From: vtg1714@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Vishwanath Tirupattur  )
Subject: Re: The Roots of the Recent Violence in India
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 01:24:02 GMT
Keywords: violence, caste reservations, politics, religious disputes

vidynath@function.mps.ohio-state.edu (Vidhyarath K Rao) writes:

>In article <Bz9Hx9.76B@news.cso.uiuc.edu> vtg1714@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Vishwanath Tirupattur  ) writes:
>|bond@jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca (  Girish) writes:
>[...] (material relating to reservations deleted)
>|>     An obscure Article in the Indian Constitution was used in the 70's  by
>|>     the  Communist  provincial  government of West Bengal to challenge the
>|>     right of the Hindus to run their schools and  colleges.  According  to
>|>     this Article members of the majority religion do not have the right to
>|>     establish their own religious schools whereas the  minority  religions
>|>     do.  When  the Supreme Court of India upheld the interpretation of the
>|>     Communists, several Hindu sects that ran schools filed for or received
>|>     status  as  minority  religions  to prevent the government takeover of
>|>     their schools.
>|
>|>     The government of India did not respond to this ruling of the court to
>|>     try  to change the law so that all religions would be treated equally.
>|>     This has led to a great resentment amongst the Hindus.
>|
>|Prof.  Kak does not seem to have his facts correct.  There are Hindu run 
>|educational institutions all over the country.  I went to the 
>|Sri Venkateshwara High School in Tirupathi which is run by the 
>|TTD (Tirumala-Tirupathi Devastanams)

>Last time I looked, Tirupati was not in West Bengal.

>You see, some one must enforce the law, if it is indeed on the books. Kak
>claims that the West Bengal goverment did enforce such a law. The writ of
>WB govt runs only in WB. On top of that, Kak also says that sects
>got themselves recognized as individual religions, rather than as sects of
>Hinduism.

Point well taken.

>The most important question is: Was such a decision ever made by the
>Supreme Court, and if the provision of the constitution still stand?
>Perhaps, Professor Kak can give enough details that this can be looked up
>in goverment publications.

>If this allegation is true, secularism has been dead in India for years.

I agree that secularism in India has been long dead. Murdered, I should say.
I have attended three other high schools in different parts of AP and all of
them were government schools and had non-Hindu students in significant 
numbers.  But the regular morning prayers have always been to Hindu pantheon
of Gods.  Even in Kurnool, which has a substantial Muslim population (and so
represented in the school), the prayers have always been Hindu prayers.  In 
Tirupathi, the prayer song was the "Suprabhatam", and one student was the 
lead singer and the rest of the students would repeat after him.  This lead
singer was inevitably not only a Bramhin but also from one of the temple 
priests' families.  Not only the system was insensitive to those that did not
belong to the Hindu religion, but also was dutifully enforcing the caste
structures.  

>-- 
>Vidhyanath Rao	

Vishwanath
It is the man, not the method, that solves
>nathrao+@osu.edu		the problem. - Henri Poincare
>(614)-366-9341			[as paraphrased by E. T. Bell]
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