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 18thDecember 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.
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