Kerala - Kochi   

Textbook row: church to observe ‘protest day’ today

KOCHI: The Catholic church in Kerala will observe Monday as ‘protest day’ to reiterate its demand for the withdrawal of the Class VII social science and other controversial textbooks.

Cardinal Varkey Vithayathil, head of the Syro-Malabar Church and president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI), in a circular here on Sunday said the controversial portions in the textbooks were aimed at teaching children to reject religion.

The Cardinal’s circular was read out in all parishes of the Syro-Malabar Church during the Sunday mass and it cautioned that the controversial textbooks were prepared with a view to propagating communism.

The Cardinal called upon the faithful to observe Monday as protest day and told them to hold awareness programmes and discussions in educational institutions on the textbooks.

Sunday was observed as ‘protest day’ by the Varappuzha archdiocese. Protest marches and meetings were held at the parish level in the archdiocese, said a spokesman for the archdiocese.

Archbishop Daniel Acharuparampil would inaugurate a protest rally at High Court Junction at 10 a. m. on Monday. The rally would move to the Kanayannur taluk office where a protest meeting would be held at 11 a.m., the spokesman said.

The Archdiocesan unit of the Kerala Latin Catholic Association held a meeting on Sunday evening as part of its protest action. The meeting reviewed the preparations for Monday’s protest rally.

The Cardinal’s circular said that all religious groups had seen through the content of the textbook which used Jawaharlal Nehru’s words instead of Karl Marx’s to confuse the people.

The circular said communism was the single biggest threat to modern day democracy and claimed that secularism upheld by the Constitution was aimed at giving equal respect to all religions. Instead, the communists were propagating denial of religion.

The circular said the textbooks provided a lopsided view of Mahatma Gandhi who chose the path of non-violence and opposed armed struggles.

The textbook showed that the communists had not left the path of hate and guns. Communists, the circular said, did not participate in the Independence movement.

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