NEW DELHI, INDIA, August 9,2008 (MISNA) ... The high court of Madhya Pradesh state has sent a notice to the state government ruled by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party asking it to explain the denial of ‘minority status’ certificates to numerous educational institutions run by the Catholic Church.
 
The Madhya Pradesh High Court issued the notice on August 7 in response to a petition filed by Fr Anand Muttungal, the spokesperson of the Catholic Church in the state. Fr Muttungal was quoted by UCAN, a Catholic news agency, as saying that the Church was “forced to move the court” due to the government’s failure to respond to any of the applications filed by around 200 institutions for their minority status recognition.

Article 30 of the Indian Constitution, which came into force in 1950, grants the right to religious and linguistic minorities to establish and administer educational institutions. The minority institutions have the right to reserve seats for and employ staff from their respective communities.

However, the Central government ruled by the United Progressive Alliance in 2006 made it mandatory for all minority educational institutions to get certificates validating their minority status from their respective state authorities.

It is estimated that the Catholic Church in India runs around 15,000 educational institutions. In Madhya Pradesh, there are around 1,000 educational institutions run by Christians, both Catholic and other denominations.

The BJP in Madhya Pradesh has allegedly been hostile to religious minorities, particularly Christians and Muslims. Attacks on Christians by Hindu nationalist groups close to the ruling party are commonplace in the state.

Madhya Pradesh has a Christian population of only 0.3 per cent of the total in the state, according to the 2001 census of the Government of India.