Extracts from Lords proceedings - Oct 17
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Extract from Lords debate on Brexit: Dispute Resolution and
Enforcement (European Union Committee Report) Lord Bilimoria (CB):
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, for leading
this debate and her committee for its excellent report. This debate
is full of noble Lords and noble and learned Lords from the UK
legal profession, which is respected around the world as the
finest, fairest and most just. I am humbled to be in this company,
having read law...Request free trial
Extract from Lords
debate on Brexit: Dispute Resolution and Enforcement
(European Union Committee Report) Extracts from Lords debate on Religious Intolerance and Prejudice Lord Gadhia (Non-Afl):...This evening, I will add a Hindu voice to this debate and, in doing so, I welcome the opportunity to speak alongside noble friends across all Benches, many of whom I would call kindred spirits in their outlook and ethos on this topic. There are around 1 million Hindus living in Britain today. The distinguishing feature of Hinduism is that it is not a religion in the traditional sense. We are not a faith with a codified belief system or a defined set of scriptures that proselytise an unchallengeable truth. We are seekers, not believers, on a quest for truth and meaning taking us wherever the evidence and experience leads. In finding truth, there are many and varied paths. That is why Hinduism is the ultimate big tent. It is as much a civilisation, with its origins in the Indus Valley, as a religion. Its contours, therefore, encompass philosophy, spirituality and a whole way of life, including practices such as yoga and meditation. As a consequence, being open to new ideas, respect for difference and embracing global influences are inbuilt in Hindu thought, stretching all the way back to the Rigveda, the oldest of the Vedic scriptures, which dates back to around 1500 BC. It includes a Sanskrit phrase, which I am fond of quoting: “Aano bhadra krtavo yantu vishwatah”. Translated, this means, “Let noble thoughts come to me from all directions”. Another often-quoted phrase is, “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam”. This means, “The whole world is one family”, and it is etched in the entrance hall of the Indian Parliament. A similar sentiment was expressed 125 years ago, at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago, by Swami Vivekananda, representing Hindus in India. He was widely acclaimed as the star speaker of this conference for advocating not just religious tolerance but universal acceptance. In Britain, Hindus provide a role model for how a community can integrate successfully and embrace British values, while retaining its cultural heritage and identity. As we speak, thousands of Hindus up and down the country are packed into school and community halls, participating in a colourful, nine-day festival called Navaratri. At the same time, they will be thinking of others less fortunate, and have organised initiatives such as the Navaratri food bank, providing meals to those of all faiths and none throughout the country. This is a live illustration of what the noble Lord, Lord Sacks, describes as The Dignity of Difference in his powerful book, which argues that we must do more than search for common human values; we must learn to make a space for difference. With that important background, I want to make the following four observations relevant for our present times. I will comment first on anti-Semitism, as many noble Lords have. As somebody who lives in north London and has grown up side by side and in harmony with the Jewish community, who respects and admires its achievements and shares many of the same intrinsic values, it is deeply distressing to witness its anguish at current events—so powerfully articulated by my noble friend Lord Kestenbaum. It is fair to say that British Indians often look to Jewish organisations such as the Board of Deputies, the Jewish Leadership Council or the Community Security Trust as role models for unity of purpose and effective participation in national life. If the British Jewish community is going through such an ordeal, we all need to take heed. It is even more distressing that individuals who have spoken out on this issue, such as my noble friend Lord Popat, who led an excellent debate in this House on 13 September, are now subject to smear campaigns. I say to those who believe that intimidation and innuendo will scare us off: you are mistaken. It will not. In fact, it will strengthen our resolve to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Jewish community until anti-Semitism is eradicated in all its forms... Lord Bilimoria (CB): My Lords, I shall tell you a story. Three years ago in Kerala in South India, the heart of a Hindu man was transported across Kerala for a Christian patient in dire need of a new one. Funds were raised by a Muslim businessman to pay for the operation which was performed by the state’s top heart surgeon: a Christian. Kerala is known as “God’s own country”. Over the centuries, people have come from different cultures and communities and travelled to live in Kerala—Jewish and Christian migrants, Arab merchants, European traders and colonisers. The city of Cochin—Kochi, as it is now called—has the oldest active synagogue and the oldest European church, both from the 16th century. Kerala is a symbol of religious co-existence—not just tolerance, but co-existence in a world that is struggling with virulent intolerance and violence, which is what this debate is all about. The state has a mix of three of the world’s largest religions—30% Muslim; 20% Christian and 50% Hindu. The essence of all this is when it comes to religion we are all too quick to focus on what divides us rather than what brings us together. The former Indian President, Peram Mukaji, said that a society as diverse as India can be governed only as a democratic, federal and pluralistic polity... ...There is one other fact that nobody else has mentioned, or probably will mention. One of the best lectures I attended at Harvard Business School was given by Professor Mahzarin Banaji, who is a fellow Parsi—and, ironically, hails from Hyderabad in India, where I too am from. She creates awareness of unconscious bias in self-professed egalitarians. She studies human thinking and feeling as it unfolds in social contexts, and her focus is on mental systems that operate in implicit or unconscious modes. How much unconscious bias exists, most often unintended, within social groups? We should all be aware of this. Professor Banaji has written a book, with Tony Greenwald, entitled Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People. His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who I have had the privilege of meeting, said: “India’s treasure is that all major religious traditions co-exist in harmony”. The Nobel laureate talked about “education for wisdom and compassion”, and said: “There are different spiritual traditions whose philosophies are also different, but all of them carry the same message of love. All religions teach us the practice of tolerance and have the same potential of bringing inner peace”. He stressed the need to get rid of conflict in the name of religion, and called upon people to “acknowledge each other as brothers and sisters and develop a sense of oneness with others ... a concern for other human beings without being self-centred or short sighted. We need a sense of global responsibility”... ...From a Zoroastrian perspective, my community—one of the smallest communities in the world—has full freedom to practise our ancient religion over here in the UK. We have never been persecuted. Yet to see the persecution of the Zoroastrians in Iran is very sad. One thing that worried me greatly when I came to this country in the early 1980s from India, is that I was told that this country had a glass ceiling for foreigners, and that if I ever wanted to work after I finished my studies I would never get to the top because I was a foreigner. That was so true, I am afraid to say, years ago. Today it has changed, and this country has evolved into a country of aspiration, where anyone can get anywhere, regardless of race, religion or background. I led a debate here a few years ago on the contribution of minority and ethnic religious communities to the culture and economy of Britain. In that debate, which some Members here tonight spoke in, it was said that we would not be where we are today—the fifth largest economy in the world—without the contribution of those minority communities.
In India there are only 59,000 Zoroastrian
Parsis out of a population of 1.25 billion; here there are less
than 6,000 of us out of a population of 65 million. Yet wherever
you go, people know who a Parsi is. Mahatma Gandhi said: “In
numbers they are beneath contempt, in contribution, beyond
compare”. Ambitiously, I say that by achievement per capita we
have done so well, going back to Cyrus the Great. Forget Magna
Carta: that is modern. In 539 BC, Cyrus the Great, with his
cylinder in the British Museum, issued the first bill of human
rights, in which he allowed people in his kingdom to practise
whatever religion they wished and allowed the Jewish community to
go back to their homeland... |