Indian envoy refers to Sonia as ‘Christian,’ reference is deleted

IE News
For the Congress, the subject of Sonia Gandhi’s religion is a touchy one and generally off-limits when it comes to official communications.

Just how sensitive an issue it is was revealed last month when the official representative of the UPA Government in Washington, Ambassador Meera Shankar, delivered a speech at a US university referring to Sonia Gandhi being a Christian as a testament to India’s pluralism and diversity. However, that reference was later quickly deleted.

In her keynote speech on the subject “Why India Matters” at Emory University on February 24, Shankar said: “India is a land of incredible diversity. Like the United States it celebrates pluralism. It not only tolerates diversity but has embraced it and has allowed people from all walks of life to flourish and realize their full potential. This is a tradition that is rooted in our civilization. Throughout our history peoples from other parts of the world have come to India and made it a home, resulting in a multi-cultural and multi-religious society, one where individual faith and belief is not only respected but adds to the overall sense of nationhood. Today the fact that we have a woman Head of State, a Sikh Head of Government and a Muslim Vice President and a Christian as the leader of the largest national political party is perhaps the best statement of the multi-ethnic and multi-religious nature of our state.”

This was probably the first time anyone in the government had referred to the religion of the Congress president and UPA Chairperson.

The speech was posted on the Embassy’s website but was quickly pulled out and replaced with a version where the phrase, “...and a Christian as the leader of the largest national political party...” was deleted.

However, an unedited video of the address posted on YouTube yesterday (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBWE0Bl3-a0) has the version with the “Christian” reference.

Shankar couldn’t be reached for her comments despite repeated attempts. Varinder Paul, Minister (Press) at the Embassy in Washington, asked for a written questionnaire. The Indian Express sent one asking why was the reference deleted and at whose instance. No comments were made available. Messages left on the answering machine went unanswered as well.

On November 29 last year, a Division Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court had dismissed a petition filed by a retired DGP-rank officer of Haryana, seeking details about the religion of the Congress president from the Registrar General of Census Operations.

The Bench, comprising then Chief Justice Mukul Mudgal and current Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, dismissed the plea on the ground that religion of an individual was an “entirely personal” matter.

The petitioner had sought directions to the Registrar General, Census Operations, to provide details of the religion and faith of not just Sonia Gandhi but also her children, daughter Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and son Rahul Gandhi.

Targeting Hindus

Tarun Vijay

Face it squarely. All should have welcomed handing over the cases related to any kind of terror to NIA. Who cares? Anyone belonging to any colour, if found violating the Constitution should be brought to book. The best statement on it came from RSS stalwart and an icon of serving the destitute and the disadvantaged, Bhayyaji Joshi, who assured all help to the government to have such cases investigated. But the state power had some other ideas.

Was the real intention of a government that lies to the nation on WikiLeaks cables and survives, as Arun Jaitley put it aptly, on a political sin, honest?

This government facilitates traitors as simply as that. And punishes patriots in the hope that it would get some Muslim votes.

Look how a secessionist Geelani is facilitated in Delhi, given a platform to demand India's second partition and then allowed to stay on at the expense of Indians to participate in Pakistan Day, at the house of Pakistan's high commissioner in Delhi.

Afzal's hanging is delayed deliberately to ensure Muslim votes. WikiLeaks cables, sent to Washington by American diplomats, corroborate what every sane Indian believes.

So is the case of handing over cases involving one set of people. The government of Lilliputians wants to prove something that must fetch it some Muslim votes.

They never tried to send the cases of ULFA, or NSCN, or Geelani-Arundhati Roy, or stone pelters of the valley who attacked the security personnel, to NIA.

That would have not fetched them what they wanted.

They treated Gujarat as an enemy country, mocked at its investment claims, as if money poring into Gujarat was meant for Pakistan. And now MP is on their list of assaults for obvious reasons.

One of their leaders shows a chestful of currency notes to a foreign diplomat. Nothing happens and the Prime Minister of the nation tries to obfuscate the issue.

Even Berlusconi appears more honest than our ruling elite.

A news emanating from Srinagar, sent by a national news agency, said that there are allegation that a Hindu temple has been ransacked and taken over by a mafia and a Hindu organization has demanded a CBI probe into that. Oh, too obliged that someone thought that this is news worth any notice. A brief mention, no name of the organization that demanded a probe, no name of the place where the temple was "allegedly" desecrated and no name of the leader of the Hindus who took up the cause, braving bullets.

Replace the term "Hindu temple" with the name of any other faith's place of worship and see the difference.

It pays to be a non-Hindu in this Hindu-majority nation.


Who is responsible for this sorry state of affairs where taking up a Hindu cause needs enveloping it in a secular parlance? Where even the supposedly Hindu nationalists are shy to say the word "Hindu" and the administration and the media empires led by those who still wear a Hindu name feel hesitant to come out in support of justice and fair play, lest they should be "misunderstood" as being communal.

In a situation when temples are desecrated without creating a whimper in the capital and the Prime Minister gleefully hands over small apartments to Hindu refugees in their own independent country without saying a single word of assurance that they would some day go back home, where a political opposition keeps mum on the main player of all sinful activities that is tearing apart the society and its core, thanks should be given to a brave Assange and the courageous leftist editor who chose to publish the cables taking the grave risk to his media empire at a time when most of the bravehearts in the media have turned "Padma durbaris".

If Hindus find themselves at such a receiving end, the blame must be borne by the leaders who claim they are Hindus. The babalogs. Very very rich. Enjoying a very influential list of devotees. Performing miracles. Running huge chains of colleges and "gau shalas".

Just ask them what was the last issue they won for the Hindus?

They have simply no dearth of money. Or influence. But driven by jealousies, hatred for each other, a killing spirit that survives on "unchecked" eavesdropping, and an uncanny intolerance of the intellectual inputs of the critical variety, the Hindu leadership seems to be failing the Hindu cause once again, post-Ayodhya movement.

It has chosen not to answer the inconvenient issues of caste-based discriminations, keeping a silence on incidences like Mirchpur. It never addressed the issue why in India none of the so-called mainstream newspapers has been able to have a single scheduled caste editor or why no scheduled caste leader is seen taking centre stage, in spite of being in a majority within the Hindu population of the country?

It hardly supported the issue of taking on the main player of all that's wrong in politics today. Why? The nation will, one day discuss the most horrendous case of backstabbing in our political life.

The temples and the gods are the same who were there when Karachi, Rawalpindi and Kabul were deserted and when Srinagar's Rainawari found itself exiled.

The same way, our honorable Prime Minister has failed the nation like a failed father.

He has missed the bus of courage and forgotten that individuals are small before national interest and that history is necessarily very ruthless.