It’s church VS govt in Kerala

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Drumming up popular support in its fight against the VS Achuthanandan-led LDF government, churches in Kerala on Sunday read out a pastoral letter exhorting believers to protest against the new higher education act. The letter, jointly issued by heads of all rites, condemned the law as “unconstitutional, anti-democratic and anti-minority”.

Church leaders observed Sunday as a day of prayer and fast to protest the Kerala Professional Colleges (Prohibition of Capitation fee, Regulation of Admission, Fixation of Non-exploitative Fee and Other Measures to Ensure Equity and Excellence in Professional Education) Bill 2006. Protest meetings were organised in several places.

“The new law excludes Christians, who form only 19% of the population of Kerala, from the definition of minorities… We will have to run our institutions like government institutions. This move on self-financing colleges will spread to other colleges and even schools tomorrow. Christian believers have to come out against the act,” the letter says.

The letter, signed by Syro-Malankara Church head Cyril Mar Baselius on behalf of all bishops, said Christian managements would go ahead with legal action to fight the act.
It even accused the government of distancing communities from each other. “The campaign that Christians have more colleges is intended to create a negative feeling in other communities,” the letter says. A meeting of Kerala Catholic Bishop’s Council in Kochi had earlier said the Christian educational managements are planning to move court against the law. The Church will also join hands with other minority communities including Muslims to fight the new Act. The Churches also plan to form grass-roots committees of laity to fight the act. Inter-Church Education Council will coordinate the committees.

The controversial act empowers the state government to decide on the minority status of a community on the basis of its total population, the number of colleges run by it and the proportion of students belonging to it vis-à-vis their counterparts from non-minority communities. College managements have approached the High Court against provisions in the bill. An order is expected this week.

Meanwhile, not all of the laity is toeing the line. Kerala Latin Catholic Association (KLCA) has hailed the act as pro-poor. The bill reserves half the seats in minority educational institutions to students who belong to the community. Of this, half goes to economically and educationally backward students, to be decided on a merit-cum-means basis. The rest would be decided on merit.

Despite a pastoral letter read out in all churches under the Varappuzha archdiocese last Sunday, 188 of the 295 delegates from various parishes participated in a meet and elected a fresh set of office-bearers for KLCA. The bishop’s diktat said that until the KLCA amended its rules and the bishops vetted it, it would be banned from state-level operations.

The church hierarchy accuses the association of siding with Left Democratic Front in the recent assembly elections. KLCA, however refuted the charge. “It was the bishops, not KLCA, who took a pro-Left stand. The bishops had said they have lost faith in UDF on several occasions,” said Felix J Pulloodan, the outgoing president of KLCA.

In a press note, the association accused the church of bribery. It said the association has resolved to organise people’s resistance against “the Church authorities taking bribes to make appointments in educational institutions run by it”. It claimed the laity had the right to defend Christian principles if the clergy deviated from it.