KERALA: LOSING THEIR RELIGION
State education minister C. Raveendranath has got himself into a pickle with his statement in the Kerala assembly that 123,630 students enrolled in government and ‘aided’ schools had chosen not to mention their religion or caste. Predictably, the numbers stirred up a raging controversy with several schools in the minister’s list challenging his figures. Among these were some 3,030 students from the Muslim-dominated Kasargod district, with 427 from the N.A. Model Higher Secondary School. School chairman N.A. Abubaker is incensed, saying all 783 students enrolled for the current (2017-18) academic session filled out all the columns on the admission form, including on religion and caste. Insisting that all five Kasargod schools on Raveendranath’s list were wrongly included, Abubaker wants an inquiry into how the government released this “fake data”.
Even the education department division that compiles data on annual student enrolments has contradicted the minister. K. Anwar Sadath, director of the IT@School division of the department, stated in a Facebook post on March 31 that only “1,750 students preferred not to mention their religion [or caste], 748 marked ‘no religion’, and 486 stated ‘not applicable’”. He, however, deleted the post soon after the controversy erupted, and has since not been available for comment. Meanwhile, Congress legislator K.C. Joseph has moved a privilege motion (on March 29) against the education minister for ‘misleading the house’. Soon, the brief celebration on social media about ‘Kerala’s casteless new generation’ turned into massive expressions of indignation. The education minister, however, continues to insist that his assembly statement was based on student information uploaded by school authorities. “I’ve no reason to fake the data,” he says.
Former Left-backed Lok Sabha MP from Ernakulam, Sebastian Paul, believes it’s a needless controversy. Despite the small numbers, it’s an encouraging sign that parents are not forcing religion on their children: “a silent revolution at a time when the Modi government is bent on enforcing religion and religious symbols”.