Newest Indian-origin peer brings Rig Veda to UK Parliament

From Aditi Khanna London, Sep 13 (PTI) Britain’s newest Indian-origin peermarked his entry to the House of Lords by swearing his oath ofallegiance to Queen Elizabeth II on the ‘Rig Veda’. Jitesh Gadhia took along his own later edition of theancient collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns dating back toaround 1,200 BC and has now gifted it to the BritishParliament. The 49-year-old investment banker of Gujarati-origin hadbeen nominated for his peerage as part of former PrimeMinister David Cameron’s resignation honours list and hecoincidentally took his oath of allegiance to the country’smonarch on the day Cameron announced his resignation fromParliament yesterday. "History will judge him (Cameron) to have been a greatreforming Prime Minister, who brought the country back fromthe financial brink. I will be joining Parliament at adefining moment in British history as we grapple with the newrealities post-Brexit," said Gadhia, who was accompanied atthe traditional swearing in ceremony dating back to 1621 byhis 90-year grandmother Gulabben Gadhia, mother Hansaben andwife Angeli. "Having multiple generations of my family with me forthis ceremony was hugely important. I wanted a copy of theoriginal Sanskrit text of the Rig Veda but my research took meto this edition," he explained. The copy of the ‘Rig Veda’ used by Gadhia, now LordGadhia, was edited and published in the traditional Devanagariscript in 1849 by German academic Max Muller, a well-knownpioneer of Vedic Studies in the West. Gadhia, board member of UK Government Investments Limitedand formerly managing director at private equity firmBlackstone Group, is well known in British Indian circles as aleading Conservative party donor. He had played an active roleduring Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the UK lastNovember and was a close aide of Cameron during his primeministership. Along with other new peers, he dressed up in traditionalred robes to take a writ from the serving monarch called theLetters Patent. As part of the investiture ceremony, newmembers pledge their allegiance to the monarch and sign theRoll of Peers and the House of Lords Code of Conduct in aceremony originally introduced by King James I. Over the pastfew years, new peers have been given the choice to choosetheir own religious text for the purpose. There has been some criticism of Cameron as havingcreated more peers than any other modern British primeminister, taking the total active membership of the House ofLords to more than 800 and making it one of the world’sbiggest legislative chambers. He also came under attack for using peerages and otherhonours to reward his Downing Street aides and keyConservative party figures. PTI AKAJR