US Senate makes history with first-ever Hindu prayer

Three Right-wing Christian group members arrested for disrupting proceedings The United States Senate made history on Thursday with the first-ever invocation of a Hindu prayer in its 218-year existence, but not before three shouting members of a Right-wing Christian group were arrested from the Visitors' Gallery for disrupting the solemn proceedings.

Chanting "we are Christians and patriots" before being led away in handcuffs, the trio termed it an "abomination" to call anyone other than a Christian to recite the customary daily prayer in the Senate chamber.

The protesters were apparently acting on the call of the Mississippi-based conservative group, American Family Association, and an affiliate calling itself "Operation Save America" which says it "unashamedly takes up the cause of preborn children in the name of Jesus Christ".

Once order was restored after the brief unseemly interlude, Rajan Zed, a prominent Hindu priest from Nevada, who had been personally invited by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for the occasion, delivered the prayer.

The India-born Zed, clad in saffron robes, intoned: "Let us pray. We meditate on the transcendental glory of the Deity Supreme, who is inside the heart of the Earth, inside the life of the sky and inside the soul of the heaven. May He stimulate and illuminate our minds."

"Lead us from the unreal to real, from darkness to light, and from death to immortality. May we be protected together. May we be nourished together. May we work together with great vigour. May our study be enlightening...Peace, peace, peace be unto all," he said, ending his prayer with a homage for the family of Lady Bird Johnson, wife of the late President Lyndon Johnson, who died two days ago.

Reid, the senior Democrat from Nevada, stoutly defended his decision to invite Zed, director of Inter-faith relations at a Hindu temple in Reno, for what Indian American bodies had hailed as a landmark event.

"I think it speaks well of our country that someone representing the faith of about a billion people comes here and can speak in communication with our heavenly Father regarding peace," said Reid.

"If people have any misunderstanding about Indians and Hindus, all they have to do is think of Gandhi, a man who gave his life for peace," he commented.

Zed was about to commence his prayer, when the three protesters - one male and two females - got into their disruptive act in the Visitors' Gallery. One of them was heard chanting: "Lord Jesus, have mercy on us. We shall have no other God before you." Said another: "Lord Jesus forgive us Father for allowing a prayer which is an abomination in your sight. You are the one, true living God."

A public protest of the sort, a rarity in US Congress, caught everyone by surprise, notwithstanding the calls issued several days ago by the American Family Association to its members to object to the Hindu prayer "seeking the invocation of a non-monotheistic God".

The three protesters, identified as Ante Nedlko Pavkovic, Katherine Lynn Pavkovic and Christan Renee Sugar, were charged with unlawful disruption of Congress.

It was not known if they all had been sent in by "Operation Save America", but the fringe group was quick to put out the news on its website and give out the names of the protesters. "We employ only biblical principles. The Bible is our foundation; the Cross of Christ is our strategy; the repentance of the Church of Jesus Christ is our ultimate goal," the group says about itself.

The US Senate, in its website, said: "Throughout the years, the United States Senate has honoured the historic separation on Church and State, but not the separation of God and State. During the past two hundred and seven years, all sessions of the Senate have been opened with prayer, strongly affirming the Senate's faith in God as sovereign lord of our nation."

Zed himself shrugged off the protest, saying the nation could use more dialogue between members of different faiths. "Every American should be honoured with this prayer. I understand we have seriously different philosophical traditions, but we should work for the common good and benefit of humankind," he said.

Sanjay Puri, chairman of the US India Political Action Committee, sent a letter to the American Family Association, denouncing its stand on the issue. "Religious diversity is an important aspect of our constitution and our rights as citizens. Organisations certainly have a right to protest, but the disruption of these proceedings was unnecessary and, frankly, un-American," he said. (S Rajagopalan | Washington/ The Pioneer/ July 14, 2007)