Indian Christians pray for Arafat
John Dayal remembers his interviews with the Palestinian leader during the years of war in the Lebanon.
New Delhi (AsiaNews) "India and Indian Christians are saddened at the passing away of Yasser Arafat and are praying for him and for peace in the Holy Land," said John Dayal, president of the All India Catholic Union, in an interview with AsiaNews.
From 1970 till the late 1980s, Mr Dayal was a diplomat and a foreign correspondent and frequently met the Palestinian leader in New Delhi and other world capitals.
"Arafat," the Christian activist said, "was a frequent visitor to India, especially during the long period when Indira Gandhi was Prime Minister. Even during the rightwing rule of the Bharatiya Janata party, when the government became economically and militarily close to Israel, India continued to support his cause. India was in fact the first country ever to recognize the Palestine Liberation organisation."
Indian Christians, like their fellow Indians, also remember Arafat as a symbol during the Cold War of the entire liberation struggles of the peoples of Asia and Africa against imperialism and neo-colonialism. "He fought for the liberation of his people event though his struggle did not justify hijacking airplanes or other acts of terror," Mr Dayal said.
"India Christians," he added, "expressed solidarity towards Christian Palestinians several times, especially those of Bethlehem and Jerusalem and other symbolically important places. In the past, Israeli governments have deprived the Palestinian people of religious freedom and economic opportunities, frustrating its legitimate religious and economic demands".
For Dayal, the most memorable moment of all were the interviews with Arafat in 1982-1983 when Palestinian strongholds in Beirut and elsewhere in Lebanon were bombed by Israeli troops. "Arafat chose me for an important interview, " he recalled, "which he gave one night in the basement of a building that must have been hit sometime earlier and was therefore secure till the next round or shelling". Eventually, Arafat was left Beirut under an international agreement. "I saw him off," Mr Dayal recalled, "with thousands of Palestinian youth who fired their weapons in the air in salute and desperate farewell."
India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh honoured Arafat's death by calling him "a friend of India".
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