Speech by Shri L.K. Advani
Leader of the Opposition (Lok Sabha)

At a function to celebrate the 91st birthday of
Rt. Rev. Dr. Philipose Mar Chrysostom,
Valia Metropolitan of Mar Thoma Syrian Church of Malabar

Mammen Mapilla Hall, Kottayam : 26 April, 2008

It is a matter of both pleasure and honour for me to be invited to participate in the celebrations to mark the Navathy — 91st birthday — of Rt. Rev. Dr. Philipose Mar Chrysostom, Valia Metropolitan of Mar Thoma Syrian Church of Malabar. I extend my heartiest felicitations to him on this occasion and also seek his blessings.

It is difficult for me to believe that His Holiness has lived 91 summers. His face glows with youthful vitality and his eyes sparkle with the curiosity of a child. But, then, this is not surprising if one looks at the principles that he has lived his life by.

Some days back, the organisers of this function had sent me a book of photographs, each accompanied by an enlightened saying by His Holiness. One shows him in a kitchen, probably getting ready to bake some bread, and the caption says: “Enthusiasm is the baking powder of life. Without it, you are flat. With it, you rise.”

At another place, His Holiness says: “Let us be children in faith, unconditional love and happiness. Let us be adults in experience, compassion and wisdom.”

I am indeed blessed that I have come to pay tributes to a person who embodies all these qualities — faith, love, happiness, experience, compassion, wisdom and, above all, boundless enthusiasm.

My association with Mar Thoma Church

My association with Mar Thoma Church is pretty old. It dates back to the time of the Emergency in 1975-77, when I was imprisoned, along with thousands of pro-democracy activists, including eminent leaders like Jayaprakash Narayan, Morarji Desai, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Chandrashekhar. I spent 19 months in jail, mostly in Bangalore Central Jail. I remember that Mar Thoma Church was one of the religious organisations that had openly opposed the Emergency. I had praised the church for its bold stand.

After the lifting of the Emergency and the formation of the Janata Party government, when I became the Minister of Information & Broadcasting, the bishops of your church used to meet me regularly. I remember that your church had invited me to preside over a function in Delhi in which your previous Archbishop spoke very well on ‘Christian Contribution to India’s Freedom Movement’. In my remarks, I had said, “In 1947, we gained victory in India’s first Freedom Movement. In 1977, we gained victory in India’s second Freedom Movement. I compliment Mar Thoma Church for its contribution to both victories.”

Freedom of faith and cultural unity can coexist

Friends, India is a land of diversities. We see diversity in faith, language, customs, appearance, in many things. All these diversities belong to India. India has embraced these diversities and is proud of these diversities. Our country has this unique quality of accepting diversities, integrating them and making them a part of its unity. That integrating force is our national culture.

We should cherish our diversity. However, it is the bounden duty of all the diverse sections of our society to continually strengthen India’s essential unity.

I greatly admire Mar Thoma Church for its long tradition of preserving and strengthening its native Indian personality. You share your faith with people in many countries in the world. However, in culture, you are fundamentally and proudly Indian.

This is the essential ethos of our country. In matters of faith, India has never exhibited exclusivism and never closed its doors to men of piety and spiritual accomplishment. This is because India has never believed that spiritual Truth can be attained by following only one particular path. It has accepted and respected all faiths. This attitude of Sarva Pantha Samaadar is the basis of India’s age-old adherence to secularism.

Ekam Sat Viprah Bahudha Vadanti. (Truth is One, the Wise interpret it differently.) This has been the belief of our people since Vedic times. Therefore, when wise and saintly persons came from afar with a new interpretation of the Truth, people welcomed them with respect.

One such wise and venerable person was Saint Thomas, one of the 12 disciples of Jesus Christ, who brought gospel to the coast of Malabar in 52 AD. Your church, as its name itself proclaims, has the honour of being blessed by St. Thomas.
In the course of the evolution of your church, there have been instances when Christians who suffered religious persecution in Persia in the 4th to 6th century AD came to Kerala for shelter. This, too, is in keeping with India’s basic ethos of religious tolerance and providing a safe haven to victims of religious bigotry and violence.

It is precisely for this reason that India, from ancient times till now, has enjoyed the goodwill of the global community. We must zealously preserve this tradition of mutual tolerance and respect, peaceful coexistence, national solidarity and common endeavor for common good.

BJP is not anti-Christian

Friends, I read in the newspapers a few days ago that some people in Kerala protested against Mar Thoma Church inviting me to participate in this function. The protest is a part of the propaganda that my party, the BJP, is anti-minorities and anti-Christian. Let me go back into history and cite a few examples to debunk this motivated propaganda.

As many of you know, the BJP’s predecessor was the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, which was formed by Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee in 1951. Dr. Mookerjee was an eminent freedom fighter who also served as India’s first Industries Minister in Pandit Nehru’s Cabinet. In the course of building the party in different parts of the country in the early fifties, he appointed Barrister V.K. John as the chief of the Jana Sangh in Madras province. Barrister John, incidentally, was a classmate of Dr. Mookerjee in Calcutta.

The same propaganda was also heard at the time. Barrister John was asked: “How can you, a Christian, accept to be an office-bearer of a communal party?” His answer was forthright: “I know Dr. S.P. Mookerjee very well. He cannot be the president of a communal party.”

I am in Kerala. When I hear this false and malicious propaganda against my party, I cannot but recall what Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya, the guide, philosopher and principal organiser of the Jana Sangh, had said about the issue of minorities way back in 1967, when he presided over the party’s historic session in Calicut. In his enlightening presidential address, Deendayalji, whom I regard as my political guru, emphasized that our party cares equally for every section of Indian society, because all are “flesh of our flesh and blood of our blood”.

Some of you are probably aware that I studied in a Christian school — St. Patrick’s School in Karachi before India’s Partition. All my teachers in school, including Father Modestine, the principal, were Christian. I cannot remember them without a sense of gratitude.

It is perhaps because of my school background that I often use Christian metaphors even in my political communication. For example, when the Bharatiya Janata Party was born on 6th April 1980, it was Easter Sunday, the Day of Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Those of you who are familiar with the history of the formation of the BJP know that we were earlier in the Janata Party. The Janata Party had been formed in 1977 by merging all the anti-Emergency parties, including the Jana Sangh, into a common political organization to challenge the Congress led by Indira Gandhi. However, we were later constrained to form our own party because those of us who belonged to the erstwhile Jana Sangh were expelled from the Janata Party in 1979 on the dubious “Dual Membership” issue. Some of our colleagues in the Janata Party objected to our association with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The expulsion took place on Good Friday, the day of Crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

Hence, I said in my speech at the founding conference of the BJP, “It is not without significance that we were expelled from the Janata Party on the day of Crucifixion of Christ, and that we are experiencing our political rebirth in the form of the BJP on the day of Resurrection of Christ.”

I have referred to this analogy on numerous occasions since then.

Dr. P.C. Alexander, a proud son of Kerala

Let me cite one more example. When the BJP-led NDA government was in office with Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee as the Prime Minister, we had to choose our candidate for the election of Rashtrapati in 2002. Who was our first choice? It was an illustrious son of Kerala: Dr. P.C. Alexander, who was then the Governor of Maharashtra. As all of you very well know, Dr. Alexander was never known for his proximity to the BJP. Rather, he had served as the Principal Secretary under two Congress Prime Ministers — Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi.

Dr. Alexander was first appointed Governor of Maharashtra by P.V. Narasimha Rao’s government. In contrast to the Congress governments’ partisan practice of replacing governors appointed by non-Congress governments, we did not remove him when the BJP came to power at the Centre. On the contrary, we re-appointed him for a second term because of our high appreciation of his work as the Governor of Maharashtra. Prime Minister Vajpayee had once publicly praised him by saying that “Dr. Alexander is not only a Rajyapal but also a Raj Guru.”

Later, in recognition of his scholarship and long and distinguished service to the nation, the BJP and our allies in the NDA chose Dr. Alexander as our candidate for the 2002 Presidential election. It is another matter that we had to later nominate Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam as our candidate, since the Congress party refused to support Dr. Alexander’s candidature. Dr. Alexander himself has narrated this entire episode in his memoirs, titled Through the Corridors of Power.

I have mentioned these points in some detail just to demonstrate that those who call the BJP “communal”, “anti-minorities” and “anti-Christian” are spreading falsehood for their own ulterior motives. Let me make it very clear that we respect Christianity, we revere Jesus Christ for his message of universal peace, love and brotherhood, and we deeply value the contribution of our Christian brethren both to India’s freedom struggle and to India’s nation-building in the post-Independence era.

Need for inter-faith dialogue

I shall close my remarks by making a fervent appeal on this occasion. The world is passing through a critical phase in its history. On the one hand, science, technology, trade and industry have opened up numerous new avenues for mankind’s material progress. However, on the other hand, humanity is facing an unprecedented crisis due to the lack of harmonious relationship between man and man, man and nature, community and community, and country and country.

This multi-faceted crisis is manifesting itself in crime, violence, poverty, exploitation, environmental degradation and spiritual vacuum. The world is anxiously looking for light to dispel this darkness.

This light can only come from religion, from the many faiths that together form the core of religion.

First of all, the world is waiting to be rescued from the forces of extremism, bigotry and terrorism that operate, ironically, behind the cloak of religion.

I believe that every faith has something valuable to offer and we should have an open mind to absorb the best in every faith. Therefore, for religion to be understood and practiced in the true sense of the term, we should understand the basic teachings of every faith.

This is possible only if we expand and intensify inter-faith dialogue at all levels. India can, and should, take the lead in this. After all, we have a long tradition of mutual acceptance and syncretism.

Indeed, today’s event itself is a fine example of inter-faith dialogue since people from different faiths have come together to pay tribute to a great and truly religious personality. Let us multiply such examples.

With these words, I once again join all of you in respectfully felicitating Mar Chrysostom Valia Metropolitan and in praying for his long life in service of God and Humanity.

Jeevem Sharadah Shatam! May you live a hundred years!

Thank you.