To the VHP juggernaut gathered at the Fatorda stadium for their mega national sammelan of ‘Hindutva’ forces, Goa has a message. The people of Goa, across all faiths are ready to jointly pray to convert anyone who thinks of undertaking ghar wapsi programmes to reconvert our minorities. Goa will convert all such forces into better human beings, who will empathise with the harmony, peace and brotherhood of our land, irrespective of which party rules us.
While Herald has dealt with the remarks of the VHP functionary who spoke of ghar wapsi and emphasized that they will make no difference to our Goa, the entire saffron ‘parivar’ should know that we in Goa too have a ‘parivar’(family). And this parivar consists of Hindus, Catholics, Muslims and all other faiths who live, work and prosper here. Goa is a multi-religious, multi-lingual and even a multi-national society which has aspirations and goals which are far more humane and far more human. They are simple dreams. Of growth, employment, prosperity, education, health, peace and prosperity. Goa is the land it is because of these 360 degree influences which are strong enough for mis-directed communal missiles that the VHP and/ or the Sangh Parivar throw. They are a waste of time. Goa really has no time to dwell on calls for religious conversion or indulge in a debate or respond to absolute fallacies that the minorities in Goa are struggling to change their faith. The VHP can very well go and spread these canards anywhere else. Leave Goa alone.
It is in this context that RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat’s purported remarks on Mother Teresa should be viewed. Bhagwat who reportedly said that the motive behind Mother Teresa’s work of healing and charity was to convert people to Christianity, comes from the very same mindset, which believes that these remarks can sway people into their fold. All that the likes of Bhagwat should be told is to go and heal just one person in the manner the Mother has done and see for themselves the vast multitudes of the poor who are not Christians, who revere and love her.
But if the VHP and the Parivar want to be healed, they are indeed at the right place. The people of Goa will indeed convert them into believers of harmony and get them to respect all religions and heal them.
Meanwhile, this cannot be closed without a serious look at how the Goa government is sitting on the fences, with the Chief Minister paying lip service by simply “flaying” the VHP’s remarks on wanting to reconvert Goan Christians. By now the Goa government should have sought a written undertaking that the VHP convention will not flare passions and cause any disturbance.
This is for Chief Minister Parsekar’s own good. Does he think a single tourist from Germany, Italy, Poland or wherever else he is going to on a junket at our expense, will come to Goa if it has forces like the VHP speaking in a language which is archaic and so not in sink with the modern world?
Mr Parsekar should be told that while all those who live in Goa can look after themselves, he as Chief Minister will have to suffer, if he allows his Parivar forces to make such reckless statements.
