The participating prelates were Bishops Joshuah Kizhakkeveettil of the Syro-Malankara Eparchy of Mavelikara, chair of the Kerala bishops’ education commission; Paul Mullassery of Quilon, the vice-chair; and Thomas Tharayil, an auxiliary of the Syro-Malabar Archeparchy of Changanacherry.

According to the bishops, the government deliberately withdrew financial support from the Christian institutions to frustrate education in these establishments.

Christians run about 5,000 of Kerala’s 13,000 schools. The government is required to provide financial aid to over half of these schools to support teachers’ salaries.

Archbishop Soosa Pakiam said that in the last five years, over 3,000 teachers in Catholic schools have not been paid because the government has not distributed its promised aid.

The archbishop said it was an “act of cruelty” to deny these employees’ salaries during the coronavirus pandemic.

Archbishop Soosa Pakiam said the hunger strike is not seeking to solicit “special favours from the state. It is to ensure our constitutional rights.”

He also said the state government tried “to meddle in the appointment of teachers in the state-aided schools.”

Minority schools have the right to appoint their own teachers, but the state government has stalled in approving the appointments in the last five years.

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