A Sunday Reverie

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Sunday musings

The Congress is becoming like the BJP day by day. The lead headline of today’s Times of India reads: “Congress moots law to block women’s entry in Sabarimala”. “Females aged between 10 and 50 were traditionally not allowed to enter the shrine…” The report goes. The deity at Sabarimala was a celibate. His chastity will face potential threats if women in the menstruating age group appear before him! Since gods have always remained beyond my understanding, I shall not enter into the subtleties and logicalities of divine erections and predilections.

The Congress is determined to preserve tradition, if not the god’s chastity. The truth is that the party is trying to woo Hindu voters some of whom at least are enchanted by the intoxications of neo-nationalism. The Congress is playing the same religious card that the BJP plays rather shamelessly. Shameless because everybody – even the child on the sidelines – knows that all the brouhaha has nothing to do with religion and gods however much our politicians may pretend otherwise.

That shamelessness is not my concern, however. It would be very naïve to expect politics to have any sense of shame. What amuses me is the total lack of imagination among the Congress men. They should have invented something new, at least something different from what the enemy is doing. Isn’t there any new strategy left in the repertoire? Doesn’t the Congress have any leader who can take us forward instead of moving back to the prehistoric times of gods and their predilections?

The terrible irony of this newfound concern with divine chastity is the increasing use of drugs by the youth of Kerala. I know the future of the youngsters in the state is not a potential vote-catcher and hence politicians won’t be interested. I’m just pointing out the irony. I wish we had leaders who took interest in the live people near them instead of the dead gods on mountaintops.

Instead of giving us more gods and religions and traditions and so on, I wish our leaders gave us a new direction towards cooperation instead of rivalry, a paradigm shift from Me-and-my-gods to We-and-our-stars.

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