india

Updated: Jan 14, 2015 00:52 IST

Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, believes India is safe for the Muslim community, and the degree of security can be a ray of hope for the persecuted Shia community in Pakistan.

“Pakistan is a Muslim country but Shias are not safe there. But Muslims are safe in India. The Shia community should come to India and (be) safe,” he said on Tuesday at a programme organised by the Presidency University in Kolkata. The Tibetan spiritual leader added that Indian Muslims can offer lessons in Sunni-Shia harmony as the Shias are safe in India.

State education minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Partha Chatterjee was left shocked when the Dalai Lama remarked that he is a ‘Marxist’. “I am a Marxist and still a Marxist (sic),” he said. “Many Marxist leaders are now capitalists in their thinking. It depends on their motivation, thinking and a wider perspective.”

TMC chief Mamata Banerjee’s hatred of the Marxist leaders in Bengal is well known. Moreover, the TMC has been campaigning stridently that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government is persecuting the Muslims in India.

Citing the example of West Bengal which was ruled for 34 years by the Marxists, he said though some leaders who professed socialism “turned bourgeois”, he still preferred socialism to capitalism.