, politics, economics and other subjects should be viewed from a Hindu perspective. Hindutva proponents say Islam and Christianity have divided India and caused its decline from its glorious past. With India facing Islamic separatists in Kashmir and aggressive proselytizing by evangelical Christians, the RSS believes their sovereignty and identity are under a renewed threat and Hindus should turn secular India into a Hindu state. Subash Chauhan, the Orissa state secretary of a group that runs hundreds of shishu mandirs, concedes the schools' goal is to 'make sure the Hindutva mood is created in Orissa.'"