Federal government intends to do away with scholarships for minority students in schools as well as higher education
Indian students arrive for a convocation ceremony at their university campus in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, on August 29, 2019. (Photo: AFP)
Church leaders have criticized a decision by India’s federal government to scrap a scholarship scheme for students of religious minorities pursuing higher education, saying the move will deprive those of marginalized sections the opportunity to come up in life.
Federal Minority Affairs Minister Smriti Irani informed the parliament of the decision to do away with the Maulana Azad Fellowship (MAF) on Dec. 8. The government earlier announced the scrapping of the pre-matric scholarships for minority students from Class 1 to Class 8.
The fellowship offers five-year financial assistance to those from six communities of religious minorities – Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, Jains, Parsis and Sikhs – to pursue postgraduate academic research programs like M.Phil and Ph.D.
Irani said the fellowship will be discontinued from the 2022-23 academic session as it overlapped with various other fellowship schemes offered by the government.
The minister said 6,722 candidates were selected since 2014-15 for the fellowship from universities and institutions across the country.
“The action of the government shows its mindset, which does not jell with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s slogan, ‘Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas’ [taking everyone along to ensure development for all],” Auxiliary Bishop Theodore Mascarenhas of Ranchi, former secretary-general of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI), told UCA News.
Bishop Mascarenhas reminded the government’s own admission that some 800 million Indians have no food to eat, saying education was the ladder to help them pull out of poverty and better their lives.
“This is a heartless government that does not care for the poor and the marginalized,” Bishop Mascarenhas added.
Bishop Thomas Dabre of Pune said rather than showing compassion for the underprivileged, the government is depriving them of education.
“Scores of students will be hit hard by this regressive policy,” he said.
A delegation of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India led by Archbishop Anil Couto of Delhi met Irani four days ago to air its concerns, Father Maria Charles, national secretary of the bishops' Office for Education, said.
Father Charles said an action plan is being worked out to identify poor and marginalized students in dioceses across India to contain the likelihood of them dropping out due to lack of financial assistance.
“Sadly, minorities do not exist for this government amid its grand plans of a Hindu nation,” Father Suresh Mathew, editor of Indian Current magazine, said.
The Capuchin priest said the government on one hand swears by the slogan, ‘Education for all,’ while on the other hand hurts the education prospects of students from the marginalized and neglected sections of society.
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