INDIA, May 25, 2006: India’s government has expressed displeasure over Pope Benedict XVI’s remarks alluding to religious intolerance and laws restricting religious freedom in the country, the Apostolic Nunciature has confirmed. India’s Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma told the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of India’s parliament, that his ministry summoned the charge d’affaires stationed at the nunciature in New Delhi to express the government’s displeasure about the pope’s comments. Media reports quoted the minister as informing the upper house that his office conveyed to the Vatican representative in “no uncertain terms” that the government disapproved of the pope’s comments. Pope Benedict made the comments May 18 while welcoming Ambassador Amitava Tripathi, India’s new ambassador to the Holy See. In a written speech, the pope called on the Indian government to “firmly reject” what he described as “disturbing signs of religious intolerance which have troubled some regions of the nation, including the reprehensible attempt to legislate clearly discriminatory restrictions on the fundamental right of religious freedom.”
Sharma said the Vatican representative was told that the pope was “not properly briefed on the secularism and religious tolerance prevailing in India.” The minister assured the members of the upper house that the government’s response was “firm, appropriate and timely.” Sharma spoke in the Rajya Sabha after members of the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP, Indian people’s party) denounced the papal comments as interference in the internal affairs of India. Right-wing Hindu groups reacted sharply after television channels and newspapers described the pope’s speech as a “tirade” against India. Members of Dharma Sena (religious army) set fire to the pope’s effigy on May 20 in at least six district headquarters of the central state of Madhya Pradesh, as Hindu leaders across the nation criticized the pontiff.