British Indians share bitter-sweet emotions from Queen’s state funeral

Among international royalty and political leaders from around the world invited to British Queen Elizabeth II's state funeral at Westminster Abbey here on Monday were hundreds of those conferred honours by the late monarch for community and military service, including members of the Indian diaspora in the UK.

"I feel a bitter-sweet emotion; on the one hand I am very grateful to have received an invite and feel privileged but at the same time, the circumstances are very unfortunate," said Pranav Bhanot, a councillor who was conferred a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to the community in Essex, south-east England, earlier this year.

"The Queen was like another grandmother, a dadi or nani like figure in my life… Her commitment to duty and service was quite inspirational and has certainly been something my family and I have looked up to,” he shared.

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Bhanot was among nearly 200 guests recognised in the Queen’s final Birthday Honours List in June and invited to join the 2,000-strong congregation, which included President Droupadi Murmu who represented India at the state funeral.

The community champions in the congregation at the historic Abbey received an invite from the Cabinet Office as per the Queen's wishes for their “extraordinary contributions” to the response to the Covid-19 pandemic and volunteering in their local communities.

Besides, there were also representatives of different faith groups who made up the "Procession of Faith Communities, Churches and the Clergy of the Royal Household" at the funeral. Among them was Rajnish Kashyap, General Secretary of the Hindu Council UK, who described it as a "real honour" and reflective of the late monarch's community-wide approach during the course of her 70-year reign as Britain’s longest-serving monarch.

"It was during her Golden Jubilee celebrations that the Queen made it clear that she was the sovereign for all her people and that our different religions show that God’s love extends in equal measure to the whole of humanity — a resonant echo of Sikh teachings that show the important commonalities between our different faiths,” said Lord Indrajit Singh, Director of the Network of Sikh Organisations (NSO), who represented the Sikh faith in the procession.

Others in the faith line-up included Nemu Chandaria from the Jain community in the UK, Venerable Bogoda Seelawimala from the Buddhist community and Shaykh Dr Asim Yusuf from the Muslim community, besides bishops and pastors representing churches of different parts of the UK.

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Many of them were also present at an audience with the new monarch, King Charles III, at Buckingham Palace on Friday evening when he pledged an “additional duty” of protecting the faith diversity of the UK.

"I have always thought of Britain as a community of communities," he said.

On Monday, Charles led the royal family in procession and prayer at the state funeral of his late mother, who will be laid to rest at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle. It will mark the culmination of the UK’s state mourning since the Queen breathed her last at Balmoral Castle in Scotland on September 8. It triggered an outpouring of grief as thousands of mourners turned out for what has been dubbed a modern-day pilgrimage to join Britain’s longest queue in history to pay their respects as the Queen’s coffin lay in state at Westminster Hall.