Ayodhya verdict and beyond
Congress must be firm in its complacent image despite BJP’s revival in fortunes, says ERVELL E MENEZES
If you enjoyed reading this article, you can help support our journalism by adding OHeraldo as a preferred source.
So, the Ayodhya verdict is finally out. It was a good decision. Though it seemed to be a pragmatic one, it was a tad political. The build up to it was unduly hyped by the press creating a fear psychosis. It looked like a Sunday in Mumbai as the streets were deserted, raising fears of those unforgettable times during the Babri Masjid demolition and the riots that ensued.
The next day, Home Minister P Chidambaran clarified that the verdict did not justify the Babri Masjid demolition. Yes, it was a clear example of what religious bigotries do and let’s hope that the ugly chapter in the country’s history has ended. It is time the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) shelves that Hindutva ideology. Religion can only takes us back in time. And it has done just that in the past two decades ever since. We are a secular state and “live and let live” should be our mantra.
With L K Advani’s Rath Yatra two decades ago, the Hindus had become as militant as the Muslims. The judgment has not gone well with the Muslims and Samajwadi leader Mulayan Singh Yadav feels “cheated”. The Sunni Wakf Board too isn’t pleased and will move the Supreme Court against the Allahabad High Court order dividing the land in Ayodhya among three parties and said they would not surrender it. These mullahs only survive with the support of their faithful flock that they can mould around their fatwas and fingers with. It is high time the government took a policy stand of not encouraging religious disputes. Don’t we have enough instances of religious wars plaguing the world – West Asia, Northern Ireland? Do we want to be another battlefield for interested parties to fuel these never ending fires?
May be the issue will be kept alive, but the positive fallout is that peace prevailed and that is most welcome. If we are to march forward, it is a positive attitude that must be pursued. It is not that we do not have problems, but they must be handled head on. It is all very well for Rahul Gandhi to tell the Orissa tribals “I am your siphai (soldier) in Delhi” but he must also do his bit in changing the Congress policy of super capitalism and allotting tribal lands to corporates.
This policy is only making the rich richer and poor poorer. It contributes towards elimination of the middle class. After all, it is this class that is the backbone of any society or country. We don’t have to follow the American model and the sooner we realise it, the better. With Communism also proving ineffective, (because the pigs were more equal that the other animals in George Orwell’s Animal Farm) we must follow the midway path between capitalism and communism. It must evolve and focus on the creation of a larger middle class. It is of no use listing the number of millionaires or billionaires in the country. They only make news and nuisance value.
The Kashmir problem is on the front burner for too long. This must change and not because the United States says so. We cannot go on living with it for six decades. An all-party meet is the need of the hour and we must bid adieu to the ghosts of the Nehrus and Krishna Menons and the Kashmiri pandits. The new generation must think anew. Sadly, Omar Abdullah wasn’t able to rise above himself and the Abdullah legacy. Like the Nehru-Gandhi’s at the Centre, they have been too deeply engrained in the psyche. Thankfully, Rahul Gandhi seems more positive and hopefully, he will usher in a decade of change started by his mother Sonia. It is the Rajiv’s side of the family that is better than Sanjay’s.
The Congress must be firm in changing its complacent image. It must act now. In a way, almost by default, the Ayodhya judgment may revive the BJP hopes, but it will have to pursue a more national base with a new set of leaders. Advani & Co are past their prime and their mandate should be to bring the country out of the morass of religion.
Coming to our own “paradise of a state” called Goa, we are still messing around with old problems sans new remedies. The casinos, drug lobby and the River Princess are perennial examples though each new incumbent has promised to do away with them. But amidst all this, the new issue that has cropped up is the “Greater Goa” raised by PWD Minister Churchill Alemao. Churchill wants the Konkani-speaking areas to be merged with Goa, shades of the Vishal Gomantak movement of the 1980s. May be after “Saving Goa” from himself, he wants another feather in his cap.
And now he speaks like a Chief Minister. May be there is not enough constituencies in Goa for his family to contest. His daughter Valanka is an MLA-in-the-waiting, so why not extend the boundaries of Goa. That it is like bringing back the merger issue, (remember the Opinion Poll of 1967 when he was still on the ship) through the back door. This has been pointed out by his two South Goa stalwarts Luizinho Faleiro and Francisco Sardinha, who are opposing it tooth and nail. So are United Goan Democratic Party (UGDP) leaders Radharao Gracious and Anacleto Viegas, but their voices scarcely count because they are capable of doing a volte-face at the drop of suitable bait.
Thankfully, Francisco “Mickky” Pacheco is out of the cabinet because of his ‘hara-kiri’ act and Atansio “Babush” Monserrate is somewhat quiet. Churchill is ‘wax eloquent’ on every other thing, including powers to the Zilla Parishads. There are at least a handful of Ministers who speak with the authority of a Chief Minister.
One has only to visit Goa Niwas in New Delhi to see his ostentation. Built at the cost of Rs 18 crore, it has four VVIP suites, 18 spacious double rooms and four dormitories with a swimming pool, which has water only five months in a year. It has a gym yet to be furnished and Subodh Kerkar’s paintings which adorn the place. (as though he is the only known Goan painter).
It costs the State exchequer Rs 8 lakhs a month to maintain. This was done possibly for Goan ministers who shuttle to and fro to try and get an audience with Queen Sonia. What a criminal waste of people’s money! So, what do you have to say about it, statement-issuing, ribbon-cutting Chief Minister Digambar Kamat?
+++++
The Story of my Life
By Marc de Souza
In the dog days of August, I was in my garden, when my neighbour, 70 years old, 7 years younger than I, walked by and looked over my shoulder. “That isn’t the way to prune” he said. “I learnt it at home in the village,” I retorted. “They now use the new scientific technique, I can show you” he said. He gave nuggets of information. It was a trick or treat, I don’t know!
Years ago, stereo sound was all the rage, “I want the best”, I told the salesman. I invited my friend Dave over to hear it. He had his Harry Belafonte record in hand. He looked puzzled, “Couldn’t you go in for a quality machine?” My friend, it turned out, had the terrific new stereo system, which was so superior he did not dare play his Belafonte record on my stereo because it might have had a nervous breakdown!
My first barber in Abadan was Jaffar. I called him Jaff. When I moved to Tehran I went to a barber named Gadaffi. “Who has been cutting your hair?” asked the barber. “Why do you ask?” I said. “They ought to take away his barber’s license”, Gadaffi said. Temporarily, I moved to the Caspian Sea where the barber was Saddam Hussain. “Whoever has been cutting your hair has made an awful mess of it”, Saddam said. I didn’t squeal but started counting the goose bumps!
Inferior haircuts. Inferior stereo system. Inferior flower-pruning. The story of my life.
I went to a dentist because I had a toothache. He looked into my mouth back and forth. “Which tooth butcher made this mess in your jaw?” he asked, “Nobody”, I said, “I’ve not been to a dentist in thirty-four years, because I always expected to die at the age of thirty-three!”
“This is disgraceful mess”, said the dentist, powerless to abandon his prepared speech and improvise. “This jaw needs to be stabilised”.
The dentist, armed to the teeth, started drilling for gold. When my jaw was thoroughly stabilised, he asked, “Have you got a sweet tooth, especially for smarties?” I just nodded my head and told myself, “This is a smartie kid!” The dental bill, adding insult to injury, almost knocked me over and my mind for a while went blank. When I recovered, I expected my teeth to change into gold!
I moved to another town. After examining my teeth, my new dentist removed his glasses, sat down and burst into tears. “I weep at the thought that a fellow dentist is capable of work as disgraceful as this”, he said.
In a wild weak moment of temporary insanity, I decided to have the entire bungalow painted inside out. A pushy painter, before starting, shook his head and said, “Whoever painted your house last time did not know what he was doing, did he?”
Well, now, wait a minute, until you have heard more, as my typewriter keys are tickling. I took the car to a new garage. The mechanic at the old garage put in a new battery instead of a new carburettor, and as a result, I now needed six fresh pistons and two new tyres.
Whatever the last painter, mechanic, dentist, roofer, pant presser or pruning instructor painted, repaired, bridged, shingled, pressed or taught me, it was all wrong, a swindle, a shoddy piece of business, the full catastrophe.
I have become too discouraged to do anything about the ruin into which my life is falling. How much worse it can get, with greedy guys on the grab? Oh, grief! Is there some sort of conspiracy or am I just being over sensitive?
