LEICESTER is the most multireligious British city outside London. A third of its population of 289,000 are Hindu, Muslim and Sikh. Only 16 per cent of the people in our Anglican parish of St Philip’s are Christians.
And this autumn we are especially conscious of this multiplicity of faiths, with Navratri — nine nights of Hindu prayer — coinciding with Ramadan; and Diwali, on November 1, when tens of thousands of Hindus and others celebrate on the streets, coming in the same week as Eid al-Fitr, the joyful Muslim festival that marks the end of the month of fasting. For these festivals to happen together is a rare occurrence.
This month around 80,000 have died so far in the devastating earthquake in Kashmir. This is the third huge disaster to hit the Asian subcontinent in the new millennium, and all three have been devastating to communities in Leicester: the Gujarat earthquake of 2001 (most Hindus and Muslims here are Gujaratis), the tsunami, and now Kashmir.
For the third time, the “why” questions have arisen. And why in a region which has more religious faith than anywhere in the world? Different religions give different answers to questions of suffering. Is it because of karma (a Hindu response), or because it is the inscrutable will of God (Muslim), or part of the human condition into which God entered in incarnation and the cross (Christian)? Or is the fact of suffering one of four noble truths (Buddhist)? A more practical challenge is how faiths respond to these sudden tragedies. Do they bring them closer together, or send them farther apart? The division between Muslim Pakistan and Hindu-dominated India has become all too apparent in the aftermath. There has been a tentative acceptance of Indian help to be sent to the much more afflicted Pakistan-administered Kashmir, and there is some optimistic talk of the earthquake leading to a solution to the 60-year division of Kashmir.
But Muslims living only 20 minutes’ walk apart cannot cross the truce line to check on the safety of their relatives. The Muslim ummah (unified community) is divided, village from village, by history and politics. However, help is flowing from all religious communities in Britain. It is good, for example, to see Islamic Relief alongside Christian Aid in the Disasters Emergency Committee.
Thoughts like this one, posted on a website from California, have been mercifully rare: “Almost all the victims of this earthquake were Muslims, and a number of Jihadists and their madrassas (schools) were destroyed. Do you think maybe God is punishing the Muslims for their extremist acts?” The Gujarat earthquake had an enormous impact in Leicester. Though there was an occasional dissident voice saying that the suffering had come as a punishment for the election of an extremist Hindu government in the State, in general there was a great coming together, symbolised in a joint prayer meeting broadcast on Radio Leicester. Vast sums of money were raised. An example was one Jain doctor who raised £60,000, and went himself to supervise its use in providing artificial limbs to many.
Aid was given regardless of religion, class or caste, though researchers have claimed that at least one organisation required those who were to be helped to chant “ram” in response. I met a missionary in Gujarat, and I was anxious, as a Christian, when she said that they could use the bringing of relief as an opportunity to bring people to Christ — a suggestion which echoes 19th-century accusations about “rice Christians”.
In contrast, the Bishop of Gujarat used aid from overseas churches to rebuild an almost entirely Hindu village, while he himself continued to live in a house half-destroyed by the quake.
The tsunami also brought out the best in so many. The mosque near my home in Leicester raised £250,000. A group went to supervise the building of an orphanage in Banda Aceh. One of this delegation spoke at our Muslim-Christian dialogue group. When I suggested we had a joint fundraising for another project, where Christians and Muslims had both died, in Sri Lanka, he said quietly to me: “Andrew, if you had seen the black corpses in Indonesia, you would not ask whether they were Christian or Muslim or Hindu or Buddhist — they are just human bodies, part of God’s creation.”
I felt appropriately rebuked for my narrowmindedness.
There are many stories of religious co-operation in the aftermath of the tsunami. An example is from Sri Lanka, where a Buddhist monastery had earlier suffered the slaughter of several monks at the hands of Tamil Tigers, mainly Hindus. Coastal Tamils bore the onslaught of the tsunami. They ran inland and, with great hesitation, sought help from the monks. To their amazement they were welcomed with open arms.
Another story is from Tamilnadu, South India, where a mosque is a short distance from a beautiful beach. The Muslims are not fisherfolk, and were therefore not affected by the tsunami, while Hindus and Christians suffered hundreds of deaths. Refugees were taken in to sleep and eat in the mosque. The Muslims cared for the bodies of the victims, cremating Hindus and burying Christians, and even placing crosses over Christian graves.
These stories show how faith communities came together in face of an unbelievable tragedy. Religions may differ on what to say but they can unite around what to do, and love of one’s neighbour without limit is in the heart of all faiths.
They unite, too, around the centrality of prayer or meditation. Referring to the earthquake this week, a Leicester Muslim said that it is not enough to speak of hope and take action, we must also engage in prayer. I think here of Bonhoeffer’s words, in very different circumstances, to the German Churches, that they should live only by “prayer and righteous action”.
Last month a wise imam who addressed the annual meeting of Leicester Council of Faiths said that Muslims must widen their concept of “religions of the book” (normally limited to Jews, Christians and Muslims) to embrace the religions of South Asia, since compassion should include the whole human race. Responses to disasters such as these show how this can happen. The challenge is to do this in our daily life.
A Christian friend wrote a prayer about the recent earthquake: “God the compassionate, loving and merciful . . . comfort those who have lost homes or families or friends. Energise and sustain all those engaged in rescue and relief. Encourage us to ask the hard questions about justice, about vested interests, about why? The lives of all are precious, poor and rich, Pakistani, Indian . . . We see the etching of your passion in the faces of the anguished as we ask “why?”
Andrew Wingate is the Bishop of Leicester’s adviser on interfaith relations, Director of St Philip’s Centre for Study and Engagement in a Multifaith Society, and Canon Theologian
