Should Religion Govern Christian Institutions?
Really and truly. This is the debate in India.
The catalyst? The Catholic Church in Delhi wants to reserve 40% of the spaces at St. Stephen's College for Christian students.
The result: this debate on the Indian version of CNN. Fascinating and distressing all at the same time. But it gives a vivid sense of the issues faced by Christians in very different cultural circumstances around the world.
"As the debate still rages over the 40 per cent quota for Christians in St Stephen's College, the Delhi diocese says all the city’s schools and colleges that it runs should hire Christian teachers.
With the backdrop of fears that such proposals will lead to conversions, the question discussed on the show Face The Nation with Sagarika Ghose was: Should Christian institutions be governed by their religion?
On the panel to debate the issue was senior journalist Swapan Dasgupta, along with St Stephen’s College Principal Valson Thampu and Vice-Chairperson of State Minorities Commission and President of Indian Christian Voice Abraham Mathai.
The decision to reserve 40 per cent quota for Christians and Dalit Christians in St Stephen’s College has met with criticism across the board. Does it mean sacrificing excellence that has been built over years?
“The very sequence of news events today tells it’s own story. It shows the tremendous role Christian education plays. I welcome this tribute. But coming to Christianisation of St Stephen’s, what’s wrong with it? People want to study there but they do not want the Christian part of it. That’s hypocritical,” said Valson Thampu.
Christianisation concerns
Regarding the quota debate in St Stephen’s, a senior historian was quoted as saying, “You are actually consigning St Stephen’s College to a graveyard because you are the kind of Christian who is the kind of Hindu that Narendra Modi is.”
“It’s a great pity that such a historian cannot recognise the distinction between christianisation and saffronisation. It’s a great tragedy that many people in the country are better informed than the Supreme Court. They must read the TMA Pai Foundation vs State of Karnataka verdict, which obligates me to admit at least 50 per cent from the Christian community. The SC has taken the view that minorities are allowed to establish institutions mainly to meet the educational needs of the community. If you deny the aspirations of your community, the only motive for doing that would be corruption,” said Thampu.
Turning to Swapan Dasgupta, a Stephanian, Sagarika Ghose asked him whether he was opposed to the christianisation of St Stephen’s?
“It really depends on what you mean by a Christian institution. The College was always a Christian institution in the sense that it spread the wider ethos of Christianity. Now if it’s made a completely denominational institution, it would hit at the very purpose at what the founders has in mind. The institution was meant to be a facilitator of a happy amalgam between the east and the west. Thampu is making the College a church institution,” he said.
Was the Christian ecumenism being defeated by Christian evangelism? Are the traditions, which the institutions were built, getting lost in the search of power, glory and money.
“The church in India has taken the responsibility of starting educational institutions in the country and none of them can be proved to have indulged in conversions. We have a right to govern our institutions, which is guaranteed in the Constitution itself. So what’s wrong with that?” said Abraham Mathai.
posted by Sherry W @ 8:49 AM
2 Comments
2 Comments:
It is important to remember that the issue is not about admission of Christian students but of creating another category of quota called "Dalit Christians" There is a case in the Supreme Court whther or not such a category can be a reservation category. The matter is still to be decided. St Stephen's should have waited for the decision. Not doing so just goes to show the kind of respect this College and by implication the Church has for the highest court of law in India.
Moreover, let us not forget that there is no viable way for certifying who is a Dalit Christian and who is a non-Dalit Charistian. If one looks at this closely one can realise that this new quota is merely a quota for bishops who will have the power to give dalit certifications. Thus it a programme for back door entry.
Let us also not forget that though the church is expected to give 5% of expenditure and 95 % comes from the government, actually the church gives nothing at all. If we are so keen to assert our rights should we not first fiulfill our obligations?
Moreover this move will have serious repurcussions on the Christians themselves. So far in Christian colleges, as per law, minority seats are meant for ALL christians regardless of whether they are Catholics or Protestants or Baptists. Now, the door has been opened for a Catholic Christian College from having seats for Catholic only and keep protestants out and vice versa.
Moving away from all the ranting and the raving and the chest thumping and patting on the back, here is a serious piece on Quotas in College. Mekes a lot of sense. This is found on the blog "Jacob's Random Thoughts"
Jacob's Random Thoughts
Random jottings on life and work in Gurgaon.
Sunday, July 08, 2007
The Martyrdom of Reason
The last post of mine on the quota issue at St. Stephen's College was a bit of a rant. I'll attempt to be more structured here (though, don't hold me to it - it's a pretty emotional issue for me).
First off, let me make the disclaimer that this is not going to delve into the rights and wrongs of reservation in general (for the record - I am staunchly against reservation in any form, for anyone, particularly upwards from the college level). This post is about the recent move by St. Stephen's College to establish a quota for Christians.
Prologue complete, let's place the facts on the table:
1. A full 30% of the seats available at the time of admission have been put aside for non-Dalit Christians.
2. 10% of the seats available have been put aside for Christians deemed by their local bishops to be categorizable as 'Dalit Christians', presumably implying the category to consist of converts from the Hindu faith that were categorizable as Dalits prior to conversion.
3. 15% put aside for SC/ST applicants and 5% for Sports category applicants.
4. Should the quota for 'Dalit Christians' have seats vacant, they will be filled with Christian applicants only.
5. A full 40% of the admitted students should be from the Christian community, at any cost.
6. To fill up the quotas, cutoffs for various courses have been lowered by as much as 25% for Christian applicants, and (though I can't seem to recollect the source for this) there is a blanket 60% cutoff for 'Dalit Christian' applicants.
7. Faculty, students and alumni have not been taken into confidence before going ahead with the move.
8. The new principal is a ...
Well, rather than name-calling, I will attempt to treat the matter with some dignity (more dignity, at least, than that seen in other ego clashes involving the new principal).
Let's take a closer look at the facts.
Point 1. refers to non - Dalit Christians. While not exhaustive, the list would include Kerala's Syrian Christians, and the Konkani/Portuguese-converted Christians that live in the stretch from Mumbai to Mangalore. If you know these communities well enough, you would drop your jaw in amazement at the thought that they would be eligible for any sort of quota in the first place. These communities have produced their fair share of educationists, enterpreneurs, politicians and career-people. If anything, they would be better off than the average Joe (or Jagdish). The per-capita income of these communities are high, and general education levels are similarly high. How do you justify taking these people in on a quota, whose ostensible purpose is to 'right the historical wrongs'? Even if you were to buy the argument that the interests of the Christian community should come first in a Christian college (why the favouritism?) it isn't as though there's a dearth of Christian colleges...there are enough of them lower down the academic value chain for the quota students' merit to be on par with that of the rest of the students. So far, Christian applicants have been availing a 15% relaxation in cutoffs. While this is patently unfair, it was tolerable since there was an interview process that weeded out the really hopeless cases and there was no evangelical zeal to fill up any quota with Christian students. This actually ensured that a large chunk of the Christians admitted actually had the marks to get through without the 15% relaxation. Now, however, College is going to be flooded with Johns and Jacobs and Matthews, many of whom would never have made it to College otherwise.
This brings us to point 2. - the 'Dalit Christians'. I do understand that just by converting one's religion one doesn't rise out of the many millennia of oppression that one's ancestors have had to encounter. So, insofar as a quota for this group is concerned, I do feel that they have as much a claim to it as the sarkari-certified Dalits. But, let me reiterate, I do not believe that Dalits have any claim on a quota in higer education and sarkari jobs in the first place. Also, by creating a separate quota for Dalit Christians, College has exhibited a gob smacking amount of hypocrisy - shouldn't 'Dalit Muslims' be given a similar quota, by the same token? If you're flying the banner of 'social justice' in a secular pluralistic nation, it has to be an inclusive sort of social justice,doesn't it? The Christian Dalit convert quota seems to be an advertisement for conversion to Christianity - come join us and get hooked on to a lifetime of benefits! I'm not saying that everything's fine for this group...it's just that at the college level it's already too late to bring up such people to the levels that you'd expect from students at a top-rate institution. For the record, again, I would like to state that I am against any notion of exclusionism/exclusivity that comes from birth or adherence to a faith or belonging to a country club. Point 2. also raises the question of the veracity of claims of Dalitness. Right now, the bishop in my diocese back home has never paid a visit to my home - how would he be in any position to determine whether or not I come from a Dalit background? I see this as nothing more than a window for corruption and nepotism to sneak into the admission process. There's a time and a place for everything...if the church wants to uplift the 'Dalit Christians' it should do so while they're in school. Provide them with educational grants or something...give them the tools to rise on their own.
Point 3. about SCs and STs...let's not get into that. Probably the only remotely justifiable quota would be the sports quota, and that too only because students who come in have excelled (I use the term very loosely here) in something.
Point 4. is quite disturbing. When you consider that this time round there were only 6 'Dalit Christian' applicants, you get to see the broader picture. There are 33-34 seats from this quota that were filled by non-Dalit Christians. That such a situation would arise is something of a foregone conclusion. I wonder if this was playing at the back of the principal's mind when he made his decision.
Points 5. and 6. complete this tragic tale. From one angle, you could consider all the quotas you want, as long as the same minimum criteria are being met by all admitted. In the IITs most of the SC/ST quota goes unused because of the fact that most students that apply through this quota don't make it through the preparatory course, a one year primer intended to bring them up to speed. The IITs wouldn't dream of letting in students who didn't have it in them to come out of the IIT system with a passing grade. Why should it be any different for St. Stephen's? In the current school education scenario, where marks are being dished out with such alarming generosity, that they are no longer a differentiating factor at the upper end of the scale, a person who's managed only a 60% has really not learnt anything of significance in school. To take such a person and put him in a class with 95% scorers seems pretty much like a Roman-era gladiatorial event - feeding the Christians to the lions, if you like. What you will end up with are a bunch of basket-cases, depressed about faring badly compared to their peers. I speak from personal experience about this...I have had friends in College who would cry about how badly they were doing academically...they were determined and enthusiastic, but just didn't have the brains to rise out of the academic morass. It's cruel to put someone like that together with a student that has always been an exceptional performer, and expect them to do equally well...you call extraordinary pressure to bear down on the academically challenged student. Of course, there was another set of Christian students that just used to give up very early on after seeing the writing on the wall...they had already experienced the greatest achievement of their lives (getting into College) and were quite content with drinking and doping and doing nothing else for the 3 years that they were in college. But that's another story.
Finally, point 7. shows that the new principal is an egostical monster, capable of doing what he pleases irrespective of how others perceive it. A certain Adolf with a small moustache comes to mind at this point. Really, if the new principal wants to do something like this, why the tearing hurry? He could have at least had the decency to put it out before all stakeholders in College, given them time to consider it (more than just a few hours, that is) and invited a debate on the issue, allowing for the airing of all points of view before making an informed, enlightened, democratic decision. As far as I know, barring the usual Wilson-baiters and a couple of others, the faculty are not very happy about this move. All the Stephanians that I've interacted with have expressed their utter disgust with the move, and the cloak-and-dagger manner in which the move was executed. I'm sure there are Stephanians that support the move (after all...there have been Christians availing the 15% marks relaxation earlier, though not necessarily in the form of a quota). It's just that I can't say I've seen any.
The new principal asks "What is merit?". Besides having the answer in your average dictionary, a little reflection on the subject would at least throw up a few facets of merit, at least the notions of excellence in some field, or the notion of superior raw material, or the notion of superlative skills and achievements. Really, I think I'm beginning to understand why they turned him away when he applied to College for his Bachelor's degree. The big issue is with the level of merit. I have always felt that St. Stephen's saw itself as a meritocracy. You reward the best and the brightest with admission, and provide them with every facility to nurture their talents. By turning away a meritorious student in favour of a less meritorious Christian, who has probably had superlative schooling throughout, College is being hypocritical to the hilt. It is sending out the wrong message entirely - mediocrity is fine as long as you've got Jesus. Now, with the meritorious being in a minority, College is creating some very bad PR for itself. This will do nothing except dissuade the meritorious from applying. So, all that will be left will be a college full of mediocre people. What good is that? My personal opinion is that things have worked well so far because the 'Jesus quota types' were in a small minority. For the most part, one could ignore the indifferent among them and get on with life. The eager amongst them would be able to immerse themselves in the relatively loftier statures of the rest, rising in the process. Now, you're going to have the mediocre encouraging the mediocre to be mediocre. Bravo! We've killed the goose that laid golden eggs.
As I said earlier, there is no dearth of liberal arts colleges in this country. St. Stephen's College would not be adding any value to the community, or to the nation, if it was to be just another teaching shop. It adds value by creating the leaders of tomorrow. Christians are not an educationally disadvantaged group, and don't need another institution to provide them with basic schooling...they have institutions like his old college, Bishop Moore College in Mavelikkara, for that. If anything, they need an institution to be their standard bearer, showing the nation that they are fully committed to the Christian value of service. They need something to be proud of, not something that people will snigger at for all time to come.
Rev. Thampu is not the local village priest. He shouldn't be concerned with the issues of the local parish. He is the head of a distinguished institution, one that has been serving the nation for a hundred and twenty five years, providing it with generation after generation of leaders in all fields (except engineering and medicine, of course). It's time he remembered that and started acting the part.
posted by Jacob @ Sunday, July 08, 2007
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Jacob
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Gurgaon, Haryana, IN
A curious turn of events has found me in Gurgaon, where I'm struggling to prevent my love for life from dying an untimely death.
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