• Valson Thampu

In a recent verdict, the Supreme Court of India – Chief Justice D. Y. Chandrachud presiding a bench of seven judges- adjudicating a case pertaining to the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), decided that minority educational institutions ‘fully funded by the State’ cannot impart ‘any religious education’ to their students. It decided, further, that institutions ‘partially funded’ by the State can impart religious instruction to its students only if they ‘volunteer’ to receive the same. By implication, no such restriction applies to self-financing minority educational institutions.
In this process, the Supreme Court has modified the position it held earlier in the Aruna Roy and Ors Vs. The Union of India (2002). In that judgment, the Apex Court made a valuable distinction between ‘religious instruction’ and ‘religious education’. The former comprises the rituals, customs and practices peculiar to a religion. The latter, the universal vision and values of a religion. The Court held not only that there was nothing wrong in imparting the latter, but also that it was desirable to do so. Education proper would be incomplete without it.
The fundamental right to establish and administer ‘institutions of their choice’ conferred on religious and linguistic minorities by Article 30(1) of the Constitution is conceived as a ‘cultural right’. Its larger purpose is to conserve plurality in the religious mosaic of India. The preservation of what is unique in every religion, the cross-pollination of spiritual traditions towards forming a rich shared spirituality as conducive to the unity-in-diversity that India is envisaged to be, underlies the intent of this provision. It is as much an investment in the vitality of the pluralist and secularist Indian democracy, as it is a concession to the need of religious and linguistic minorities to preserve themselves. Article 30(1) is envisaged as a line of control, if you like, between democracy and fascism. Secular democracy in a polity of religious plurality requires the spiritual evolution of its citizens lest it plummet into totalitarianism.
It is noteworthy that the instant decision of the Court comes at a time of unprecedented communalization of public life, political processes and State instrumentalities. This is not surprising. As a matter of fact, there is a necessary correlation between the ascendancy of communal agendas and intolerance towards spiritual values. That includes allergy to the spiritual core of the religion that is supposedly the beneficiary of this politically-charged religious self-assertion.
In the present verdict, the Supreme Court seems to have glossed over the invaluable distinction in the 2002 judgment between religious instruction and religious studies. While there can be no doubt that burdening students with the former is neither just nor desirable, it is not clear as to how enlightening them with spiritual ideals and values can harm the health of a society, or undermine the vitality of a body politic. Regrettably, it whittles down the ambit of Article 30(1); in particular, of the right to establish and run institutions of ‘their choice’. What would the right meant to enable religious minorities to preserve their spiritual culture amount to if the opportunity to enrich the formation of students with universal values and ideals is excluded from it? What does a spiritual culture amount to without its ideals and values?
Come now to the question of voluntarism as regards students from the minority community concerned. It is naive to regard this as betokening respect for the pupil’s freedom of choice. We do not extend the same freedom in any other respect of the academic basket on offer. Even where optional papers are offered, students are not allowed to pick and choose from within the options exercised. Every student, in choosing to be admitted to an institution, exercises an option analogous to opting for one course over the rest. It cannot be that a basket of academic offerings is acceptable prior to being admitted, but the same becomes unacceptable on being admitted to it. To think otherwise is to confer on students a hypothetical right: to have an institution of their choice.
Suppose you formulate a course under the name ‘Horizons of Life’ and include in it the spiritual values and ideals that you regard as basic to the holistic formation of a young mind via education? There is nothing that hinders your doing so. I devised such a course in St Stephen’s College and made it mandatory for first-year non-Christian students; religious studies being mandatory for Christian students. I also introduced an optional course titled ‘Engaging with Unequal India’, with ‘preaching the good news to the poor’ as its latent foundation. In initiatives of this kind, we have to (a) liberate ourselves from the religious stereotypes that skew our imagination and (b) renounce parochial agendas and angularities. Not infrequently, what’s done under the guise of religious education is the promotion loyalty to particular traditions and denominations. The core discipline in imparting religious ‘education’ in an enlightened way is ‘self-denial’ in respect of parochial gains. What is overtly religious must be renounced to the furtherance of the spiritual and the universal.
Those who are now concerned about the massive and assertive communalization of India must realize that the failure of true Christian education has contributed to this. We need to explain to ourselves as to how it happens that the beneficiaries of the so-called Christian education have been, still are, at the forefront of communalizing India. The history of the Christian mission in education, as I have stated ever so often in the past, is a story of wasted opportunities. We did not do the work of light, as Jesus would have said, while there was time. Now the night has set in. But that doesn’t mean we have to throw up our arms in despair. Lend your ears to the night. You will hear yet whispers of seeds cracking and new life sprouting; provided you bother to sow them!