BJP leader and lawyer Ashvini Kumar Upadjai recently postponed a public interest lawsuit (PIL) seeking guidance from the Center and the Delhi government to make “Yoga Health and Science” a mandatory part of the curriculum for 8th grade for children’s general development. The applicant argued that the right to health (Article 21) and the right to education (Article 21A) were complementary and complementary. Thus, the duty of the state to make “the science of health and yoga” a compulsory part of the curriculum up to 8th grade in the spirit of S.29 of the 2009 RTE Act.
In their petition, they argued that the right to health guaranteed by Article 21 includes prevention, protection and improvement of health and is a minimum requirement for children to be able to live with dignity. Thus, the state has not only a constitutional obligation to provide children with “health and yoga education”, but also to ensure the creation and maintenance of conditions conducive to good health, said Upadjai in PIL.
The petition also states that it should be noted that a panel of three judges of the California Court of Appeals considered yoga a secular activity, and the Supreme Court also expressed a similar opinion in three cases. “Therefore, it is the duty of the state to provide standard textbooks on health and yoga for students in grades 1-8 in the spirit of Articles 21, 21A, 39, 47,” it added.
The petitioner argued that due to the existence of the RTE Act, the study of the science of health and yoga has become a right of children aged 6-14, and even after it has been enacted, it remains on paper and is the most neglected subject.
Grades for the health and science of yoga are not on display at the annual exam, and even school teachers Kendria Vidyalaya and Navodaya say it is not a required subject, he said. They also stressed that NCERT has not yet published standard textbooks on ‘Health & Yoga Science’ for students in grades 1-8.
Thus, without a curriculum, standard textbooks, trained teachers and assessment marks, there was a complete failure in the transfer of education in health and yoga in the spirit of NCF 2005.
There is a complete dichotomy between the actual practice of yoga and the ideal, the Prime Minister said in his speech to the UN General Assembly, the PIL said.
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