From: ambrose pinto <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 2008/9/19
Dear Friends,
I am sending to you an open letter the college has sent signed by
75 of its teaching staff to the Chief Minister of Karnataka
Ambrose Pinto SJ
18th September 2008
An Open Letter to the Chief Minister of Karnataka from St. Joseph's College,
Bangalore
Dear Sir,
We write to you as members of the Staff of St. Joseph's College and as
secular citizens of the state of Karnataka deeply distressed by the recent
attacks on educational institutions and churches in Mangalore and elsewhere in
Karnataka. We are a college of 126 years, the very first private college of the
city with a rich legacy of educating generations of students of different
faiths in the ideals of democracy and secularism. Thousands of citizens in the
state owe their education into secularism to this college where students have
lived and learned as members of one human family. We are also aware of your
high esteem for the college. It is due to that high regard for the institution
that you had admitted your son here and he had successfully passed out from the
portals of the college.
Our contributions to the nation goes right back in time, to those dark
and frightful years of British imperialism. We as an institution, perhaps the
only one in the state, have participated in the freedom struggle of the
country. The college had protested against British colonialism, raising the
National Tricolor as a banner of national revolt on our premises against the
British Raj. Our students were hunted and jailed by British Police for
participating in the Quit India movement. The names of Ratnakar Rai and
Kripakaran are synonymous with the early struggles while Deendayalu Naidu and
P.S. Sundaram Reddy were with the Quit India movement. Several of our students
were tortured and repressed in these jails for their struggles for the freedom
of the country. Fr. Ferroli, the Warden was interned in the jail in Whitfield.
and Fr. Boniface D' Souza was the person who prevented the police from taking
students into custody during the last phase
of the freedom struggle. That spirit of secularism and nationalism still
exists in this campus and we have not deviated from that. It is this love for
the nation that prompts and urges us to write to you.
Over the years, we have educated a variety of students, pundits,
scientists, activists, journalists, technocrats, bureaucrats, politicians,
businessmen, sportspersons and women primarily from the state of Karnataka
though there have been students from outside the state and the country. We have
never imposed a world-view of our own on the students. Instead we have
encouraged critical thinking and learning. Freedom of thought and expression
has always characterized education in St. Joseph's. We can claim with
tremendous pride that we have produced stimulating intellectuals, prominent
change-makers at the grass root level and provided able administrators to the
nation and particularly to the State of Karnataka. M. P. Ghorpade, Kumara
Bangarappa, M.P. Prakash, Bachche Gowda, Narayanaswamy, Allum Veerabhadarappa
and a host of bureaucrats are all our former students. Many of our former
students work in different fields of life as innovators and
policy-framers. Moreover we have enhanced our services these many years to
foster the needs and desires of the marginalized. We continue to admit and
provide educational opportunities to a wide community of educationally and
socially backward classes, scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. We have thus
produced sensitive and learned leaders among the Dalit and backward
communities. We are extremely proud of students from subaltern communities who
have turned into agents of radical social change. Our credentials as a secular
and progressive institution concerned about the well-being of all is a truth
well known to all.
St. Joseph's College belongs to no party. But we remain concerned
with what is taking place in the state. Inculcating social awareness and
increasing social concern is one of the main thrusts of the college. As an
educational institution with high moral and ethical credentials, we are
concerned about the divisive politics that polarizes people on the basis of
religion. Your party has come to power on the plank of development. You have
also celebrated with great pride your hundred days in power claiming that
nearly 90% of your development manifesto has been fulfilled. We may have
different view of that but we will not debate that here. What disturbs us is
the mean claim that your party and your cadres make that Christian institutions
are involved in forced conversion just to defame and malign. Every citizen in
this country has been given the right to practice, profess and propagate one's
religion by the Constitution. In fact, the
college is administered on the principles of egalitarianism, concern for the
weak and compassion to the suffering - universal human doctrines which are
Christian as well. If you consider commitment to a set of values as conversion,
we are quite proud. That has been our heritage. But when your affiliates attack
us on the issue of conversion, we are fully aware that you are being frivolous.
You do not believe in it. Nobody else believes in it. You are simply using the
community as a tool for political purposes.
In the last 126 years lakhs have passed out from the institution. The world
famous scientist, Raja Ramana, former election commissioner of India Krishna
Murthy, large number of cricketers and hockey players who have brought glory to
the state have studied here. We also wish to mention here Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
of the Art of Living fame and Veerendra Heggade of Dharamastala are our former
students. There are some monks of Sri Ramakrishna Mission and Buddhist
monastries educated here. Even today we teach a number of the children of your
party functionaries. Your cadres speak of conversion. Such divisive language to
defame institutions and the community for political purposes is against the
spirit of secularism and we do not appreciate that coming from the head of the
government of Karnataka.
In writing to you, we want to make it clear that we have no personal
interests. Our concern is the state of Karnataka and its people. This state
does not need debates on conversion or terrorism. What the state needs is
debate on development, inequalities, peace and harmony. There has been in the
last few days a campaign of hate that has been systematically carried out by
your affiliates and sometimes your own cadres. They have victimized innocent
citizens, harmed and destroyed people and their lives. They have violated the
dignity of women including the cloistered religious nuns recently who spend
time in prayer and are out of touch with the rest of the world. They have
devastated neighborhoods and the everyday harmony of human existence. Is this
truly development? How can we build development without peace and harmony? And
how can we build peace and harmony without development? Peace and harmony on
the one hand and development and growth on
the other are mutual and inter-dependent. We could debate this issue and other
issues of marginalization of people, hunger and inequality instead of the
trivial issue of conversion. Instead of encouraging your cadres and your
affiliates to burn and destroy churches and create disharmony, can you not
encourage them to work for literacy, employment, food, shelter and clothing?
Instead of destroying the secular fabric of cultural and religious
inter-relationships, can't you stop fanning hatred by not supporting spurious
ideas such as forced conversions and terrorism?
Your affiliates may assume, that by all this hate and anger, your party may
gain more seats in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections because of the
disastrous polarizations between communities. But that may be far from the
truth. People always see through such divisive politics. Only economic
development for the masses and the just practice of the secular constitution
can promise you votes. So we appeal to you, as an educational institution of
higher learning with a history of 126 years, that was a part of the freedom
struggle, to work for secularism, harmony, tolerance, and development so that
together we may build a humane and progressive human community in Karnataka. We
as a college community urge you most sincerely to stop hate, stop destruction
of Churches and educational institutions and restore peace and harmony in the
state. We assure you of our cooperation in the task of building a secular
state in the true spirit of diversity and pluralism.
Of course, we shall continue to dissent in the true democratic spirit of the
constitution when the constitution of the land is under attack.
Thanking you
Principal
Dr. (Fr.) Ambrose Pinto SJ
and the following Staff Members:
Name
Designation Signature
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