BBC claimed it was the grandest reception ever seen at the White House.
I wondered if any head of the state in India would receive any religious leader in similar fashion.
I bet even L K Advani would not do it. India’s first prime minister J L Nehru frowned upon the overt religiosity of India’s first president- Rajendra Parsad.
The White House ceremony also partly explained why some of my Hindu NRI cousins and friends have turned rabidly religious since they went to USA.
America is a Christian nation and has been one since its birth. No wonder it’s always working on promising new treatments for what it calls ‘heresies’ around the world.
Artist: Ed Fisher The New Yorker 4 December 1989
It was indeed disconcerting to watch pope being received in such an obsequious fashion by the head of the State. It was even more surprising since people here love to emphasize that America is a Christian (meaning protestant) nation as opposed to a Catholic one and are very proud of that fact as they perceive Catholicism as ritualistic and corrupt.
ReplyDeleteHowever, your observation that such overt displays of Christian/Catholic religiosity may explain your cousins' and friends turn to rabid Hindutavavad is not consistent with what I have observed here. As regular practice such displays of religiosity are very rare and there is hardly any insecurity that stems from them. Also, the Indian community being so tight knitted here allows for Hindu displays of religiosity as well. I think the reasons are much more perverse than some kind of pop-psychology explanations of insecurity and alienation.
I agree with you Chetan. Reasons are very complex.
ReplyDeleteThey have turned rabid, there is no question about it.
I was perhaps seeing one possible reason on the lawns of the white house.