Z. Lohe
I decided to congratulate the Honourable Governor of Nagaland Sri. B.P. Acharya specifically for his official greetings to Christians in his State on the last Easter. The Honourable Governor’s open acknowledgement of the ‘death and resurrection of Jesus Christ’ was a true secular gesture. His greetings on the occasion of Christians remembering the Death and celebrating the Resurrection of their Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ during Easter is indeed imperative. The greeting befits his official position as the Governor of a Christian dominated State as Nagaland despite of being from RSS background. Such greeting from the head of the State is warranted as he represents GOI in the land of Christians and not RSS and what he does is expected to strengthen every fibre of national integrity. It is also imperative that the very greetings on Easter can be considered the antithesis of the very Honourable Governor’s performance in the celebration of the 66th Republic Day on 26th January 2015 at Raj Bhavan, Kohima in which the program sheet had ‘Bharat Mata’ picture standing on the Lotus flower (BJP symbol) with Indian map background printed on it. Adding to it, the Honourable Governor had reportedly addressed the gathering at Governor-at-Home in Hindi. The bold propagation of RSS agenda surprised and irked Nagaland and invited reaction from certain quarters.
The Honourable Governor’s greeting is also imperative in the midst of how Hinduism activists under the protection of BJP and Shiv Sena have been tirelessly and unabatedly imposing its Hinduism agenda on the minorities. Following Madhya Pradesh, the recent ban of cow slaughter in Maharashtra by Shiv Sena-BJP coalition Govt. is ridiculous. The Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh joined in unison that BJP Govt. will try its ‘level best’ to bring countrywide ban on cow slaughter. The ban on cow slaughter is nothing more than the role of a dietician who advises his/her client what to eat and what not to eat.
The ban reminds me a true story of Roman Emperor Caligula who ordered his favourite horse Incitatus to be a Senator with powers over all the human Senators. The action of the Emperor Caligula duly proved that he was brute, foolish and definitely lacked human sense. An emperor who failed or refused to value the wisdom and potentiality of the learned citizens around him but trusted an animal which can only carry him or pull a cart was not fit to occupy the given chair. No empire can become strong under such leadership whose confidence was on a horse.
Have BJP and Shiv Sena burrowed the wisdom from Emperor Caligula? To BJP and Shiv Sena workers, cow is considered more important, adorable, reliable, sacred and useful than Christians, Dalits, Muslims and low castes. Banning of cow slaughter and the contemplation of the Union Govt. to impose the same on the country are exactly similar to that of the order of Roman Emperor Caligula. What BJP believes and determines to do is to defend cow at the cost of the rights of Christians and other minorities.
The Prime Minister of India Sri. Narendra Modi had done away with Christmas holiday on 25th December 2014 from his government’s calendar. The same yardstick was applied to Easter holiday this April by fixing a 3 day long Judges conference to which the Christian Judge in Supreme Court, Justice Kurian Joseph protested. Imagine how the AAP Govt. had to beef up the Police protection for the recent observance of Easter particularly for Churches in Delhi.
The BJP-Shiv Sena politics is becoming murkier and more discriminative one after the other. The Shiv Sena opines that voting right to Muslims be revoked. If Muslims are debarred from voting, Muslims will not be allowed to contest as candidate in any election too. In such event, Muslims in India will have no nationality. If Shiv Sena can do it to Muslims with the cooperation of BJP, the next victim will be Christians. So much hatred and intolerance are there in the heart of BJP-Shiv Sena against other religious groups, and yet publishing such opinion in the editorial of Saamana paper is injurious to the health of the country.
Remember how a Christian IAS officer in Tamil Nadu by name Umashankar faced life threats from BJP activists just because he preaches during free time. Tamil Nadu Govt. officially ordered him to stop preaching Gospel even during his free time. What a discrimination! What about the Union ministers like Giriraj, Uma Bharati, Smriti Irani, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore including the Honourable Governor of Nagaland BP Acharya to name few who openly patronise and propagate Hinduism in one way or the other? When Umashankar, IAS is banned from preaching Christian Gospel, the Hinduism activists holding public offices should be banned too from preaching Hinduism directly or indirectly.
