The Pontiff & the Ayatollah

Keki Daruwalla

History is cold, almost torpid, or there would have been tremors when in March Pope Francis, in true Christian humility, went to Iraq and met the Grand Ayatollah, Ali al-Sistani. During the Crusades’ era, the Moorish conquest of Spain, with Ferdinand and Isabella to follow, this kind of a meeting could not have been imagined. But history did not bother — after all, it was not the Vatican coming to the Kaaba. The Pope met al-Sistani at his spartan residence. He had come as a gesture incarnate — also to say that Christians should remain immune to persecution in Iraq and other Middle East countries. Anti-Christian feelings were aroused by George Bush’s invasion of Iraq. It would not have been lost on other Muslim countries that he came to meet a senior cleric of the Shias, who comprise just 10 per cent of Muslims. He had previously been to Jordan and in 2017 he had gone and met the Grand Imam of Al Azhar, Sheikh Ahmed Al-Tayeb, a Sunni leader of renown. The larger symbolic occasion on the Pontiff’s visit to Iraq took place on the plains of Ur where God is said to have spoken to Abraham telling him to move to Canaan, which meant leave Iraq and proceed to the southern Levant — Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Israel. Sound advice, though a bit unkind to the land between the Euphrates and Tigris. At that moment, in the second millennium BCE, God himself was unaware of the Balfour Declaration and Israel coming up, and Arabs combining under Nasser to drive the Jews into the sea. But He had an inkling about Saddam Hussein, so He said quit Iraq. The more symbolic address took place at the house of Abraham, which still exists, decked with Vatican and Iraqi flags, from where the Pope spoke.

Could this meeting be called a diplomatic triumph for the Pope? I would discount any such speculation. It was just two very God-fearing, holy persons meeting. Both seemed to be burdened with history.

The Indian media, preoccupied with Amit Shah and Mamata Banerjee, not forgetting Jayalalithaa (though no one dared to talk about her corruption), had no time for some meeting of two old men in some unknown desert. Pope Francis also went to Mosul, where he criticised fanaticism among religions — hinting at the ISIS, which had committed barbarities against Yezdis, Christians and Muslims also. Just as Dresden had been turned into a ruin during the war by Allied bombing, Mosul had been laid waste by the Islamic State. Such aberrations will erupt; some Mahdi will turn up with a fake message from above.

Let us turn to nearer climes, the Indian Ocean and Sonar Bangla. It was very good to see the Prime Minister’s Bangladesh visit. Especially noteworthy was the temple tour. He visited the temple at Orakandi and reached out to the Matua community there, and started by saying, “Who would have thought that India’s PM would come to Orakandi?” We, as humble listeners, were on the same page with the PM. I also thought that Bangladesh must be having a sizeable community of Matuas for the PM to make such an effort. Then light began to fall with the very next sentence he spoke. “Today I share the same feelings which my lakhs of Matua brothers and sisters living in India experience after coming to Orkandi.” He was nailing our ignorance one after the other. I did not know that he had brothers and sisters in Bangladesh among Matuas. There were other speeches in other temples, other deities. But did the words help in our relations with Bangladesh and its people? Did the trip give a push to our MEA initiatives, if any, towards our most friendly neighbour? Diplomacy can be made subservient to national interests. But it should not be made subservient to party interests, especially during a fierce electoral battle.

The Home Minister of Maharashtra, Anil Deshmukh, charged with asking the police to collect a hundred crores per month, held his ground for a fortnight. He was awaiting an auspicious moment to quit, he may be a believer in the dark or lighted phase of the moon? Then the High Court got the CBI into the act and he resigned. Both Deshmukh and Pawar stand diminished due to the delay.

The Chief Minister of Uttarakhand, Tirath Singh Rawat, kept us amused with remarks on torn jeans worn by girls. That can be forgiven. The next remark was insidious. He stated a day before the spring solstice on March 20 that people with fewer ‘units’, meaning family members — Rawat is very articulate — got less rations during the lockdown than those “who reproduced 20”. The dart was aimed obviously at Muslims. He needs to read reports on our demography. Muslims are ‘producing’ almost as few children as others are.

But let us skip the nitty-gritty, grittier than usual, of political India, the €1 million commission allegation from France, cow slaughter prosecutions under the NSA in Uttar Pradesh thrown out by the Allahabad High Court. Let us just celebrate. VS Gaitonde’s 1961 Zen-inspired canvas, a fine meditative piece, has sold for Rs39.98 crore, breaking all Indian records.