Our Book, Their Book

• LDf swept polls in ’06 taking along with them strong minority support.
  
• Christians make up 19% of the population and have the most stake in the state’s education sector.
  
• The former Congress government opened up the private professional education sector. Now benefactors are being accused by the CPI(M) of reneging on merit quota seats.
  
• The LDF brings in a well-intentioned piece of legislation to ensure social equity. But it’s shot down by HC.
  
• The Church sees it as an attack on the community. Has decided to take the battle to the streets, parishes.

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The Church’s main grouse is what they see as government meddling in minority institutions, a big sector in Kerala, and hence something directly undermining its economic independence. Influential Archbishop Soosaipakiam says there is a belief that the Left is promoting atheism and "spawning the seeds of sexual anarchy among the young". The battle has become particularly heated in the last two months. The Christian clergy has issued several rounds of pastoral letters during Mass on Sundays, asking the flock to beware of the commies. Under the circumstances, there will be no need for the customary pre-poll sermon about who to favour in the event of a mid-term poll. Moreover, the anti-US stand of the Left may please Muslims, but cuts no ice with the Christian community.

So no surprises why the Congress is all smiles. Opposition leader Oommen Chandy quips: "The people will give the Left a lesson that it will never forget for having messed up the education sector and antagonised Christians to such an extent in such a short time."

The face-off started soon after Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan assumed office on May 18, ’06, riding a popularity wave that returned 100 legislators in the 140-member House. He had asked education minister M.A. Baby to stem the rot in higher education by reining in managements that had benefited by the unbridled opening up of the sector by former Congress CM A.K. Antony.

That had started with good intentions though. Antony’s government had estimated that Kerala saw an ‘outgo’ of Rs 3,000 crore annually owing to the absence of professional course facilities in the state. He also trusted the managements to leave sufficient seats for merit candidates in the open quota, a 50-50 seat sharing formula between the government and managements. But when Antony left office in 2005, private managements of the self-financing professional colleges started running things the way they wanted. Moran Mar Baselios, metropolitan of the Malankara Catholic Church, denies there was any understanding and says even if there had been, the Constitution allows minorities the right to run institutions independently.

So, to bring the institutions in line, the Left began blocking their applications. The chaos began when Baby introduced a well-intentioned but ill-equipped legislation to ensure a level of social equity in the admission process of minority institutions. But the law was struck down by the HC, leading to complete confusion. The scene today is dismal. Admissions to private professional colleges have been delayed. Many candidates have joined institutions outside the state. Of the total 24,822 engineering seats spread over 88 colleges, the private sector runs 49 colleges. Of these, only 10 colleges under Christian managements have started classes this year while the rest, under the aegis of the Kerala Private Self-Financing College Management Association, are awaiting a decision by the government-appointed Justice P.A. Mohammed Committee.

Since Christian institutions have always had the lead in education here, the state of affairs hurts them the most. The Left is acting in the name of social equity but Christians see it as an intrusion on their rights. Archbishop Soosaipakiam puts it bluntly: "The main problem before us is the waywardness of the government, ignoring the Constitution and the court orders. The government strategy is to widen the rift between the majority and minority communities by inflaming communal sentiments. We have filed 65 cases to protect our rights after this government came to power. And we have won all of them."

Strong words that are met with an equally vehement retort from CPI(M) state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan: "Some of the revered leaders of the Church are being pawns in the hands of political parties. They should desist from doing this." The Left also accuses the pro-Church institutions of sounding sanctimonious but profiteering under the pretext of protecting minority rights.

But the latest row between the Church and Left has also to do with faith than just the dispute over the running of the higher education sector. The sex education fiasco is a case in point. Baby has now asked the education department to suspend the adolescence education instruction kit—but adds that it was the previous Congress-led Government that had started the programme.

Some analysts feel things came to such a head because both the church and the Left are deeply entrenched institutions. The CPI(M) has some 26,000 branch committees in Kerala. But there is an equally strong network of well-knit grassroots parish committees across the state. The Church is not a force to be trifled with in Kerala. The huge turnout at the ‘minority protection rally’ in Kottayam, central Kerala, on August 12 is testament to its organisational abilities.

The CPI(M)’s Pinarayi, at once belligerent and mollifying, tries to downplay the crisis and insists there has been no erosion in Christian support. But not a day passes in Kerala now without the bishops and Left leaders locking horns, either through direct verbal duels, articles or innuendo in the media.

Angry with the Left, the clergy has again fallen back on the Congress as the saviour of minorities. The Marxists, they say, will throttle Christian institutions. It’s an impasse that seems a throwback to the ’50s. Some commentators are already comparing it to the Left-Church fight half a century ago when parishes set up what were called ‘Christopher brigades’ to protect institutions from Communist attacks. But what 50 years has done to the Church and the CPI(M), both bound by an almost stereotype religious rigour, is cadre attrition. Now the cadre may not respond to a bugle call for a skirmish as they would have then.