Author: H. S. Rao
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: June 11, 2003
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=25553
Leaders of the UK Hindu community
today strongly protested the statement made by the Earl of Mar and Kellie
in support of a claim by the Christian Medical Fellowship's pastor Juge
Ram that Hindus were ''lost, spiritually blind and Hinduism is a false
religion''.
Responding to Juge Ram's claim,
the Earl, James Thorne (Liberal Democrat MP) said: ''They (the Christian
Medical Fellowship) were not actually telling any lies about the Hindu
religion in the sense that they were not actually putting out any false
remarks which were possibly going to distort people or mis-educate them.''
As the report of the House of Lords
Select Committee on Religious Offences was released, Hindu leaders in the
UK expressed their shock that a person who sits on a panel to enquire about
legislation regarding religious offences could be seen to support a sweeping
statement of vilification of one billion Hindus in the world. Questioning
the position of the Earl on the Religious Offence Committee, ''To say that
all Hindus are spiritually lost and blind and that Hinduism is a false
religion is not something that most Hindus would accept to be true," Ramesh
Kallidai, speaking on behalf of the Hindu community said at the House of
Lords. (PTI)
