The Christian Post | Voice | Will Indian Dalit get the same fair shake as Rishi Sunkak?
nataliemartyn2022-11-18T19:51:06+00:00The choice of Rishi Sunak as the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister illustrates that Western democracies are progressing and are effective at providing opportunities for minorities and people who were previously oppressed. The same statement was made by American democracy with the election of President Obama. Sunak, by sheer merit, has risen to the powerful position of prime minister. It’s a sterling example that truly pluralist democracies are the way forward. India and other developing democracies ought to learn from this. Other democracies are still on this journey to empower minorities and see them as equals. It is one of the great ironies that a man of Indian descent is leading the people of the United Kingdom, whom many still characterize as colonial oppressors, and yet in India we cannot seem to give a Dalit an opportunity as prime minister. At the state level, we have had Dalit chief ministers. Indian presidents are elected through a system by which the party in power in New Delhi generally gets the president they want, and we have now had Muslim, Dalit, and Tribal presidents. But it is the government in power and the prime minister which have executive power, and they ultimately rule the nation. So far, we have never had a Dalit or a Tribal prime minister. It is a further irony that in the war of words that erupted in India about Sunak’s rise to the prime minister position, many treated our former “oppressor,” England, as the one now to give lessons on how to treat a minority. In a scathing statement, Indian Congress leader P. Chidambaram tweeted, "First Kamala Harris, now Rishi Sunak. The people of the U.S. and the U.K. have embraced the non-majority citizens of their [...]