THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India (UCAN) -- Controversy over the social science textbook for seventh grade in Kerala schools has divided Churches in the southern Indian state.

About 4,000 people joined the demonstration.

While the Catholic Church, along with Muslim and Hindu groups, wants the textbook withdrawn for promoting communism and atheism, Orthodox and Protestant Churches say they find nothing objectionable in it.

On June 30, Archbishop Daniel Acharuparambil of Verapoly, president of the Kerala Catholic Bishops' Council, launched a protest march at his residence in the state's commercial capital of Kochi, 2,595 kilometers south of New Delhi. About 4,000 people joined the demonstration, at which participants chanted slogans against the state's Marxist-led coalition government.

The archbishop urged the protesters to protect their faith and values even at the cost of their lives. "We will continue our peaceful protests until the government withdraws the controversial textbook," he asserted, warning that the government is playing with fire if it "continues to challenge the Church and its leaders."

The prelate later told UCA News the Church will not compromise on the textbook issue because it challenges the faith.

On June 29, a Sunday that Catholics in Kerala's 29 dioceses observed as a day of protest, Sunday-school students took an oath to protect their faith and fight to keep "divisive forces" from corrupting young minds through textbooks.

Church people say the 56-page textbook, which the government introduced in the new academic year that began on June 2, tells about little-known communist leaders and glorifies isolated communist-led peasant uprisings in the 1940s. The book also teaches religion as sectarian and divisive, they say.

However, the Kerala Council of Churches, an association of Protestant and Orthodox Churches, criticized those protesting the textbook for acting with a "political bias."

Council president Metropolitan Abraham Mar Paulose told UCA News on June 28 he could not see anything objectionable in the text. "I do not approve of the stand of Catholic Church leaders who are not ready for consultation or negotiation. The stand is anti-Christian. If there is a dispute, we should sort it out through dialogue," the Orthodox prelate maintained.

State education minister M.A. Baby also accuses the protesting Catholic Church leaders of misrepresenting facts. "I've told them that if anything objectionable is printed in the textbook, I shall give directions to remove them. But they are making a hue and cry for nothing," he told UCA News on June 29. Baby, born a Catholic, has declared himself an atheist.

Meanwhile, Cardinal Varkey Vithayathil of Ernakulam-Angamaly, head of the Syro-Malabar Church, appealed to his people to resist the government's strategy to indoctrinate young minds with atheistic Marxian thoughts. His pastoral letter was read in all parishes of his archdiocese. The Catholic Church in India comprises the Latin and two Oriental rites, the latter being the Syro-Malabar and Syro-Malankara Churches.

Father Paul Thelakat, Syro-Malabar Church spokesperson, charged the government is using the textbooks as "a shrewd way" to indoctrinate young minds with a Marxian view. "Communist ideologies are packaged in the lessons. In Indian democracy a state government cannot indoctrinate atheistic secularism," he told UCA News.

Some Catholic laypeople have opposed their bishops' stand. Felix J. Pullooden, president of the Kerala Latin Catholics Association, told UCA News the protests aim to give the opposition Congress party political mileage. "The Church is slowly losing its clout and grip. So the bishops are eager to make a controversy and lead protests in the streets," he alleged.

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