The reality behind the self financing college issues in Kerala...

'Inter church council: The real threat to the society'-Dr Fasal Gafoor, in Kaumudy...Why the Inter church council has one justice when all others have another one...They should try to remove their shields (minority rights!!!) for the public interest!!!...Like ways he continues the arguments. It seems like he has taken some quotations to destroy the church and it's institutions. Media provide amble time and space for his mission. It seems like all channels had recruited him to throw the mud into the catholic institutions and our leaders. Any way let us come to the topic.

Catholic churches were the pioneers in the education sector of Kerala. It started these institutions to serve the church and the nation. These institutions were not started for business, as the media call our institutions now!!! It maintained social justice by admitting all people, without any discrimination. When the catholic managements entered the self financing professional field, the same was also applied.

These colleges are started by the churches, to help the faithful and other people. Money belongs to the faithful. According to 50:50, half of the seats are given to government where the students study in a lower cost. Other half is for management, where the seats are given to community merits. Here the fees will be double. That is, the students from the community (who spend money to start college) have to spend more money to sponsor government merit students.This is a double burden for the people of community. Supreme court had ruled out this cross subsidy. Hence in these colleges run by catholic managements, equal fees for all is adopted. But scholarships are provided for the poor students, by the colleges.

Those who goes to best schools and Coaching centers gets higher rank and gets admission in government merit. Those who have money can only do these. Then how you can say that it is the poor people who gets admission in 'Government merit'? So there is no point in teaching 50% of students in a reduced rate. Fees should be collected from the ones who are able to pay it. Also scholarships should be provided for those who can not pay this. The fund for this should be provided collectively by the government and the institutions. This is the stance of the Inter church council. This also involves the idea that the students in private colleges are also eligible for the money of the government. They are also tax payers. Hence they also have the right for that.

According to the council, the present fee structure is not reflecting the social justice. In all seats, a common fees should be implemented. Adequate scholarship should be given to eligible students (mark should not be the criteria for this. family conditions & economical backwardness should be the criteria). Other students should be encouraged to study by spending the money.

If money was the motive of the church, they would have stood with Dr Gafoor. But their aim, was the social justice. So they vowed for a common fee structure without any cross subsidy. Does this criteria of admitting all according to merit and collecting a common fee, a very big crime to the society? Or should we collect double fee from the owner's child to teach an other person? The supreme court had ruled out that this is the best method and even then the government and media need 50:50. Social justice is the obligation of the government. But there is no point in arguing that, it should be done at the cost of self financing colleges, where the government has not even an investment of 50 paise.

The fee structure should be able to provide the investment to run the institutions. If the government colleges fall into debt, government will compensate it. What if, it is a private college? Surely they would close down the institution. According to an old data, government spends more than 5 lakh per year, for a student in a government medical college. If this is the situation, how the private colleges can be run by collecting the so called 'government fees' implemented to protect the 'social justice'. If social justice is the motive of government, they should provide the fees for the students they send to the private colleges.

If we sing 'hosanna' to Mr Gafoor and stand besides him, saying that we are 'gafoor ka dosth', our institutions can also be a part of the government sponsored 'Professional business', but at the cost of our minority rights. Even then, from the managements point of view, this may be beneficial. But we can not go for it, since we have social and communal commitments. If we didn't come forward to protect the social justice and minority rights, who else should go for it?

If we agree to the 50:50 formula of the government and adopt 50% students at a lower fees, we will get license for the 'professional business', so that we can sell the rest 50% seats as we wish. Every one will be satisfied if we do like that!!! This is the 'social justice' according to the government, media and all others!!!

But we don't need any seats for business. Our colleges were started by investing the money of the faithful. So their children must be given the chance to study in our colleges at a fair fees. Instead of this, if we are forced to sell the seats again to the faithful, then for what we need these colleges? We don't need any profit out of this. But we just need money to run these colleges and improve the facilities.

Hence we adopt admission based on merit in all seats except NRI quota of 15%. We didn't go for any special entrance examinations. We prepare the rank list based on the qualifying exam(+2) marks and the Kerala entrance examination marks. In all these seats, we collect the common fees from the students. But also Scholarships are provided for the needy students. Is this a big crime to the society? Is this an insult or threat to the common men?

We are following the same criteria for the last four years and nobody had complaints. But when then ruling party moves into opposition, they have severe complaints!!! If the government need to consult the Opposition leader (Previous Chief minister) and the previous Education minister for all matters, then why we voted for the change of ministry? Remember that our stands are no based on any political parties. Even if its left or right, there will be no change in our stance. It is not fair to make us change the stance by threatening.

Here we see the hidden agendas to capture the minority rights in the name of social justice. Remember that we are a community that has no reservations any where in the country. The only thing we have is our minority rights. So if we did n't provide chance for our children to study in our colleges, then for what we need colleges? For this, we need the minority rights. Dr Gafoor, who vows us to remove the shield of minority rights in the name of social justice, enjoys the protection of both minority rights and reservations. Will he ask his community members to remove these shield to protect the social justice?

Think wise..understand the truth and support our leaders to protect our rights and to prevent the hidden agendas...

Go through this article to know the facts in depth...Please click here to read the linked article...

Here is what Inter church council is....

Inter church council for education is a common platform for all christian churches in kerala to discuss the problems related to education field and give a proper order to the sector. It is an ecumenical council started by Mar Joseph Powathil before a long period. It is not a council of christian professional colleges. Inter church council captured the headlines of media, when mar powathil took the driver's seat, to protect the church's rights and social justice, when the previous communist government introduced the self financing bill that had clauses to indirectly capture the minority rights.

From that time onwards, Mar Powathil and Inter church council, stood for protecting minority rights and social justice in the field of professional education. Under the guidence of the council, two separate fedarations were formed, each one for engg and medical colleges. All the colleges which are a part of these federations are run by individual trusts or dioceses. The inter church council has no part in managemental process of each colleges. Hence the council has no profit from these colleges. But the council took up the issue only to protect the minority rights and the social justice. But every one argues that the coucil is business oriented. But according to the above facts, There is no point in that argument.

Here is the article regarding the stance of Inter church council, regarding the self financial professional college issue..Please go through this, to understand the problems in depth...

Hope every one understands the facts now..

Why we need a patriarchate?

The Syro Malabar church, one among the 24 Individual Churches in Catholic Communion is the Chaldean* Catholic church of St. Thomas Christians in India. With the lamp of faith handed over by the apostle Mar Thoma Sleeha in the very first century, the church is about to complete her 1970 years of long journey. With the ever-shining lamp of faith, she continues her journey. Even in the midst of thunder storms and tsunamis that struck the church in Kerala, she didn't let the lamp to die. She didn't let anyone to blew off the lamp. Instead she tried to preserve the lamp for the generations and glorified it by pouring more and more oil! But what did she gain from that?

The Syro Malabar Church is the third largest Church in Catholic Communion, behind the Latin church and the Ukranian church, with more than 40 lakh of faithful, spread across the globe. Sadly, both the Ukranian Church and the Syro Malabar church are not given patriarchal status.

Regarding the union with the Catholic Community and allegiance to the Pope, the Syro Malabar church was tightly bound to the Catholic Communion, ever since her birth. She is one among the three churches who hadn’t ever break up the links with the Catholic Communion. The other two Churches are the Maronite Church and the Italo-Albanian Church. Among these, the Syro Malabar church is the prominent one with about 10 lakh more faithful than the Maronite church. But Maronite church is Patriarchal, whereas the Syro Malabar remains as the Major Archi Episcopal church!

Out of the 23 Oriental Churches, 6 are Patriarchate Churches. These are the Coptic, Maronite, Syrian, Armanian, Chaldean and the Melkite churches. Except the Maronite church, all others had broken the catholic faith and had moved away from the Bishop of Rome. They moved out of the Catholic Communion, installed their own Patriarchates and when they returned to the Catholic Church, Rome allowed them to continue their Patriarchates!

Regarding the number of faithful, none of these stands with the Syro Malabar Church. The Armanian church has about 6 lakh faithful, Chaldean Church has about 5 lakh faithful, Coptic Church has about 1.75 lakh faithful, Syrian Church has about 1.6 lakh faithful, Melkite Church has about 16 lakh faithful and the Maronite church has about 32.5 lakh faithful. All these Churches have the Patriarchal status. Yet our Syro Malabar church with over 40 lakh faithful, and which is in full communion with the successor of St. Peter ever since her birth has no patriarchal status!

Where did she fail? Did the pain she took to protect the lamp of faith that Mar Thoma sleeha handed over to her cause this? Why did she stand with the lamp, even when her children were scattered into different groups, to protect their faith, believes and traditions? What would have happened if the Marthoma Nazranis stood in union against the missionaries, proclaimed their identity and jurisdiction over the Church of India, installed a Patriarchate and later came back into the Catholic Communion? Of course, we might have got a patriarchate in Angamaly! Our Patriarch would have been the “Father and Gate of whole India and it's premises”. Our church would have been the second largest Church in the Catholic Communion after Latin church. We would not have been waiting for the mercy of Vatican and the local Latin bishops to establish new Diocese or even to give the necessary pastoral care to the migrants!

But we considered the obligation as our priority and stood with the Pope, even in the midst of all crises. We had to give much for that. That is our history! We had been split up into different groups. Our Patriarch or the Archbishop of Angamaly who had the jurisdiction over the whole India and it's premises was devalued as a suffragan of the newly erected Latin Archdiocese of Goa. From the whole India and it's premises, we shrinked into the area bounded by the 'Pampa' and 'Bharathapuzha' rivers. We lost all our identity and Sacred Liturgy partially or completely.

But the biggest lose was due to their brain washing. Because of which, our own leaders asked the Pope to translate the Latin Liturgy into Syriac for their use. They struggled hard to continue the Latin practices, even after obtaining the freedom! They also opposed the minority of leaders who were firm on returning to our ancient traditions! In a sense we were again captured in a prison of our own minds- because of the severe brain washing! We had our great fighters, but they were the minority and even though the Popes and the Vatican Congregations were with them, they were unable to do much more owing to the threat of another split. This might had prompted the Vatican for not giving the Patriarchal status in the course of time. Again we failed here for another time. We cannot blame the missionaries completely for this, we had the time to learn and correct, we had our leaders. Yet for some one's selfishness we had to suppress our identity. As a result, our 1970 years old Church, which is the third largest Particular Church in Catholic Communion, has to continue as a Major Archi Episcopal church.

This should be changed. We should realise the present and think for the future. All must realise the need of restoring our identity and our holy traditions. Then surely the Rome can not neglect us. Now we have a very energetic and efficient Major archbishop, who knows and loves our great traditions. He is very keen on restoring the identity of the church and uses each and every chance to proclaim our great traditions to the global audience. Let us stand with him in union and strengthen his hands. Let us pray for the good days when the Patriarch of Angamaly rule over a united and energetic Chaldean Catholic church of St. Thomas Christians in India.  

Let the grace of our lord Ieso Mishiha, Love of our heavenly father and the blessings of Ruha d’ kudisha be with us for ever and ever..

Remembering our Mar Thoma Sleeha, on this Dukrana of 2011.

*Chaldean: This simply means East Syriac, the developed form of Aramaic, the language spoken by our lord Ieso Mishiha. Catholic faith was given to the Marthoma Nazranis (St. Thomas Christians in India) by the Apostle St Thomas, in the very same language spoken by Ieso Mishiha. It served as the liturgical language for many centuries, until the celebration of liturgy was made in the local languages, after the Vatican II council.