Author: Editorial
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: May 22, 2006
The Pope has got it awfully wrong ---- No
purpose is served by criticising Pope Benedict XVI for pleading the cause
of missionaries in India seeking to harvest the souls of 'heathens'. As head
of the Catholic Church the Pontiff, variously referred to as 'Panzerkardinal'
and 'God's Rotweiler' for his ferocious commitment to promoting his faith,
is within his rights to castigate any attempts to curb the enthusiasm of missionaries.
Indeed, he would be failing in his duties if he were to unquestioningly accept
the supremacy of the state in a secular country. Having said that, it would
be in order to point out that the man who presides over the Vatican and provides
spiritual sustenance to millions of Catholics around the world is astonishingly
ill-informed. Had that not been the case, he would not have described anti-conversion
laws that exist in some States in this country as "discriminatory restrictions
on the fundamental right of religious freedom".
The Constitution of India, the Pope's advisors should have told him, guarantees
the right to profess, practise and propagate any religion; what it does not
promise is the right to proselytise or convert people from one faith to another
through deceit, allurement or force. The anti-conversion laws that the Pope
has referred to while reading out his objectionable homily to India's new
Ambassador to the Vatican have been framed to prevent abuse of freedom of
religion and have nothing to do with partisan ideology as he has cunningly
suggested.
The Neogi Commission of Inquiry's report, a treasure trove of evidence about
deceitful preachers indulging in rice bowl conversions, provided the basis
for anti-conversion legislation in Madhya Pradesh and subsequently in Orissa
and Andhra Pradesh; in Gujarat and Chhattisgarh, similar laws are of recent
vintage, while in Rajasthan the Governor is trying her best to block a Bill
to demonstrate her loyalty to the presiding deity of the Congress. None of
these laws abridge the freedom of religion as guaranteed by the Constitution;
what they prohibit is conversion through fraud, force and food. Surely Pope
Benedict XVI, who has in the past unhesitatingly expressed his opposition
to forcible or fraudulent conversions to Christianity, would not want to be
seen as making an exception when it comes to India.
Pope Benedict XVI has also erred in commenting on India's internal affairs
that are beyond the legitimate concerns of the Holy See - he has no right
to patronisingly suggest how Indian society should manage its contradictions,
nor do the people of India need a certificate from him about how they conduct
themselves or exercise their rights. Just as India has no business to tell
the Holy See how to run the Catholic Church although it would be within its
rights to remind the Pope that an apology is long over due for the appalling
excesses of the Goa Inquisition.
India is an overwhelmingly Hindu majority
country and it is this indisputable fact coupled with India's civilisational
history that makes this country's polity and society democratic and secular.
This is much more than can be said about states and countries elsewhere, including
the one where our Ambassador has been subjected to gratuitous pontification.
