A multi-faith photo to show back home | March 03, 2006

BETWEEN NUCLEAR weapons and mangoes, George W. Bush took an hour on Thursday after lunch to meet nine Indian men of faith in a closed-door meeting at the Maurya's Sky Lounge at which Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and US ambassador to India, David C. Mulford were silent spectators.

His guests were: Acharya Srivatsa Goswami, head of the Gambhira Mutt in Vrindavan and former visiting scholar at the Harvard School of Divinity; political activist Swami Agnivesh; politician Dr L.M. Singhvi representing the Jain community; Congressman Ammar Rizvi, the Shia scholar from Lucknow; Syed Zafar Mahmood, member of the Sachar committee on the socio-economic status of Indian Muslims; Rev Doc James Massey, the Dalit scholar from Punjab; Fr. Dominic Emmanuel, the Catholic media celebrity; Sardar Tarlochan Singh, former chairman of the National Commission on Minorities and Doboom Tulku, a scholar from Tibet House, New Delhi, representing His Holiness, the Dalai Lama.

Bush was reportedly in a "light mood" and opened the meeting saying, "The world can have peace only if people of religion live together in peace and India is a good example of that." He also "compared the USA to India as a place of equal honour and freedom for all religions," of which some participants said, "It was a session of platitudes."

However, each participant was given three minutes to speak, after Bush declared himself to be "a firm believer and a Methodist - and I believe in Almighty God."

Mahmood urged non-discriminating religious tolerance in America with a line from Surah un Kafirun in the Quran: "Lakum wa deenukum walya deen" (To your religion, to me, mine). Rizvi lobbied for enhanced contact between Indian and US "politicians and scholars." Dominic Emmanuel expect edly said that the Catholic Church in India supported Bush's pro-life beliefs. Singhvi lauded India's "rainbow religious plurality" while Srivatsa Goswami said that "India has always believed that science and spirituality are universal and borderless, so does the USA. This is where India and the US need to enter into a strategic partnership and work for universal human welfare, since both possess the mind and the heart for this work."

The American President conveyed his greetings to the Dalai Lama and reportedly promised "the enterprising Sikh community full support."

However it was Swami Agnivesh who obliquely resonated the unspoken issue of Iraq with the example of Emperor Ashok, who underwent a spiritual transformation after the massacre at Kalinga. "It is for you to now apply godliness in governance," he concluded.

Bush "was totally into it" according to the participants and "kept Sonia Gandhi and Advani waiting for 20 minutes." Before departing, he assembled a photoop "for American journalists, to show the folks back home that I met people of so many religions in one place."