Church ‘frustrated’ over government takeover of school appointments in Gujarat, India

Bangalore, India, Jan 29, 2025 / 14:05 pm

The Catholic Church in the western Indian state of Gujarat has expressed “frustration” over the state High Court confirming the government’s power in appointing staff in Catholic high schools.

The Jan. 23 verdict “is frustrating for us. We are sad that it came just ahead of the 75th anniversary of the Indian Republic [on Jan. 26],” Gandhinagar Archbishop Thomas Macwan told CNA.

“Despite our legal team pointing out that appointment of staff is our fundamental right, it is disappointing that the judge approved the government takeover,” Macwan said.

Under the “Fundamental Rights” category of the India Constitution, Article 30 states: “All minorities, whether based on religion or language, shall have the right to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice.”

The Church plans to appeal the verdict in the Supreme Court of India. “We hope the Jubilee Year of 2025 will be a brighter one for us,” Macwan said.

“The right to appoint the staff is our fundamental right and also very crucial for proper management of our institutions,” Father Teles Fernandes, the secretary of the Gujarat Board of Catholic Educational Institutions, told CNA.

“We will certainly move the Supreme Court soon to challenge this verdict,” said Fernandes, who is also the vicar general of the Archdiocese of Gandhinagar.

The capital is named after Mahatma Gandhi, a native of Gujarat. 

In 2021 the Gujarat government amended the Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Act to take over the appointment of teachers and other staff at private schools that are aided by the government.

In India, most states have “aided schools” in which the government pays the salaries of the staff but the management enjoys the right to appoint the staff, both faculty and administrators. 

Fernandes noted that in Gujarat the government salary is given only to staff of higher secondary schools from ninth to 12th grades, while in most states “aided” schools cover the entire staff from first grade.

While the Catholic Church in Gujarat runs 57 aided schools in the state where Christians number less than 1% among its population of 64 million, other denominations also run such institutions including Jews, Jains, Muslims, Parsis, and scores of schools run by non-Gujarati language groups like the Sindhi and Hindi.

“After the 2021 amendment, the government is not giving approval to the staff we appoint. We have to find ways to pay them,” said Father James Varghese, the coordinator of the 10 schools of the Orthodox Church in Gujarat. 

“So, we decided to plead in the appeal filed by the Catholic Church but the verdict has been shocking to us,” Varghese told CNA from Vadodara City.

“The only option now before us is to appeal against the verdict in the Supreme Court of India as it denies our fundamental rights,” he added. 

Austin Haeems, who coordinates the management of three Jewish schools with 6,000 students in Gujarat, also shared the same concern.

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“The High Court verdict has come as a big shock to us. We will explore legal action in consultation with the Catholic Church,” Haeems told CNA.

Though at one point there were more than 2,000 Jewish residents in Gujarat, Haeems said that the “majority have migrated to Israel and now only [just] over 100 are left.”