Diversity and religious freedom have been the hallmark of India but there have threats to it and recently they have been coming rather strongly. As the intolerance debate consumes the nation, it is pertinent to note that not too long ago there was, in the province of Quebec, Canada an attempt to get public schools teach a particular curriculum. That was when Loyola School, run by the Jesuits, stood up and fought the government, taking the case all the way to the Canadian Supreme Court. After a long battle, Loyola school won the case and among the many lawyers that fighting on the school’s side was one Milton James Fernandes QC.
“I was representing the Archdiocese of Montreal. The Archbishop sits as a one person, a member of a corporation and the only purpose of it is to organize the faith,” said Fernandes, of Goan origin, from St Cruz and recently on a holiday in Goa.
He explains the case, “Quebec a few years ago created a curriculum that had to be taught across all public schools and private schools and this led to a very difficult situation for certain people to deal with. I was associated with Loyola High School and they were asked to teach this curriculum to teach all religions to which they had no objection. They were doing it for 25 years, but they maintained that their objective was their Catholic formation. When they asked the government to recognize that the government didn’t.”
What happened was that in September 2008, as part of the mandatory core curriculum in Quebec schools, the Minister of Education, Recreation and Sports proposed a programme on Ethics and Religious Culture (ERC), which required schools to teach about the beliefs and ethics of different world religions from a neutral and objective perspective.
Loyola, being a Catholic school, wrote to the Minister requesting an exemption from the programme, proposing an alternative course to be taught from the perspective of Catholic beliefs and ethics. The Minister denied the request.
Loyola then applied for a judicial review of the minister’s decision. The Superior Court found that the Minister’s refusal of an exemption infringed Loyola’s right to religious freedom and quashed the Minister’s decision, and ordered an exemption. The government went on appeal and the Quebec Court of Appeal concluded that the Minister’s decision was reasonable and did not result in any breach of religious freedom.
The matter then went to the Supreme Court where Loyola modified its request to teach the whole programme from a Catholic perspective, and was now prepared to teach about the doctrines and practices of other world religions neutrally. But it still sought to teach about the ethics of other religions from a Catholic perspective. The Minister’s position remained the same – no part of the programme could be taught from a Catholic perspective, including Catholic doctrine and ethics.
The Canadian Supreme Court held that, “The Minister’s decision requiring that all aspects of Loyola’s proposed program be taught from a neutral perspective, including the teaching of Catholicism, limited freedom of religion more than was necessary given the statutory objectives. As a result, it did not reflect a proportionate balancing and should be set aside. The appeal is allowed and the matter remitted to the Minister for reconsideration.”
Fernandes in Goa for a holiday, said, “When I spoke to someone about what I was doing, they spoke about Goa and India and protecting religious minorities and how India has a very diverse history. The diversity here has led to a lot of growth and democracy.”
He pointed out that though Canada also has a diverse population, India, has had it for far longer than Canada.
In his discussions with Herald, Fernades referred to the 42nd Amendment to the Indian Constitution that made India a sovereign socialist, secular, democratic republic and how being secular makes a State respect all religions.
Interestingly, in that judgement the Canadian Supreme Court stated, “A vibrant, multicultural democracy depends on the capacity of its citizens to engage in thoughtful and inclusive forms of deliberation. But a secular state does not — and cannot — interfere with the beliefs or practices of a religious group unless they conflict with or harm overriding public interests. Nor can a secular state support or prefer the practices of one group over another. The pursuit of secular values means respecting the right to hold and manifest different religious beliefs. A secular state respects religious differences, it does not seek to extinguish them.”
The 42nd amendment added the word ‘secular’ to the preamble of the Indian Constitution, and though this is the Canadian Supreme Court speaking, when it states that a ‘secular state respects religious differences’ it is probably speaking for every Supreme Court in the world.
