ASIA/PAKISTAN - Cardinal Coutts: "We are brothers and sisters, we are children of one Mother"

Rome (Agenzia Fides) - "In a time of tension, we can only call for prayer for peace between India and Pakistan. We must rediscover our roots: we are brothers and sisters because we are children of one Mother, as Mahatma Gandhi used to say," said Pakistani Cardinal Joseph Coutts, Archbishop Emeritus of Karachi, who participated in the conclave and the Mass celebrating the beginning of the pontificate of Pope Leo XIV, in an interview with Fides. "Today, we feel the urgency to do something for authentic peace," the Cardinal continued. "We as citizens and as religious communities in India and Pakistan can and will promote a culture of peace to defuse hatred, disarm hearts, and educate people to forgiveness. Our political leaders should therefore do something concrete in the form of an agreement, because the Kashmir conflict is a political issue, with the governments of the two nations continuing to accuse each other."
Historically, Cardinal Coutts noted, the problem dates back to the time of independence from the British Empire: "Muslims in Kashmir did not want to be part of India. At that time, it was said that citizens had a choice: if they were Muslim, they belonged to Pakistan; if they were Hindu, they belonged to India. However, this was not the case for Kashmir, because the kingdom's Hindu Raja chose India, even though this went against the wishes of the people and the general situation. This is where the conflict arose." "Back then," the Cardinal said, "we were truly brothers and sisters, a people fighting together for liberation from the colonial yoke. This fraternity must be rediscovered today and is the path to building a just and lasting peace for the future. We must return to the words of Mahatma Gandhi, who said: For two thousand years we have lived together as one people, we are all children of one mother, Mother India. But today Gandhi is forgotten and not even taught in schools," he notes with a certain bitterness.
"Political nationalism," Cardinal Coutts continued, "has complicated the situation over the years; clashes and wars have fueled tensions between peoples with the same history and culture. This makes us realize the senselessness of this war. Back then, the goal was to create two nations that would grant equal rights to all citizens and live in peace. The leaders of the independence process, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Mohandas Gandhi, and Jawaharlal Nehru, envisioned two sister nations. Let us return to that desire. Today, we are called to live together as good neighbors."
Cardinal Coutts recalls his episcopal motto, "Harmony": "I would like to apply it both to relations within Pakistan, as the fruit of interreligious and intercultural dialogue and the cultivation of benevolent relations between the various communities, and to relations with the outside world, especially with India: Our desire is that we can build bridges, reach out to one another, and reconcile ourselves to live in harmony," he concludes. (PA) (Agenzia Fides, 20/5/2025)

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