Kerala's Education Minister C Raveendranath announced on the floor of Assembly last week that 1.25 lakh school students of the state had opted against disclosing their caste and religious affiliation at the time of their admission.

The announcement was cheered on by a section of left-allied commentariat across the country with some even linking this act of negation to the deeply entrenched influence of communist ideology in the state. This has however turned out to be a case of premature triumphalism. It has now been revealed that it was no case of any radical revolt against socially ascribed and constitutionally recognised identity but rather due to mundane technical error due to incomplete information upload.

According to a report in The New Indian Express(TNIE), quoting a top official of the Directorate of Public Instruction, the details of students admitted to schools in Kerala are uploaded on the Education Department’s website using a school management software called 'Sampoorna'. The official pointed out that it is not mandatory to fill up the columns declaring religion and caste in the application form for school admission. The department sources the data from the information entered by schools on the website and teachers are likely to have filled only the mandatory columns while entering the students’ details.

Many headmasters and parents, especially belonging to Muslim schools are totally perplexed by the government's claim that students have no religious affiliation. Manorama News points to the instance of Karippol Government Mappila UP School where, according to government figures, there are 209 students who had not disclosed their religion. The school authorities refute it by saying that all the 1,050 students of the school have a religious affiliation.

The TNIE report also quoted School Teachers’ Association (KPSTA) state vice president V K Ajith Kumar highlighting the case of 46 students from AMPLS Cheerankadappuram school, located in Tanur block of Muslim majority Malappuram district of Kerala, who have been listed as non-religious. Most of the students studying in this school belong to the Muslim community and are very religious.

The same is the case of Tanur Govt UPS where 126 students have been listed as non-religious. Another Muslim School (Al-Hidayath English Medium School at Kondotty) also outrightly rejected the Education Minister’s ‘no religion, caste’ claim.

The opposition led by Deputy Leader of the Congress party in the Assembly, K C Joseph, has given a notice for moving a breach of privilege motion against the Education Minister for providing misleading information.