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On November 22, 1953, a tiny Reuters dispatch from Leh appeared in The New York Times with the headline Indians get out of Red Sinkiang. After a journey of 500 miles through the western Himalayas, nineteen Indians have arrived here from southern Sinkiang in Communist China, the wire service reported. These were believed to be the last Indians who left the western Chinese province (now spelt in English as Xinjiang), ending a presence that is believed to have lasted at least several hundred years. The group was led by a vice counsel in Kashgar, who looked after Indian interests for three years after the Indian consulate in the fabled city was closed.

The exodus of Indians fearing Communist rule in Xinjiang, which took place in the late 1940s and early 1950s, closed a long chapter of history where people, goods, ideas, religion and culture moved in both directions across the Himalayas.

Chinese Buddhist monk and scholar Xuanzang, who visited India on a pilgrimage in the 7th century CE, travelled through the Khyber Pass and Hindu Kush to Kashgar and Khotan before heading back to eastern China, carrying with him sacred manuscripts. Indian Buddhist culture once thrived in the Khotan Oasis and spread from there all the way to the eastern coast of China.

Like Xuanzang, a community of traders from different parts of the Indian subcontinent travelled to Xinjiang either via Badakshan, Afghanistan, or Kashmir and Gilgit or the onerous and treacherous path from Ladakh through the Karakoram Pass, Karakoram Mountains and the Taklamakan Desert.

The one from Ladakh, which was much frequented by the traders, was a gruelling test of endurance and determination, with at least four mountain passes averaging heights of over 17,600 feet having to be crossed, Madhavi Thampi, who taught Chinese history at Delhi University for 35 years, wrote in her book Indians in China, 1800-1949. The journey to Yarkand in Xinjiang took on an average 38 days.

Indian traders are not known to have documented the rigours of the journey, but in 1925, Russian artist, writer and philosopher Nicholas Roerich wrote about his trip from Kashmir and Ladakh across the Karakoram Pass in great detail: It is impossible to describe the beauty of this multi-day snow kingdom. Such diversity, such expressiveness of outlines, such fantastic cities, such multi-coloured streams and streams and such memorable purple and moonlit rocksAt the same time, the striking sonorous silence of the desert. And people stop quarrelling with each other, and all differences are erased, and everyone, without exception, absorbs the beauty of the mountain desolation.

Leaving aside the romantic writing of Roerich, this was a journey that came at a heavy cost of human and animal life. The trail across the Karakoram Pass was littered with the bones of dead humans and animals. It was rare for caravans to make the trip without loss of life or goods.

Located in the heart of Central Asia and sandwiched between an expanding Russian Empire and British India, Xinjiang was one of the main theatres of the Great Game, the diplomatic and political confrontation between London and Moscow in the 19th and 20th century.

Indian traders began crossing the Karakoram Mountains long before the British colonised the country, and the presence of an Indian community in the western fringes of China was seen as an asset for London. Attempts to set up a diplomatic mission in Xinjiang were in full swing in 1890 when Francis Younghusband went on an expedition to the area. His interpreter George Macartney would stay on in Kashgar. It however took 18 years before the Chinese agreed to recognise him as the consul general, giving him the official right to intervene in legal matters when it involved Indians.

CS Cumberland, a British major who visited Xinjiang in the 1890s and wrote Sport on the Pamirs and Turkistan Steppes, was of the belief that Indians helped enhance British soft power in the region. He wrote, I consider that the friendly feeling and respect shown to Englishmen in Chinese Turkestan is entirely due to the reports of our traders.

Caravans of horses, mules and camels took Indian spices, tea, cotton, sugar, opium and dyestuffs to Xinjiang. From the other direction came carpets, charas, green tea, silk, precious stones, gold and silver.

Until the 1940s the cities of Yarkand, Kashgar and Khotan had active and clearly visible Indian communities, comprising of traders from Punjab, Ladakh, Kashmir and Sindhs Shikarpur. Most of them would stay in their own serais.

The actual trade between India and Sinkiang via the high Karakoram Pass was controlled by Punjabi Hindu merchants from the town of Hoshiarpur, French historian Claude Markovits wrote in his book titled The Global World of Indian Merchants, 1750-1947.

These Punjabis mainly belonged to the Khatri caste and worked both on their own and as agents of other traders. They were in general treated well by the Chinese authorities, although they had to bear some discriminatory measures such as not being allowed to wear turbans or ride horses within the town, Thampi wrote.

Many of these traders would split their time between Xinjiang and Punjab, with some managing to accumulate vast fortunes. The British authorities managed to recruit some of them to work as informers and interpreters, and also to keep an eye on Russian activity in the region.

The British were happy to reward such traders for their services and loyalty. A declassified letter dated October 26, 1893 shows the approval of a monthly pension of Rs 50 to one Jowala Bhaggat, a trader who moved back permanently to Punjab. Jowala Bhaggat, now between 70 and 80 years of age, is the well-known Yarkand trader who rendered on many occasions, as the correspondence submitted shows, conspicuous services to the British Government and its officers from whom he holds very high testimonials, HC Fanshawe, Officiating Secretary Punjab, wrote in the letter to the Foreign Department.

The southern areas of Xinjiang also had a presence of Kashmiri Muslim traders. Khotan, Yarkand and Kashgar all had streets that were inhabited by Kashmiris.

While some were seasonal traders, a number of them stayed on in Xinjiang for so long that they lost their ties with their homes in India and considered themselves as locals for all practical purposes, according to Thampi. Some Kashmiris married Uyghur women and bought land and were so integrated into to the local culture that they spoke the Uyghur language better than Kashmiri, which they slowly forgot.

In 1949, when the descendants of such people wanted to move back to India, it was more difficult for them to establish their Kashmiri identity with the Indian authorities.

An Indian community that earned notoriety and the ire of the Uyghurs and Chinese was the Shikarpuris. The diaries of the Kashgar agency, which would become the British consulate in the city had detailed information about the Shikarpuris in Xinjiang, according to Markovits. It gives a fairly detailed, although extremely hostile account of the activities of Shikarpuri moneylenders in southern Sinkiang or Kashgaria (there is no evidence of a Shikarpuri presence in the rest of this huge territory), from the 1890s to the 1940s, which saw the last Shikarpuris leave the region, the French historian wrote.

By 1907, there were 500 Shikarpuri moneylenders in the region. They had a so-called shah-gumastha system where the shah advanced capital to junior partners, the gumasthas, who had no capital of their own but were engaged to travel and collect debts. Some of these gumasthas were described as bad characters, men against whom there were cases in Shikarpur for housebreaking, according to Markovits. Their exactions against the local population in the course of collecting debts, in particular their seizing of women and children as sureties, led to a string of protests from the Uyghur peasantry, which were relayed by the Chinese authorities to the British consular authorities.

The British consular officers used to regularly receive complaints about the moneylenders, who were accused of charging exorbitant interest (12% per month), not returning bonds despite loans being fully paid up and forcibly keeping people in confinement until loans were paid back.

Allen Robert Shuttleworth, who was a British consular officer in Kashgar, wrote that the Chinese and the British were ready to help the Shikarpuris collect their debts but there was no satisfying the moneylenders who he called vultures and an unlovable lot.

By 1909, half of the Shikarpuris were sent back to India. Others managed to stay on in Xinjiang until 1933, when an Uyghur uprising against the Chinese led to violence against the moneylenders. The violence claimed several Indian lives and led to a flight of most Shikarpuris, although some stayed back until the early 1940s.

While the risks that Indians took to trade and live in Xinjiang were rewarded, they were often caught up in business disputes with Chinese and Uyghurs, and amongst themselves. When the British consular authorities would visit cities such as Yarkand, they would be flooded with petitions and requests to settle business disputes.

When the disputes involved Chinese subjects, Macartney would intervene with the authorities. Xinjiang had a system in place through which arbitrators would be appointed to settle these disputes. The corruption in the bureaucracy in the region, well documented in Nicholas Roerichs Altai-Himalaya, was also a major hindrance to resolving disputes.

Thampis book documents a communal riot between local Muslims and Hindus in Yarkand when a Muslim woman was found in the room of a Hindu cook. The situation threatened to spiral out of control, but the Chinese authorities took swift action, including fining the cook, administering mild beatings on those who used insulting languages against Muslims and a gift of carpets. Muslim rioters were also punished with similarly mild beatings and banned from slaughtering cows or selling beef in front of Hindu serais.

Indians would sometimes get in the crossfire between warlords who would seize power in the large territory. With each change in the power structure came a new set of rules and regulation from increased property taxes to a clampdown on the sale of charas.

The most lucrative period for Indian traders in Xinjiang was right after the Bolshevik Revolution, when chaos in Russia led to minimal trade with the country. By the 1930s, the Soviet Union had become a major industrial force and built good road and railway infrastructure up to the borders of Xinjiang. It became financially unviable for many Indian traders to live and work in the region. The death knell to the Indian presence in Xinjiang was the victory of the Communists in the Chinese Civil War and Beijings subsequent exertion of stronger authority over western China. The final exodus to India began in 1949, with some Uyghurs also crossing over the Karakoram Pass to Ladakh and Kashmir.

In 2021 the diplomatic relationship between India and China is far from ideal, but there is no dispute over the boundary at the Karakoram Pass. If trade over the pass were reopened, places like Ladakh, which once hosted Central Asian serais and was a major trade hub, would benefit enormously from the new opportunities. Indians would also be able to gain from the opportunities on the other side of the Karakoram Mountains given how much China is investing in its Belt and Road initiatives.

Ajay Kamalakaran is a writer and independent journalist, based in Mumbai. He is a Kalpalata Fellow for History & Heritage Writings for 2021.

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An Indian business community had thrived in Xinjiang before the Communists took over in China - Scroll.in

One of the many issues thrown up by the Talibans seizure of power has been the question of providing official recognition to the Taliban-led government or the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Should the Indian government provide diplomatic recognition to the Taliban government? Or should it refuse to recognise the Taliban on grounds of its violent overthrow of the previous Afghan government and the unreserved use of terrorism (both, locally and abroad)? This, of course, is quite different from mere engagement or dialogue with the Taliban. States are frequently compelled to interact and negotiate with a wide variety of non-state actors to serve their interests whilst still denying them legitimacy on the global stage. What should Indias policy be moving forward?

One line of thought would argue that India must accept the ground realities in Kabul. It is an obvious fact that the Taliban is in control and so recognition must logically flow from that. Consideration of values should not cloud New Delhis judgement. After all, there are a whole host of Islamic states that have questionable human rights records that India recognises and fruitfully engages with. There are two other compelling reasons. First, India has significant interests at stake that may be harmed by delayed recognition or non-recognition. Concerns over cross-border terrorism, radicalisation, drug trade, etc. can hardly be addressed in the absence of a sustained dialogue with whoever occupies the seat of power in Kabul. Second, if India refuses to recognise the Taliban, it may strengthen the hand of its regional rivalsPakistan and Chinaleading to a further intensification of national security threats on its northern frontier.

However, such arguments and their underlying assumptions are somewhat flawed. India had adopted precisely this line of reasoning in 1949 with communist China and failed. The Nehru government felt compelled to provide early recognition to the communists despite close ties with the previous Kuomintang government and Chiang Kai-Shek during the interwar period. There were many similar forces in play. Nehru believed communist Chinas goodwill was crucial to ensure a peaceful border settlement and to prevent the rise of communists in India. The reticence to provide similar recognition to the Bolsheviks in 1918 by the West, Nehru argued, was the main reason behind the inability of the Western powers and Russia to forge a common alliance to effectively counter Nazi Germany. So, Nehru proceeded to provide early and unconditional recognition and also chose to maintain Indias diplomatic mission in Beijing. He then successfully persuaded Commonwealth countries to follow suit, despite strong reservations about whether the communists would honour Chinas previous international legal obligations and would refrain from the use of force across the Taiwan straits as well as in Tibet and Hong Kong. Nehru also championed the cause of communist Chinas UN membership.

But did early recognition change anything in communist Chinas policy? No. Communist China continued to be suspicious of Indias intentions in Tibet and the bourgeois nature of its regime and elites. Moreover, it was Indias early recognition that gave Mao Zedong confidence in his plans to annex Tibet through force in 1950. Goodwill proved to be an ineffective tool of deterrence. Mao did not risk such offensives in Hong Kong or Taiwan. A very different trajectory can be seen in Pakistan-China ties. Being overzealous in its pursuit of US military aid, Pakistan ceded closer ties with communist China initially. They made no attempt to build goodwill or provide any reassurances to the latter. Still, when the opportunity for collaboration against India arose after the 1962 War, the two were not bogged down by previous inhibitions.

The lesson here is clear: In the absence of compelling shared interests, building mere goodwill through early recognition provides no returns. Does India have any such compelling shared interests with the Taliban?

All Nehrus early recognition did was to cede Indias only leverage vis--vis communist China. This is one of the key takeaways from Vijay Gokhales new book The Long Game: How the Chinese negotiate with India. Nehru could have used recognition of communist China to draw concessions on the disputed frontier or at the very least to restrain Chinas dealings with Tibet. Similarly, it is far from clear if early and unconditional recognition of the Taliban government will help India achieve any of its regional security objectives. In fact, it may compromise the only leverage the international community and India have. With its rhetorical efforts to appear moderate, the Taliban has not demonstrated sincerity, but rather a reluctant acceptance of the fact that legitimacy on the global stage is a social good that cannot be achieved through force. Surely, New Delhi must engage the Taliban. But in a manner that uses the Talibans need for social recognition to draw concrete concessions on key interest areas.

The writer is reading for a DPhil in Area Studies at the University of Oxford and is the Managing Editor of Statecraft Daily.

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In dealing with Taliban, India must remember consequences of rushing to recognise communist China in 1949 - The Indian Express

Two skyscrapers are illuminated during a light show to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China on June 25, 2021, in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. (Liu Yan / VCG via Getty Images)

Has the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 100 this year, become capitalist? Since the introduction of Deng Xiaopings economic liberalization reforms 40 years ago, more than 800 million people have been lifted out of poverty and the one-party state now leads the worlds second-largest economythe largest if calculated in purchasing power parity, with 18 percent of global GDP. The introduction of the market economy and the acceleration of growth have gone hand in hand with an exponential rise in inequality: The Gini coefficient, which measures the extent of inequality, rose by 15 points between 1990 and 2015 (latest available figures)

Translated by Hunter Wilson-Burke.This essay continues our exclusive collaboration with Le Monde Diplomatique, monthly publishing jointly commissioned and shared articles, both in print and online. To subscribe to LMD, go to mondediplo.com/subscribe.

These changes have facilitated growth in the private sector, but the state maintains direct control over large portions of the economythe public sector accounts for around 30 percentmaking China a textbook case of state capitalism. Moreover, the CCP has largely succeeded in co-opting the elites produced by this liberalized economy. But if communist ideology no longer informs party recruitment, its Leninist organizational structure remains central to the relationship between state and capital.

The CCP, which continues to grow and now has some 95 million members (around 6.5 percent of the population), has gradually transformed itself into a white-collar organization. In the early 2000s, then-President Jiang Zemin lifted the ban on recruiting entrepreneurs from the private sector, previously seen as class enemies, so that the CCP would no longer represent only the revolutionary classesworkers, peasants, and the militarybut also the countrys advanced productive forces.

The selected businessmen and women become members of the political elite, ensuring that their businesses are at least partially protected from predatory officials. Their enrollment into the CCP has accelerated under President Xi Jinping (from 2013 onward), with the aim of forming a group of individuals from the business world who are determined to march with the Party.

As a result, the CCP has rapidly become more and more elitist. In 2010, professionals and managers with higher education qualifications already equaled peasants and workers in number. Ten years later, they have overtaken them, making up 50 percent of the membership, compared to less than 35 percent of workers and peasants.

While working for communism was one of the main reasons for joining the Party during the Maoist era (194976), todays motivations are more pragmatic: primarily to facilitate ones professional advancement. Indeed, internal training courses show that the CCP presents itself as a neoliberal-inspired managerial structure, aiming at efficient management of the population and the economy.

However, the minimal importance accorded to communist ideology does not lessen the high level of allegiance and Party spirit demanded of CCP members. Similarly to corporate culture, this is focused on ensuring the success of the Party itself by creating a sense of belonging. It is also tinged with nationalism. Members are regularly reminded of the Partys centrality in the transformation of China, either during training sessions or through the development of red tourismvisiting places linked to the history of the revolution. Current Issue

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Under Xi Jinping, internal discipline has also got stronger. The aim is to guarantee the morality and loyalty of both leaders and members through a massive anti-corruption campaign. Not only have potential opponents of Xis personal power been removed, but control over officials has increased, as has the fight against the four bad [professional] styles: formalism, bureaucratism, hedonism, and extravagance.

This injunction to loyalty and professional ethics, in line with the image the CCP wishes to present to the general public, applies to all its members, including those from the private sector. According to Party guidelines, they are expected not only to remain loyal to the party line, but also to regulate their words and actions, cultivate a healthy lifestyle, and remain modest and discreet. And those who do not play the game may suffer consequences. The charismatic Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba Group, is a prime example. After openly criticizing the states stranglehold on the banking sector, he became the target of an orchestrated attack by Party authorities.

The initial public offering of Ant Group, a financial subsidiary of Alibaba Group, was halted at the end of 2020, and the group was ordered to limit its operations. This incident demonstrates the CCPs willingness to use pressure as a means of ensuring loyalty from entrepreneurs and as a way of maintaining a degree of control over their companies financial and technological resources.

Ant Group holds valuable personal and financial data on the hundreds of millions of people who use its payment tools and online loans; the equivalent of billions of dollars flows daily through its platforms. The increased control over the private sector is in line with the CCPs hegemonic tendencies, characteristic of the Xi era. The Partys charter was amended in 2017 to emphasize that in government, the army, society and schoolsin the east, west, south and norththe Party leads on all fronts.

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In companies, this translates into an increase in the number of grassroots organizations or party cells. As early as 2012, the CCPs Organization Department, whose mission is to manage human resources, issued a directive calling for exhaustive coverage of the private sector, and since 2018 companies listed on the Chinese market have been obliged to set up a Party cell: Now 92 percent of Chinas 500 largest companies have one. Although no precise figures have been made public, regular leaks reveal the high presence of members and cells in foreign companies operating in China.

This presence provides the Party with leverage even beyond the large parts of the economy it owns. The CCPs disciplinary apparatus, embodied by the Discipline and Inspection Committee, is able to hand out extrajudicial punishments to members who have failed to comply with its rules, and its powers have been enhanced by the anti-corruption campaign. Sessions of criticism and self-criticism, known as democratic life meetings, have been revived as a means of rooting out corrupt or disloyal officials. Traditional Maoist practices are thus recycled, no longer focusing on the ideological purity of Party officials and members but on their allegiance to the organization and its leader.

Until now, Party cells played a minor role in companies: They mainly recruited members and organized courses or social and cultural activities. Now, with the aim of developing a modern enterprise system with Chinese characteristics, guidelines have been issued requiring private companies to adhere to the principle that the Party has decision-making power over human resources. It is too early to know what form this will take, but to Ye Qing, vice chairman of the CCP-led China Federation of Industry and Commerce, it is clear that this means the Party will have control over the management of staff.

Party approval would be required for hiring and firing, to stop managers promoting whoever they want, says Ye. He also recommends setting up a monitoring and auditing structure within companies, under the authority of the Party, to ensure that companies comply with the law and to deal with breaches of discipline and abnormal behavior by employees. The Partys disciplinary apparatus is thus expanding to include everyone, even non-communists.

According to the new guidelines, the management of Party cells should be formally incorporated into company statutes, with a specific budget reserved for their activities. This amounts to legally codifying the CCPs requirements so that they become binding, even for companies that are not under its direct control. Thus the CCPs role in the private sector increasingly resembles the one it has in state-owned enterprises. Focused on its own survival, displaying pragmatism, and even an ideological vacuum, it is bringing a growing number of capitalists into its ranks, as it becomes ever more present in companies.

This asymmetrical alliance is found outside national borders: The Belt and Road Initiative is accelerating the internationalization of Chinese companies, both private and public, which are creating party cells abroad to supervise their employees. While it has set aside Maoist internationalism, the CCP is now exporting its organizational mode and disciplinary tools.

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Whats Left of Communism in China? - The Nation

Gorbachev was arrested at his Black Sea dacha, but the coup leaders failed to take control. The GKChP consisted of a bunch of weak conservative leaders, some of them drunk at a TV press conference. Yet, unwilling to shed blood, soldiers refused orders to forcefully quell the resistance, leaving the door open for the wily and popular Boris Yeltsin to take control, and for the Soviet republics to declare their independence. Within three days the coup leaders had capitulated and were jailed.

The coup was a miserable failure on the part of the conservative rebels, leaving a long tail of consequences that were opposite to what had been intended, particularly the feeble demise of the Soviet Union and its Bolshevist ideology being consigned to the dustbin of history.

However, much of what was gained was lost in the decade of Yeltsins chaotic rule: particularly preventing democracy from taking root and making way for authoritarian Putinism. In the end the democratic victory and new freedom from totalitarian oppression were simply wasted, giving away to former KGB apparatchiks. Yeltsin won the coup but lost the plot.

As noted by Felix Light in the Moscow Times in August: The post-collapse 1990s are seen (by most Russians) as a traumatic period of economic destitution, political turmoil and cultural upheaval, a repeat of which must be avoided at all costs. In the end, it was clear that Russia was not ready for democracy, paving the way for Putins emergence as the saviour of the Rodina.

Seems irreplaceable

With a discredited Yeltsin gone in 2000, Putin, a former KGB apparatchik, and his siloviki (former KGB strongmen), took over as the ultimate winners. Much of the Soviet status quo ante was reintroduced, nullifying the democratic interlude. Totalitarianism, albeit sans the communist ideology, was progressively reintroduced in a reckless spurt of usurpation of power by the new Kremlin rulers. Ironically, after the trauma of the coup and a decade-long chaotic democratic interlude, modern Russia was simply claimed back through the GKChP putschists introducing a draconian security establishment, a veritable police state.

After 20 years firmly at the helm of Russian politics Putin seems irreplaceable. There is no plausible alternative as he keeps his options open to rule up to 2036 (his current presidential term ends in 2024). Russian Orthodox bishop Patriarch Kirill calls Putin a miracle of God for Russia, while the adoration expressed by Prof Alexander Dugin of Moscow State University is almost nauseating: There are no more opponents to the Putin course, and if there are any they are ill and need psychiatric treatment. Putin is everything, Putin is absolute everywhere, and Putin is irreplaceable. Most Russians seem to concur, as opinion polls have rated Putins popularity for most of his rule at 70%-80%.

However, as even Putin should know, all good things seldom go together. With poll-boosting bold foreign adventures such as invading the Crimea, Eastern Ukraine and Georgia no longer in the offing, the popularity of the United Russia party, his main support base in the Russian duma, is in decline ahead of the upcoming September elections. In the wake of the devastating effects of Covid-19, a declining oil price, runaway corruption and cronyism, economic stagnation, biting Western sanctions and disaffected young citizens taking to the streets and internet, his leadership will be severely tested.

Colour revolution

If Putin leaves in 2024 his legacy could arguably emulate that of his hero, Peter the Great. However, should he choose to carry on until 2036 (as the new constitution makes possible) he may be presiding, as former Soviet Union president Leonid Brezhnev did, over an era of stagnation. At 69 years old, his ambition to rule until 2036 seems a bridge too far.

Putins existential fear is that a colour revolution similar to those in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, might engulf Russia. Hence his obsession with security and his relentless suppression of opposition and democracy. Democrats such as Alexei Navalny, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Boris Nemtsov and many others have been ruthlessly eliminated. He has transformed Russia into a virtual police state, creating an environment in which sustained economic development and modernisation are hardly possible.

As Winston Churchill observed, Kremlin political intrigues are comparable to watching bulldogs fighting under a carpet. With this in mind, predictions are mere guesswork. However, what is no secret in Russian politics is that the Kremlin political elite are already fiercely competing (under the carpet) to replace Putin when the time comes. My guess is that he will step down before 2036, probably in 2024.

His successor is likely to continue with Putinism in one form or another.

Olivier, a former SA ambassador in Russia and Kazakhstan, is extraordinary professor at Pretoria University.

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Soviet putsch relieved Russia of communism, but it remains a matter of shame - Business Day

In the 1950s, the communists sought to suppress the Marian shrine of atin, as they did with other shrines in Slovakia. Today, Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows, patroness of the country, accompanies the nations families and those suffering in the pandemic.

This is what Fr. Martin Kramara, spokesman for the Bishops Conference of Slovakia, declared during a virtual meeting with journalists from Rome organized by ISCOM, in connection with the preparation of Pope Francis apostolic journey to Slovakia (September 12-15).

With Mary and Joseph on the way to Jesus: this is the motto for Pope Francis visit to Slovakia, which will be in the midst of a two-stage journey. The first will take place in Budapest, Hungary; there, the pope will preside at the Closing Mass of the 52nd International Eucharistic Congress. The second will take place in Slovakia, where he will visit Bratislava, Koice, Preov and atin.

The communists took men and women religious to concentration camps. The monasteries were closed. They also tried to wipe out the Marian shrine in atin. The communists were pressuring Slovaks not to visit the shrine. But, this was not enough; it has always been a place loved by the people, said Fr. Kramara.

He added that the shrine is a symbol of peaceful resistance rooted in the values of faith: It shows that we are not afraid.

These words echo those of St. John Paul II when he visited the shrine on July 1, 1995; he compared it to the upper room where the apostles prayed with Mary and received the Holy Spirit, being transformed from being fearful to being courageous witnesses.

On the last day of his Apostolic Visit (Wednesday, September 15) the Latin American Pope will preside over Mass at the National Shrine of atin, after which, at 1:30 p.m., he will bid farewell at the International Airport of Bratislava where he will board the plane that will depart for Rome at 1:45 p.m. local time.

The spokesman for the Slovak Bishops Conference said that this is a significant last stop, given the history of the shrine.

Here, in 1564, a woman named Angelica was abandoned by her husband, a Hungarian nobleman named Imarich Czobor, who hated her. Heartbroken, sad, and now abandoned, Angelica prayed with all her might and asked for the intercession of the Virgin Mary, while promising to erect a statue in honor of Our Lady of Sorrows if she received the miracle she sought.

Her husband had an unexpected reaction: he returned to look for her and asked for her forgiveness. She kept her promise, and subsequently the place became a place of pilgrimage, even visited by Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

Up until the appearance of COVID-19, Slovaks flocked to the shrine every September 15, the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, to pay homage to their national patroness who has been by our side in difficult times, said Fr. Kramara.

Angelica kept her promise. Many people say that their prayers have been heard, he added. Miraculous healings have been reported around the shrine, which were recognized in 1732 by the bishop of Esztergom. In 1927, Pius XI proclaimed Our Lady of Sorrows the patroness of Slovakia.

The Soviet government tried to suppress the popular devotion, turning the shrine into a military barracks. The attempt failed; the images of the Mass presided over by John Paul II in 1995 at the shrine, after the fall of the Soviet regime, with the presence of more than 200,000 faithful from all over Slovakia, were a confirmation of this long history of unwavering popular piety. The resilience of this devotion reflects the legacy of Sts. Cyril and Methodius (in the 9th century), also known as the apostles of the Slavs, missionaries of Christianity in those lands.

Pope John Paul II also had ties to the devotion of Marys Seven Sorrows, which he mentioned in particular in his first homily in Slovakia during his 1995 apostolic journey, six years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall.

This shrine, said the Polish pope, preserves the memory of all that makes up your lives: joys, but also sorrows and sufferings, which have not been lacking in your history, as in that of every person and nation of the earth. It is good that we have someone with whom to share our joys and sorrows. It is good that in your great Slovak family there is a Mother to whom you can confide and entrust your sorrows and hopes.

The pope, who was instrumental in the downfall of communism, said that Our Lady of Sorrows, the Mother of Seven Sorrows, is the Mother whose heart, at the foot of the Cross, was pierced by the seven swords of suffering, as tradition says.

This Marian shrine is where the Slovak people go on pilgrimage in search of consolation for their not at all easy existence, especially in the periods most marked by suffering, he noted. Here Mary, the Mother of Christ, wants to be a mother to you; she wants you to be especially sincere and simple with her. Here is her dwelling place and, thanks to the fact that there is a house of the Mother of God in your Slovak land, none of you is homeless. Everyone can come here and feel at home in the Mothers house.

Pope Francis has said that, as people think about the aftermath of the pandemic and all the problems that will arise: problems of poverty, work, hunger , we should pray to Our Lady of Sorrows. This veneration of the people of God has existed for centuries. Hymns have been written in honor of Our Lady of Sorrows: she was at the foot of the cross and they contemplate her there, suffering. Christian piety has collected Our Ladys sorrows and speaks of the seven sorrows.

The pope detailed the meaning of the seven sorrows:

Pope Francis prays to Our Lady of Sorrows every evening when he prays the Angelus, and comments that he prays the Seven Sorrows as a remembrance of the Mother of the Church, how the Mother of the Church gave birth to us all with so much pain.

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Pope in Slovakia will visit shrine that prevailed over communist rule - Aleteia EN