The twenty five flowers above, recent and mostly form our garden appear in this post to share my resistance to the idea of 'one nation, one election' that the Prime Minister of india is currently pursuing to enforce upon the nation!
During the process of revising the electoral rolls for elections, it is now known that nearly one fourth of people are missing from the electoral roll in New Delhi. Similar omissions in large numbers are being reported from other states.
In a hurry to push conducting the national elections and the 22 state elections concurrently, which has never happened in the 75 years of the democratic election process in India, the irregularities and questionable practices are overlooked by the government of India. With the current central government having three years more to govern, the mindless pursuit to introduce the policy of concurrent elections for the state governments and the central government is viewed by political commentators as an attempt to legitimise an autocratic approach to governance.
All the twenty five white flowers exist in different hues of white, giving us a message of the spectrum of shades just in one colour!
The nation of India is just a confluence of people of different cultures, languages, religions, traditions and socio-economic status. The 'double engine governance' which the Prime Minister advocates involves the same political party governing the states as well as the central government. There is a strong feeling that if the state government is ruled by a government of a different political party such states get less allotment of funds and new projects. The participatory planning through the Planning commission to develop the states was replaced by another body with central control, by the current political party which governs the country since it came to power for the first time in 2014.
Let me present the hues of the white colours to celebrate the festival of the white as a metaphor of the normal diversity that exists among humans even in one country!
I feel pained that the current president of the United States of America has divided the people of America as migrants and natives! While America came into being as a nation of migrants, migrants remained welcome and 'central to the thought of America'. The Israeli leadership got the sinister idea of eliminating the Palestinian presence from the example of the ugly path the President of America practices!
The shades of white come from the differences in the colour pigments in the flowers as well as the way the sunlight allows the pigments to radiate the light!
We as humans are different from each other, but each of us has something deep within us, which we resonate when the sunshine of God's presence comes upon us!
We are people of similar origin on a similar journey towards a common destiny, although we live our lives differently creating a hue of colours of culture, race and nationalities!
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
