NEW DELHI: Concerned at the government's attempts to saffronise the education system and disregard the views of Christian community-run educational institutions while forming its new education policy, Christian MPs belonging to eight parties met here on Thursday with Cardinal Baselios Cleemis presiding over it.
It was decided at the meeting that the MPs jointly, and representatives of all Christian institutions - schools, colleges, medical colleges, engineering colleges and technical education colleges -- will write to HRD minister Smriti Irani to say that they should be consulted for the new policy that the government is planning. There are over 35,000 Christian-run institutions in the country.
Apart from the participating MPs, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalitha also lent their support to the group.
This the second meeting of Christian MPs and community leaders after March this year, when they had voiced their concern about attacks on churches at various places in the country including in Delhi. It was then decided that the MPs would meet during sessions, to take up specific issues, as they felt that the minority community was being targeted in many places and their voices were being ignored. At Thursday's meeting it was decided that as representatives of their community, the Christian leaders from various fields would act in a positive manner, try to add to policy making and prevent negative situations from arising rather than just react to incidents or situations like the attacks on churches etc.
In case of the new education policy that the government is working on, the MPs who met on Thursday will communicate their inputs to the HRD minister before the monsoon session gets over on August 13, which will be followed up by communications from the educational institutions from across the country.
At the meeting it was discussed that the secular fabric of India has been an integral part of the education system and now that it is under stress, "we(Christian MPs) want that the new policy should not tamper with it," according to sources present at the meeting.
The RSS' suggestion that definition of minority institutions be changed to refer to those with 51% minority students or its affiliate VHP saying India will be a Hindu nation by 2020, were also issues that came up for discussion.
Among those who attended Thursday's meeting were Rajya Sabha deputy chairman P J Kurien, Oscar Fernandes and three others from Congress, Rabi Barnard and two others from AIADMK, Derek O'Brien from Trinamool Congress, Dilip Tirkey of BJD, Jose K Mani of Kerala Congress (M), P A Sangma (National People's Party) and former Nagaland CM Neiphiu Rio of the Nagaland People's Front among others.
"This is a great initiative and I am happy that we focussed on this one subject," O'Brien said, when asked about the meeting. The next meeting is scheduled for the first week of August.
