Faith & Identity…

Last December (’05) during an interview on GMTV’s Sunday Programme, Lord Carey of Clifton (Dr Williams’s predecessor as the Archbishop of Canterbury – the highest position in the Church of England, similar to the Catholic Pope) had this to say about Britain and Christianity:

“If you take the Christian faith out of British identity, what have you got left?…

That’s not to say you can’t be British and a Jew, or British and a Muslim. Of course I’m not saying that. But we are talking about a British identity. The majority of people in this land identify themselves by a common language, by common culture and by the implicitness of the Christian faith itself. It’s a very important part of our identity….

We can’t keep faith out of politics or out of public life. It’s part of our own identity.”

Try substituing Britain for India and Christian faith for Hindu faith. When would we have a Shankaracharya say this about Hinduism and Bharat?