The Synod of India’s eastern rite Syro-Malabar Church has appealed to the Kerala State government to end discrimination against Christians in distributing benefits intended for religious minorities.

The Synod’s call came in the concluding statement issued on Jan 15. Of the 64 bishops, 57 attended the Jan. 7-15 assembly at Church headquarters in Kochi, the state’s financial capital.

The bishops’ said 80 per-cent of the federal grants meant for religious minorities “went to one minority community (Muslims), and the remaining 20 percent is divided among the other five minority communities in the state.”

Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Parsis, and Jains are classified as minorities who together make up 20 percent of India’s 1.3 billion people. Some 80 percent of Indians are Hindus.

The federal government offers individual grants for education, scholarships, and tuition, among other things aiming to improve the socioeconomic development of religious minorities.