Gods, power and politics

 

Politicians seem to be the leading worshipers of the gods during the election time. Their dirty hands become colorful with white and yellow color threads, which also shows how much they fear about loosing the election.

Every one believes the gods and deities despite their religious beliefs. Hindu chronicles believe 33 chore (330 million) gods. The same gods are in Buddhism too. The gods and goddess are not only part of the religion and culture but has a close relationship with the nature.  When they are angry, our ancestors believed that it would end up of having a natural disaster or something bad for them. This belief is a reason for the ancient people to save the mother earth. We also have spirits in our culture who save us from disasters.

Other side of the world has only one god.  But they too have spirits. A Native American Prayer says;

O' Great Spirit,
Who's voice I hear in the winds, and whose breath gives life, life to all the world, hear me!
I am small and weak, I need your strength and wisdom.
Let me walk in beauty and make my eyes ever behold the red and purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things you have made and my ears sharp to hear your voice.
Make me wise so that I may understand the things you have taught my people.
Let me learn the lessons you have hidden in every rock and leaf.
I seek strength, not to be greater than my brother, but to fight my greatest enemy, which is myself.
Make me always ready to come to you with clean hands and straight eyes.
So, when life fades as the falling sunset, my spirit may come to you without shame.


Mother never gets angry and always kind to her children. Even the merciless children receive her kindness. But people, the children of the mother earth abused her over the time, which is resulting all disasters we are facing today.
Most politicians, who get the powers of the god to win the elections, are not feared of the mother earth unlike the common man.  Power of the common man is therefore not important  for the survival of politicians after elections. The one who has power made all the decisions despite the public opinion.

Aung San Suu Kyei, the Burmese freedom fighter once said,

“It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.”

Sri Lankan politicians are mostly used their power in the last several decades to abuse the Mother Nature. Land grabbing, mining, logging, destruction of biodiversity etc., had the full support of corrupt politicians. It is unbelievable that over 60 elephants have been illegally captured from the wild since 2005.  Over 200,000 acres of public land has been captured illegally for diverse activities. Putting the political supporters onto the higher positions of the relevant environmental agencies allowed them to ignore the laws. The ecosystems that were home to diverse life forms are being destroyed this way.

Today it is very rare to find humans who care the other life forms. Sri Lankans are no exceptions. Mother Lanka is no more tolerable to natural disasters. Rains can sweep the entire dry zone, or mountains moves destroying life and livelihood. Human only concept now even promoted to politicians only concept.

The political leaders have no vision for balancing the environment and development. Those international conventions that Sri Lanka is signatory are just papers. Not even 1% of the Sri Lankan politicians are aware of our global obligations.

This political literacy is rather week among the general public in Sri Lanka. I haven’t recently heard a single politician taking on the politics rather than embarrassing the opposition leaders. Sri Lankan civil society is much weaker compare to the countries in Asia. This political culture need to an end to develop the country for the people by the people instead godfather political figures make everything happen on their interests and for their survival.

However, Buddhist custom reminds the ruler that it will rain in due season only if he is ‘righteous’. The wish of all Buddhists is summed up in the following.

“Devo vassatu kalena, Sasa sampatti hotuca, Pito bhavatu lokoca, Raja bhavatu dhammiko “

English translation is “ May gods give rain in due season, May the crops be bountiful, May the people be happy, May the king be righteous”