The greatest threat for us Christians now is Communalism whose promoters
are all out to liquidate the minorities especially the Christians from this
soil. In my land Goa the seed of communal virus was implanted on 18th
December 1961 itself when the Portuguese
Flag was still flying in Panjim. The idea to merge Goa with Maharastra was to
liquidate the influence of the Christians.
The same tendency is carried forward now more forcefully with the
backing of the RSS, the whole and sole of the BJP, that recently said, “by 2021
every Indian must be converted to Hindu Religion otherwise “Get Out from this
land”. And go where? Is this land your fathers’ property to have
your monopoly over it?
My ancestors were living on this land much before Portuguese, Christianity, Islam and Hinduism as
religion came into being in this land. We the Christians are as strong citizens
of our land as any citizen of this land belonging to Hinduism or any other
religion. We came not from Portugal but Portuguese came to our land from
Portugal and let it be known to fanatic communal Hindus that it was a Hindu
leader who begged with Portuguese to come to Goan land to protect and save Hindus. According to our family records, our ancestors
voluntarily got converted to Catholicsm
without any outside forced influence nor with any inducement. Our ancestors were very happy when
Christianity came to our land with equality for all. This type of freedom and
equality especially in the Hindu community then were denied to some segments of
the Hindu society. Why then, it is still
existing even now. Our ancestors embraced Christianity with love for Christian
principles and Christ’s teachings of love for fellow human beings while very
many embraced Christianity as a mark of protest and revolt against discriminatory
Hinduism.
The present BJP government is harping on the little development it made
especially the Road building where the concerned MLA’s and Ministers got their commissions
and thru this type of commission they have built their assets to crores of
rupees as indicated in their recent declaration on the election contesting forms. Otherwise, how is it possible for any Ladru-Shambu type of
person to create such a mighty financial empire? Only such corrupt politicians
can built their financial empires thru illicit money. The development they boast of is not the real
development, decorating of the Roads is not the real development, creating employment avenues to our unemployed
youth is the real development, providing government services uninterrupted to
the citizens is the real development and providing normal facilities and life
security to the minorities to live a fearless life will be the real
development.
Today minority communities in Goa are living in fear, the existence of
the schools of Christians is harassed with the threat of withdrawal of
government grants as if this money belonged to the government. These schools serve all the communities and
not only Christians though they are built by the Chrisitians only. There is hidden agenda to uproot the
Chrisitians from this land by using different dirty tactics. It is the duty of
every citizen of this land to assure security to the threatened religious
minorities, especially Christians in Goa in particular..
The current BJP government is supported by some Christian MLA’s with
whose support the BJP government harms the interest of minorities especially of
Christians but none of the Chrtistian MLA’s raises his voice against this. They are like Judases ready to sell their
Rabbi again for 30 Coins because they are power and money hungry. Navelkars and Aldonkars must question their
MLA’s with whose permission they aligned with the BJP government. Again this time they must get an undertaking
from them that they if elected will not align with the BJP. So too other
Independents. The others who are
contesting the election in the name of BJP must be warned of this danger when
they come to ask for your votes. It must be accepted that voting such
candidates is not only a small sin but a big sacrilege for which there will not
be any forgiveness. Hence, will it be right
to elect them again? Unless we want to
dig our own graves.
A.Veronica Fernandes.
.
