President Murmu’s Presence In Vatican Is Meaningless If It Does Not Result In Checking Communal Forces Back Home
President Draupadi Murmu attended the funeral of Pope Francis on April 26 along with a delegation including Minister of State for Minority Affairs Kiren Rijiju, his deputy, George Kurian, and Goa Legislative Assembly deputy speaker Joshua D’Souza. The day before, Murmu went to St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City to pay homage to the late pontiff. The president’s presence signalled a respect for other religions, some of which constitute substantial minorities in India. In that sense, the symbolism is welcome. But it should be more than just a gesture. It would be fitting if it were a tribute to the man himself, too. Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Pope Francis, racked up many milestones as the first Jesuit pope, the first from the Americas and the southern hemisphere, and the first born or raised outside Europe since the eighth century. But more than these, Pope Francis ushered into the Roman Catholic Church an era of openness, tolerance and inclusivity that is being justly celebrated in the Catholic world and outside, even as many cross their fingers, hoping that this outstanding legacy is carried forward. With a less formalistic approach to his office and duties, Pope Francis also worked tirelessly for the advancement of interfaith dialogues.
It is this legacy that the Indian ruling establishment must pay the closest attention to. At a time when majoritarian violence and the systematic abuse of state power are marginalising the minorities, robbing them of their constitutional rights and pushing them towards second-class citizenship, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which runs the central government and practically all state governments in north and west India, and the Sangh Parivar, of which it is a key constituent, must rethink its exclusionary and rabidly communal ideology. It must shed its goal of setting up a Hindu rashtra by subverting the Constitution, undermining the values it enshrines and attacking the liberal structures established and nurtured for over six decades before the advent of the current disposition in 2014. The symbolism implicit in Murmu’s presence at Pope Francis’s funeral and the respect paid at the Vatican will be meaningless if the current dispensation fails to check the egregious violations of minority rights in large swathes of the country, beginning with the flagrant attacks sponsored by the state itself in many arenas. It is perhaps futile to hope that Pope Francis’s passing will encourage the ruling class in India to reverse course, given its long-standing commitment to a toxic ideology. But the agents of change in the history of human civilisation have often been as unexpected as they have been counterintuitive. We can only hope that the President’s trip to the Vatican and the memory of the man honoured will bring change.
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