The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : Ready for talks with bishops: Pinarayi

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Friday, Jul 20, 2007
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Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

Ready for talks with bishops: Pinarayi

Special Correspondent

To allay any misgiving on minority rights

Says pastoral letters are based on misunderstanding
Vested interests hope for another ‘liberation struggle’

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Communist Party of India (Marxist) State secretary Pinarayi Vijayan has termed the apprehensions aired by certain Church leaders in the pastoral letters issued some days ago unfounded and offered to enter into a dialogue with the bishops to allay any misgiving they may have on minority rights in Kerala.

“The pastoral letters are based on a serious misunderstanding. There is no question of any right of the minority communities being curtailed as long as the LDF remains in Government in Kerala.

The LDF is ready to discuss all the issues raised in the pastoral letters and allay the fears of the bishops,” Mr. Vijayan told a news conference here on Thursday.

The CPI(M) State secretary, who refused to be drawn into any other controversial issue and was all smiles, said the bishops who issued the pastoral letters had clearly misunderstood what he had tried to say in one of his public speeches recently.

While the Church leaders had taken his statement to mean that he had called upon them to withdraw the pastoral letters, he had actually only meant to make it clear that there would be no attempt to infringe on the rights and privileges of the minorities under LDF rule, Mr. Vijayan explained.

He also reminded the Church leaders that any attempt to foment passion over such issues would only help the right wing communal forces that were waiting for an opportunity to mount an onslaught on the minorities. Some vested interests in Kerala still nursed hopes of another ‘liberation struggle’ that had led to the ouster of the first EMS Government, but little do they know that 2007 was not 1957.

In 1957, the Church was able to mislead the believers. Even that was something that the Government of the time could have handled. The Government had to go only because of the intervention by the Central Government. “Do the Opposition and other vested interests think that something similar is possible now,” he asked.

He, however, expressed happiness at the possibility for dialogue that the exchanges had thrown up. Such a dialogue would help bring the Church and the Left closer to each other rather than alienating them.

The Church leaders were well within their right to issue pastoral letters. The only question that he had tried to raise was whether there was any basis for the points raised in the pastoral letters and point out that rather than taking on the Church, the Left’s attempt all along had been to defend them whenever they were faced with attacks.

Touching on the fears and apprehensions one by one, Mr. Vijayan pointed out that the LDF Government had never tried to take over management of schools from private managements and place them under the panchayats as alleged in the pastoral letter issued by the Bishop of Irinjalakuda.

Nor had it tried to encroach on the managements’ right to admit students and recruit staff or permit holding of political party meetings on school campuses during class time.

The attempt to hold classes on Saturdays and Sundays was part of a campaign to improve the standard of education at the school level in which teachers were participating voluntarily in the larger public interest.

The LDF Government had also never tried to promote atheism and sexual anarchy through syllabus revision as alleged in the pastoral letter issued by the Bishop of Thrissur. He had not asked the bishops to withdraw these pastoral letters. He had only pointed to the tone of confrontation in them.

The question whether the pastoral letters should be withdrawn was purely technical in nature.

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