Journalists try to draw Rishi Sunak on whether it was unfair Diwali was with more stringent covid lockdown rules than Christmas will be.
David Cameron as British PM once said Britain is a Christian country. Oh boy, did that cause a load of secularist, pluralist, liberals to go nuts and panic. All the PM said is that Britain should be proud of saying it is a Christian country.
Like the BJP feels about India, Cameron feels about Britain – be proud to express your faith. But like all the secularist, pluralist, liberals go nuts at the name of ‘Modi’ so they did in Britain too.
A load of really famous clever people wrote a letter to the Telegraph saying the British PM is wrong. Just as people write in the Guardian that Modi is a crazy religious right-wing sectarian divisive bigot.
This is what they wrote in the Telegraph about PM Cameron: “we object to his characterisation of Britain as a Christian country…Britain is not a Christian country…At a social level, Britain has been shaped for the better by many pre-Christian, non-Christian, and post-Christian forces. We are a plural society with citizens with a range of perspectives, and we are a largely non-religious society…Constantly to claim otherwise fosters alienation and division in our society. This needlessly fuels enervating sectarian debates that are by and large absent from the lives of most British people, who do not want religions or religious identities to be actively prioritised by their elected government.”
You really have to be in denial to think Britain is not a Christian country – what the hell do you think Easter holidays and Christmas breaks are? About bunnies and Fir trees? Or an established Church is? The Queen is not a Defender of Faiths but of ‘The Faith’ .
And Rishi as a Hindu has no problem with that. Neither do I.
As for India, it’s also known as Hindustan for good reason. When three quarters of your population follow one faith – Hinduism – to deny it is a Hindu nation, when every corner street has a temple, the country stands still at Diwali – you’re fool to call it anything other than a Hindu nation.
The problem that the followers of Modi and Cameron have is that they want their countries to be more Hindu and more Christian respectively. They wish it was even more proudly religious. The mistake they make is that they’ve won the battle, they will not persuade their enemies otherwise by argument. They should maintain their winning position by keeping quiet about it, doing good works.
One reason Sunak’s lighting of Diwali lights outside Number 11 was so palatable to the mainstream is because he did it without fanfare, in a western suit and without his family. It was not shoving a show of faith down people’s throats. The UK has never liked that – the religious wars between Catholics and Protestents are proof of how they hated overt show of religion. King Henry didn’t want God, through the Pope, telling him who to marry – too much religion.
Yes a Christian country but modestly so to be palatable to all – a broad Church. Equally so with India, a Hindu country but modestly so to be a broad Temple for all. The moment you shove it down peoples throat, you become like a football bore who just bangs on about how his team is the best. It just puts everyone else into a position of distance and not caring.
Alpesh Patel
www.PoliticalAnimal.me
