On Wednesday representatives of the Diocesan Society of Education, the Church body that manages the Catholic schools in the State, met with Catholic MLAs of all political parties and clearly told them that they were unhappy with the manner in which the government was responding to matters concerning the Church’s educational bodies, specifically that applications from Diocesan educational institutions for setting up higher secondary schools were being delayed. There is also the issue of the medium of instruction (MoI) at the primary level that still hangs fire. The Manohar Parrikar government’s decision to release grants to minority institutions whose MoI is English remains to be translated into action. Diocesan schools are apparently not receiving grants yet. Parrikar, when he took this decision had perhaps no other choice as he had to appease the Catholic community that he had successfully wooed in the run-up to the 2012 Assembly elections, but his successor, if one goes by the current situation, seems to feel differently.
As the MLAs emerged from the meeting, and though they remained tightlipped about what had transpired behind the closed doors, it was obvious that they had been given a task to fulfill. A task they had planned to undertake the very next day but that didn’t happen as the Chief Minister was busy in his constituency and the meeting between the Chief Minister and the Catholic MLAs had to be postponed by a day. It is precisely postponements like this one, which have been keeping crucial decisions from being taken, that the Church in Goa is unhappy about.
There is one particular statement from one of the MLAs who attended the meeting on Wednesday that puts the current situation into perspective. The MLA said, “The freedom and affection they received from then Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar is now missing.” The ‘they’ that the MLA is talking about is the Church in Goa and that includes the Catholics who form the largest minority in the State.
This is something that this paper had foreseen and warned about. On the day it was announced that Parrikar would resign his position in Goa and go to Delhi, Herald in this column had said that the then chief minister’s departure could lead to many of the BJP’s ‘supporters from the minority community to rethink their support as not many would be comfortable dealing with somebody other than Parrikar’. This has apparently happened, and the MLA’s statement reprinted above bears this out. What is of concern is that it has taken just a few months for the relationship to reach this point.
For a party that strove to win over the minorities to its side before the 2012 Legislative Assembly elections, the BJP appears to have now decided that its attitude towards the minorities can be ambivalent. Politics may work that way, meaning the party can think so, but government and administration cannot. Any government needs to take the entire State with it. The government needs to be responsive to all communities. It has to understand that it has been elected to treat all people – whatever their faith or beliefs – equally. If the largest minority group in Goa feels that it is being discriminated against, then this is a matter of concern. In the instant case, not only does the minority community feel it, the situation appears to have reached a point where the religious leadership of the community has decided to act upon it.
In the past and even in current times the Church has taken up social issues and opposed many of the government’s policies and projects. This time it is not opposing any of the government’s plans. It is asking that it be allowed to take forwards its plans in the field of education. The Church in Goa runs the highest number of educational institutes in the State, many of them highly rated. Surely a few more such institutions will raise the standard of education in the State. Or does the government feel otherwise?
If the Church in Goa has indeed been sidelined, then it is time for the government to get its act together to prove that it is above sectarian and communal considerations. And there is one person who can get the Church in Goa smiling again, he is the Chief Minister. All he has to do is act on the issues that the Church has raised.
