This is in honour of that ‘mother’ who awakened me to an eternal truth during my recuperation after I had been tested negative for Corona infection. In those days of recuperation, I liked to walk through the highways and by-lanes every evening. I watched every plant, tree, bird, building, and person as I covered a distance of 8 kilometers every day. In those days, when the country pleaded for oxygen, to be able to walk around, after having infected with corona virus, was nothing less than being born again. Everything seemed new to me. I did not want to miss anything: I watched every little thing with much reverence and love. I enjoyed every beauty, every sound, every colour, every grass, and every goodness everywhere.

During one of those walks, I saw an old lady, whom I wish to call mother, sitting outside her one room hut on the side of a by-lane. There were only few huts there; the area was about half a kilometer from the main slum which housed a huge number of huts of various sizes and shapes. She was sitting on her feet. I looked at her and asked myself: Is she also corona positive? Is she also recuperating like me? Did she have breathlessness as I had?  

Soon I found my eyes very inquisitive; I was peeping into her hut, examining it closely. Is there enough space in the hut? Is there enough light? Is there ventilation for fresh air? When she was or is or will be corona positive and if ever she experiences breathlessness, did she/will she find a comfortable spot to lie down and breathe? Stupid! What nonsensical questions! Well! That was my world then. I had just regained my breath. If I did not have the spacious and well lit room with cross ventilation, I knew not how I would have managed those days of fear of being breathless. I was curious to study her hut to identify the space where she would find comfort if ever she feels breathless. If this hut were to be my home, would I have been chocked, would I have found a way to breathe? 

Then, it struck me like never before. Those eternal words of Jesus:  “Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow, they do not harvest nor do they store food in barns. And yet your heavenly Father feeds them…Look at the flowers in the fields how they grow. They do not toil or spin. But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was clothed like one of these” (Mathew 6:26, 28b, 29). God gives breath to all and enables everyone to find a place where one can breathe.  

So far, these teachings of Jesus were only about me. See, how God loves me. Innumerable are the times that I meditated on God’s love; that too God’s unconditional love for me. Sometimes, my meditations on God’s love for me had led me to a trance: dancing, rejoicing, praising…! But it was this moment of my encounter with that mother on the way side that awakened me to an equally eternal truth. God loves her! God loves others! God loves everyone – rich or poor, employer or employee, those living in mansions and those sleeping in huts. 

God loves others is an integral part of Jesus’ teaching and of eternal wisdom of all civilizations and religions. I knew it like others know of it; but it did not reflect in my everyday life and world view as, probably, in the case of others. I had neither meditated on it nor had it taken me to an experience of trance. I had preferred to stay in that trance of monopolizing God’s love – LOVE for ME. I continued my walk with a firm conviction that she will not be chocked; she would find a place to rest and breathe! God loves her!

I chose the same lane for my walk the next day too. I was eager to reinforce the clarity that had come to me the day before about a world view of inclusion and about her in particular. I found her sitting at the same spot. She was eating a big piece of watermelon. It was big, reddish and juicy. She was enjoying it. Even if that might have been her night meal, she with her watermelon in her hand confirmed once again to me that God loved her. God loves all. Loving the other is the essence of God and must be of every relationship, ideologies, and actions. There was contentment on her face. She was relaxed. And, of course, she was not breathless and choked. God Loves Her! I am certain!

While in quarantine, I saw a real possibility of me being uncounted among those corpses which floated on the waters of the holy Ganga or among those dead bodies exposed on the banks of the same river when rain washed away the sand heaped on them or among those bodies at the entrance of crematoriums or graveyards. In those days I had seen pleas for a bed with oxygen for a person who had been known to me closely. Alas! At last he did get one. But, he did not survive. I mourned his death sitting in my room. I mourned the death of a friend that was truly not of God’s design but of a government that does not believe in truth, love and compassion! 

The possibility of my own death when I was infected with the virus and the sorrow that our nation endured during those days of fear, panic, pain, and tears convinced me more than ever that I cannot survive on any form of violence and hatred. I cannot have an ideology founded on hatred, violence, and exclusion. Life in any form cannot be sustained in an environment of hatred, anger, violence, and exclusion. Love, truthfulness, and compassion are foundations on which life can grow and flourish. Ideologies, philosophies, theologies, and science cannot be built on violence, hatred and exclusion. 

The abiding message for me of those agonizing days is that I must shun all hatred, violence and exclusion. It is the lesson written by million tears of my country men and women on the soul of this nation. Falsehood, hatred, and violence will not sustain life. They only bring death. A corollary to this is noteworthy: the present regime that draws strength and inspiration from an ideology built on hatred and exclusion can neither take us on the path of progress nor can lead us to become a true Vishwaguru!

Today, the most spread out and most intense source of hatred, violence, and exclusion in our country stems from the ideology of the RSS. This is my sense at this moment. Permit me to state with greater clarity today what I had concluded in 2017:

The alliance of the ideology of the RSS and the neo-liberal capitalism has attained exponential power to control the destiny of the nation. This alliance has assumed unparalleled power to control the state and her people. 

It is alarming to realise that the RSS used its enormous resources to create an environment of hate, prejudice, fear, and insecurity in the country in advancement of its exclusivist ideology. The idea of Hindu Rashtra had been emphatically rejected by the country within the process of her independence struggle and adoption of her Constitution. The refusal of the RSS to honour this and, instead, working tirelessly for its own divisive agenda is truly alarming. 

We call upon our RSS brethren to leave behind hatred, prejudices, divisiveness and compulsion for hegemonic power; but resolve to walk together to build our nation, healing every wound; ensuring egalitarian and just social, political, and economic relationships and at the same time respecting individual freedom and liberties; and the diversity and pluralism of our country by being committed to the path of non-violence, democracy, fellowship, and dignity of every individual.

God loves me, no doubt. God loves others. It is true. Then, let us live that love at the service of each other in our country.