Top UK church leader to visit Amritsar, may tender apology
Thursday, 01/08/2019
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LONDON:: Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury and a leading figure in the British establishment, will visit Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar on September 9 during his 10-day India tour where he is likely to offer an apology for the 1919 massacre that Theresa May could not quite do as Prime Minister. The Archbishop would give a “transparent account of what happened” aware his comments would have “ramifications” as far as the Indian diaspora in the UK was concerned.
Welby, 63, who will be accompanied by his wife Caroline, will the first head of the Church of England to visit the memorial to one of the defining episodes of India’s freedom struggle. He will also meet Sikh religious leaders at the Golden Temple.
Richard Sudworth, the archbishop’s adviser of inter-religious affairs, said on Wednesday that meeting Sikh, Hindu and Muslim leaders for inter-religious dialogues will be one of the themes of his visit to Kottayam, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Medak, Jabalpur, Kolkata and Amritsar from August 31 to September 10.
On Jallianwala Bagh, Sudworth recalled that the archbishop had tweeted a statement on its anniversary in April, and said: “You can expect a fulsome and very transparent account of what happened with the moral implications as a Christian leader. It is something we regard with real seriousness as a moment of recognising some of the sins of our history on order to move forward with goodwill ”.
The archbishop of Canterbury is entitled to sit in the House of Lords. His high-profile status in British society ensures that his opinions on issues of the day gain much traction in public discourse.
