FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 2024
In our land and in our lives, there are some places that are sacrosanct. The temple, the mosque, the gurudwara, the church, and all other religious places. Where words, spoken in the name of God, have the purity of faith and divinity of purpose.
Every faith is built on trust. It is built around devotion and duty. Faith is built around confession and forgiveness. Around seeking and prayer. And above all, around promises.
This world has courts to dispense justice. And to correct and punish wrongs. But then in every court, a person standing in the witness box has to place his hand on the holy book or text of his religion and “swear in the name of God”, in any language. This alone is enough to suffice that no untruth will ever be spoken.
When ministers and MLAs take oath, the words that are spoken are also ‘I swear in the name of God, or in Hindi “Main ishwar ka shapath leta/leti hoon.”
These words or an invocation to God or a promise made in His name is the ultimate and final assertion of righteousness.
It is for these reasons that when members of the Congress, knowing that they had lost the trust of the people decided to take “oaths” at the Bambolim cross, the Mahalakshmi temple and the mosque, they got the people’s sympathy and won their trust.
The reason why we cannot stop calling out this sacrilege of the 8 MLAs is because Goa should never run out words to call this out again and again.
We clearly have two sides here. Crores vs Credibility on the other. If development is weighed in crores, credibility is weighed in truth. Which is why credibility is priceless.
When you make a promise to Goa and to God and get votes only because you have gone to God, and then deceive both God and man, your credibility is buried.
But the damage is worse than that. This act shows who the defectors really are before God. But it makes those who believed in them, feel very small, betrayed, and cheated
People are saying “We trusted you when you went to God, but you used God’s name for your greed. Can there be anything worse than using God for greed”
And they all ask “Is this development, bought by selling credibility?”
People’s faith in the integrity of promises was shaken
Even when responsible media said that elected Congress MLAs will go to the BJP after elections, people still had faith in the oath they took before God.
The eight MLAs who left Congress and joined the BJP, for no truthful reason had no respect for faith and family. They made people who supported them, those who went from door to door canvassing for them in the hot sun telling voters to trust them, feel ashamed and small. Yes, they made many people cry as their faith in the integrity of promises was shaken. They made people question their choices of believing in their promises over what the responsible media saw through and called out again and again on their front-page reports
The robbery of integrity, by political thieves is different from ordinary thieves
An African speaker and activist in one of the most definitive speeches on unfaithful politicians said:
The ordinary thief steals your money, your bag, your watch, your jewellery,
But a political thief steals your future, your career, your education, your health, and your business
The ordinary thief will choose whom to rob,
But you are the one who chose the political thief to rob you,
Because we chose them, we vote them,
We blindly say we are not blind (but) who is deceiving who?
But the ridiculous part of the whole issue is that we will fight to defend and protect our belongings from the ordinary thief,
But we fight each other to defend and protect the political thief.
Thugs will be fighting themselves to protect those that are stealing 0ur career, stealing our joy, stealing health, stealing our success.
What a Shame!
What a travesty
It calls for us to THINK. And think deep
This robbery should never happen with any political party. It should not happen to the BJP too where MLAs go and ask for votes for the BJP but after elections, they cross over.
At this rate, parties need not contest elections but form governments
In this week’s discussion-based programme Point Counter-Point on Herald TV, on whether any party is serious about ending defections, Velim-based veteran grassroots activist Anthony D Silva pertinently said “In Nuvem the percentage of votes given to BJP was only three per cent and Congress vote share was 40% but the overall anti-BJP votes was 97%. The Congress MLA defected to a side getting only 3% votes, which is the ruling party. This is a dacoity of votes. That means in the future the BJP or any other ruling party can engineer defections even without their candidates contesting for polls. This worries me. There’s no loyalty or honesty. In this election, amongst those who defected, six were new faces. So how do people vote for new candidates because all the new faces have also defected.
When this dacoity happens after the perpetrators’ sign affidavits and take oaths, does human decency have a chance, forget democracy?
Parents inculcate value systems in their children. When a travesty of this nature happens you can only pray that the impact of such faithlessness, will not impact your next generation. But that’s a tall order. And do you know what the real impact is? It is the fact that politics, which was once a mission serve your land and your people, has become a mission to serve just yourself and perhaps your immediate close ones. The dacoity happens when personal greed is ultimately funded by the taxpayer, who sees exponential growth in the wealth and assets of most politicians defying inflation, joblessness, and lack of growth.
What hurts the most is that a template of defection has been created by breaking a solemn promise to God. And the belief that many of you had in that promise.
Is nothing sacred? Is nothing solemn? Is nothing pure?
Be that as it may, we should call this out again and again. Our words, our actions, and our prayers should never fall silent and be like flames in this darkness.
