Heady cocktail of religion & politics

Julio Ribeiro

RADHARAO Gracias is a firebrand lawyer in Goa. He speaks his mind whenever the occasion merits this course. Last week, I received via email a sample of his activism. Radharao, a former MLA, had lambasted local BJP supporters on X (formerly Twitter) for offering people free tickets on a train from Goa to Vailankanni (Tamil Nadu), the passage paid for by ‘vested interests’.

Any reference to religion is out of bounds during electioneering. Oblique references are deftly made by politicians like Modi.

The pilgrimage to Vailankanni is much sought after by Catholics as some miracle was reported to have occurred in that coastal town in Tamil Nadu in the past. Since I do not believe in miracles, I had not taken the trouble to ascertain what exactly drives the believers to frenzy. But the bulk of our believers do believe in the supernatural. That is the reality.

Radharao’s lament is that BJP supporters conceived of a Machiavellian plan to despatch a substantial number of Catholic voters to a destination where they would love to go. The train to Vailankanni from Goa departs every week on Mondays. All the tickets for May 6 were bought, probably by ‘vested interests’, soon after election dates were announced. Radharao alleged that they were being offered free of charge to Catholic voters to ensure their absence on

May 7, the day of polling in the small state that sends only two MPs to the Lok Sabha.

This, then, is a new tactic to ensure poll victory. The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Goa, Cardinal Filipe Neri Ferrao, alerted his flock not to travel on May 6 since it was their duty to vote the next day.

Whether diabolical or just plain funny, stories like the one circulated by Radharao are doing the rounds elsewhere in India too. A parrot picked the name of one Thangar Bachan, a PMK candidate, as the winner from the Cuddalore Lok Sabha seat in Tamil Nadu. The DMK government led by CM MK Stalin promptly arrested the owner of the parrot for spreading fake news.

Tribal women in Palghar (Maharashtra) returned to the BJP pracharaks in their area the saris and the shopping bags with Modi’s picture that were obviously given to them as inducements, proclaiming that they wanted employment and not these items.

The Catholic Archbishop of Idukki in Kerala favoured a public screening of The Kerala Story, which depicts the story of girls from his state who were subjected to ‘love jihad’. They were not only converted to Islam but also joined the ISIS in Syria, where their husbands were fighting the ‘kafirs’.

In a multi-religious country like India, instances of romance between Muslim, Hindu and Christian boys and girls are inevitable. The Sangh Parivar has raised its hackles over such marriages, terming them cases of ‘love jihad’. I know of many Muslim women married to Hindu or Christian men. No objections were raised, except perhaps by the parents of the girls. Protests are heard mainly when Hindu girls marry Muslim boys!

The induction of the Kerala girls and their Muslim bridegrooms into the outlawed ISIS is, of course, another matter. That is truly sinful. If that wicked angle is not present, love between man and woman should not be interfered with only on the ground that they belong to different religions.

Talking of Kerala, AK Antony, a former Congress Chief Minister who later became the Defence Minister, has a son who joined the BJP and is fighting the Lok Sabha elections on the saffron party’s ticket. Antony was known for his uprightness and integrity. He publicly announced that he wished for his son’s defeat. In a country where politics has become a family profession and where tickets are sought by politicians for their sons or daughters, a father disowning his son is a rare occurrence. But Antony is made of a different timber.

Our Prime Minister makes statements against his opponents every day, sometimes more than once or even twice a day. Usually, he accuses them and their parties of corruption. They, in turn, accuse the BJP of the same evil. Here, the party in power is in the driver’s seat. It can make it extremely difficult for Opposition parties to collect funds for fighting elections. The BJP is using its pole position quite liberally in its quest for a third term.

But the PM has now stepped beyond corruption to territory on which, by law, he is not allowed to enter. Any reference to religion is out of bounds during electioneering. Oblique references are deftly made by politicians like Modi. He castigated the Congress for its absence from the inauguration of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya.

That was clever of him. He knew in his heart of hearts that by inaugurating the temple himself and not getting it done by the Shankaracharyas, he would effectively ensure that the Congress and some other opponents would stay away. And ‘stay away’ is what they did. That gave Modi the opportunity to castigate them on a matter that would resonate with the Hindu masses.

Last week, Modi thought of another stick to beat his opponents with. He pounced on a video foolishly put out by Lalu Yadav’s son Tejashwi, showing him and his father cooking meat in the family kitchen in Patna. Watching the culinary skills of the father-son duo was none other than Modi’s ‘bete noire’, Rahul Gandhi! That was enough to get the mind tick faster.

Modi lambasted the trio for eating ‘non-vegetarian’ food during the holy month of Sawan, when pious Hindus abjure meat, fish and eggs. He obviously calculated that the pious Hindu voter would veer to his camp, forgetting that that vote was already his for the picking. Modi’s disgust with meat-eaters will reverberate with the people of Gujarat. There is a preponderance of vegetarians in Modi’s home state, where the majority of the people do not eat meat or fish. In my ancestral state of Goa, the local Saraswat Brahmins are avid fish-eaters like the Brahmins of Bengal.

Modi should stick to the charge of corruption, which is his constant refrain against his opponents. The people believe that charge to be true. Similarly, when the Opposition hurls that same charge at the BJP, the common man believes that, too, to be true since there has been no respite in the last decade from the daily demands made by government and municipal employees for ‘speed money’.

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