A majority of Hindus are tolerant toward other religions but politicians deliberately create problems as a distraction from other grievances, says the secretary-general of the Indian Catholic Bishops’ Conference. Bishop Theodore Mascarenhas was reacting to a leader of India’s ruling pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) who rejected the concept of government secularism.
Yogi Adityanath, the 45-year old chief minister of India’s most populous State of Uttar Pradesh, said governance in India could at best be sect-neutral. “No system can be secular,” he told a function on Nov. 13.
Bishop Mascarenhas said the issue was raised to distract peoples’ attention from matters of more pressing concern.
Adityanath should work for the development of the common people and not talk about issues that do not matter to them, Bishop Mascarenhas said. The prelate noted that India has a secular constitution regardless of public comments by Adityanath.
Adityanath, clad in symbolic saffron, had compared Prime Minster Narendra Modi’s government to the rule of Hindu lord Ram. The Hindu god sym-bolizes victory of good over evil.
The bishop countered that “the real Ram” represented tolerance, peace, justice and harmony.
