India Religious Leaders Trade Ideas With Pope

As Pope John Paul II sat down here Sunday to exchange views with leaders of 10 other religions, Indian security guards stopped a blue-turbaned Sikh trying to enter the assembly hall with a 4-foot sword.

The armed man, it turned out, was Bhai Manjit Singh Sahib, a Sikh guru. His chair, three places to the left of the pope, remained vacant for 30 minutes before he could persuade organizers that the ornate silver saber was a symbol of his religious authority, not a security threat.

Once inside the hall, he laid it proudly on the head table and joined belatedly in a remarkable hour of speeches appealing for religious tolerance and praising the Roman Catholic leader’s globe-trotting pursuit of that ideal.

Like the saga of the holy sword, John Paul’s three-day visit here, which ended today, has revealed an India plagued by religious suspicion and violence but committed to overcoming them.

After scores of bloody attacks in the past two years by Hindu fundamentalists protesting what they call “forced conversions” by Christian missionaries, the pope appeared to inflame the tensions Sunday by declaring that people “have the right to change their religion if their conscience so demands.”

Even so, weeks of Hindu threats that the pontiff would be confronted directly failed to materialize. India’s prime minister, whose party draws support from fundamentalist groups, welcomed the pope with heavy police security and pledges to guarantee freedom of worship.

Sunday was Diwali, the annual Festival of Lights for the subcontinent’s dominant Hindu faith, but Indians of all beliefs joined in the celebrations--much as non-Christians observe Christmas in the United States. About 80% of India’s 1 billion people are Hindu, and Diwali commemorates the slaying of a demon king by their warrior hero Rama, a triumph of good over evil.

As fireworks exploded across the nation, John Paul appropriated the holiday’s symbols at a morning Mass for 40,000 Catholics in New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. Diyas, traditional Hindu lamps, lined the altar.

“The church looks to the lay [Catholic] men and women of Asia to reflect the light of Christ wherever the darkness of sin, division and discrimination distorts the image of God in his children,” he told them.

About 10 protesters in an open truck earlier drove past the main gate of the stadium shouting slogans and waving a black flag, but they got nowhere within sight of the pope and were ignored by people streaming to the Mass.

Later, at the interreligious encounter in the capital’s Hall of Science, the pope blessed a Diwali candle held by an Indian woman, who then used it to light other candles in a tall brass lamp on the stage.

“How beautiful it is to see our people meeting in harmony,” said Rabbi Shri Ezekiel Isaac Malekar, surveying the gathering of several hundred Catholics, Orthodox Christians, Protestants, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Sikhs, Jains, Parsees and Bahais.

“A very happy Diwali to all!” the Jewish leader added.

The Hindu speaker, Shankaracharya Madhavandanda Saraswati, who didn’t join in protests against the pope’s visit, declared that most Hindus and Christians have “a relationship of love.” Seated next to John Paul, the saffron-clad spiritual teacher, one of India’s four most important Hindu leaders, clasped the white-robed pontiff’s hand twice during the event and raised it high.

The 79-year-old pope, who suffers symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, leaned his head wearily against his right palm as other speakers wished him a long life and a safe journey home.

It was an unusual outpouring of admiration, even for a man who has been promoting such interfaith gatherings throughout his 21-year papacy.

John Paul had called on Asian Catholic leaders Saturday to heed the Christian “call to conversion” and work harder in the next millennium to “penetrate the hearts of Asian peoples” with the belief that Jesus Christ is mankind’s only savior.

On Sunday, he took pains to distinguish between his church’s twin missions of reaching out to the leaders of other religions and seeking converts among their flocks.

“Dialogue is never an attempt to impose our own views upon others, since such dialogue would become a form of spiritual and cultural domination,” he said. “This does not mean that we abandon our own convictions. What it means is that, holding firmly to what we believe, we listen respectfully to others, seeking to discern all that is good and holy, all that favors peace and cooperation.”

Non-Christian religious leaders said later that they still had misgivings about the Catholic drive for converts--although only one, the Jain monk Acharya Mahaprajna, had alluded to the issue in his speech.

“Religious people are busier trying to increase the number of their followers than paying attention to the challenges that beset religion,” the monk said through a lavender surgical mask. Jains wear the masks to avoid killing microorganisms in the air, which is against their faith.

Changing one’s religion is “a fundamental right that nobody can deny,” said Samdhong Rinpoche, a Buddhist monk, concurring with the pope.

“But there is a clear line between being indoctrinated and answering one’s inner conscience,” he added in an interview. “Any kind of action to encourage or persuade or motivate someone in favor of a particular religion--that is a kind of conversion that as Buddhists we cannot recommend.”

Payl Kapur, a 22-year-old Hindu woman, said she came to Sunday’s Mass after deciding on her own that Hindu rituals were meaningless.

“Christianity is not forcing itself on anyone,” she said. “The Lord brought me to this point.”

*

Times staff writer Dexter Filkins contributed to this report.