ASIA/INDIA - He was also a Pope for the Sikh: the acknowledgment of the Indian believers with a turban

New Delhi (Fides Agency) - The Sikh believers in India pay homage, respect and honour to John Paul II, as they say in a message sent to Fides by a few Sikh leaders. Also Manmohan Singh, the present Prime Minister of the Indian Federation, is a Sikh believer, a cult founded by guru Nanak Dew at the end of the XV century.
In their message to Fides, the Sikh remember with joy that they were invited to the two great interfaith meetings organised by John Paul II in Assisi, in 1986 and in 2002: “The meeting of the Sikh leaders, Giani Joginder Singh Vedanti, Jathedar, Akal Takht, with John Paul II in January 2002 has been an historical event for us. It was a great opportunity for dialogue, joy and peace”.
Furthermore, the Sikh of the whole world remember the powerful moral support of the Pope in their struggle in defence of human rights, by which the Pope and all the Catholics struggled against any religious, social and cultural discrimination and in defence of the freedom and the rights of every person.
The Sikh doctrine rose as a synthesis of Hinduism and Islam: from the former it took the notions of karma and samara, from the latter its monotheism, the refusal of images and castes, with some traits typical of the Sufi Islamic mysticism.
(P.A.) (Fides Agency 5/4/2005 lines 16 words 132)