21 December, 2020

The season of Lilies announcing peace !



We have patches of Lillies in different parts of our garden. In our courtyard, the first two flowers appeared on the fourth Sunday of the advent, which is remembered as the Sunday of peace. 

It has been extremely difficult to hear the news of and watch on TV thousands of farmers living in the street for three weeks in Delhi, which is no sign of peace. If the news is correct twenty or more people have already died during this three weeks.

I feel that when violence, enmity, hatred and instinct of control or supremacy reside in the hearts of political leadership, how are they going to bring peace! Peace would symbolise loss of face for the national leadership. The honourable Supreme Court of India gave a suggestion to the government to freeze the three bills from implementation, till the negotiations are over. Even that did not make an appeal to the Central government. 

I get a sense, while watching this ugly scene that human suffering, however wilful it might be as interpreted by the government, is not a casual experience to be trivialised. A responsive government mindful of its citizens, from whom they received the right to govern, ought to reach out even by climbing down from its pedestal.  What is more worthwhile than human life and its dignity and right to live well. Does not the distress of people living as displaced people, in less than ten degree Celsius, move the hearts of our political leadership! Where is the reason of voice! 

The infrequency and the restraint with which the national media report on this crisis situation make me feel that it too is buckling under the governmental pressure to trivialise or ignore it! The is not he time to prove who is right or wrong, it is the time to be moved with compassion!

Let not our farmers live anymore in the streets ! They have a right to live in their homes. Who has pushed them to this plight! Why are we rationalising! First rescue the farmers from the streets and then negotiate. 

When a drunken scooterist is injured, we are obliged to treat him first and wait for an opportune time to engage him in a conversation about his habit of drinking.  

I want to send the first Lily in this blog to the political leadership of In dialogue wishing them to be a means of peace at this difficult time!

I greet the farmers with the second Lily wising peace to abide in them. You have been peaceful in your protest. May you be known as messengers of peace even when you suffer and endure your loss and displacement! It is which make you noble in thought and deed!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

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