Last week, we saw the theatrics in Dharmasthala, the holy place in Dakshina Kannada, where our Chief Minister B. S. Yeddyurappa and former CM H. D. Kumaraswamy “just missed” each other and cancelled their showdown before God. Instead, each of them came at their convenience. One prayed for the development of the State and the other just gave his letter to God and left while all the devotees including women and children were standing outside for hours, soaked to the bone due to heavy rains. So finally after all the inconvenience what happened? Nothing of substance. Yeddyurappa, instead of doing people’s work, wasted his time defending himself against Kumaraswamy, who is making sure he stays in the news by constantly traumatising the Chief Minister.
It is not the first time that Kumaraswamy has had a brush with oath - taking. Previously, even Shobha Karandlaje had challenged his allegation and asked him to pronounce them again before the deity in Dharmasthala. This time Yeddy could not take any more of the constant nagging by Kumaraswamy and sought God’s help instead of the law courts! Why? Is it because even our CM knows that law courts take too long to deliver justice? Forget the CM; in fact the present Union Law Minister Veerappa Moily himself did not go to court. Instead he asked his accuser Byre Gowda to swear before the Dharmasthala deity and prove his accusation that Moily had offered him money.
But why is everyone after Dharmasthala? Poor Dharmasthala’s Dr. Veerendra Heggade must be praying for the political oath - takers to stop coming to his temple and causing inconvenience.
More importantly, do oaths really have any meaning today? Have they ever really served their purpose of putting the fear of God in the heart of man, forcing him to speak the truth? It might have when a person taking the oath was a religious man or a God - fearing man. But are today’s humans really scared of God? After all, God has shown very little mettle when it comes to delivering justice or punishing the evil. Consider this — the richest and the most secure people in India are the most corrupt and they continue to be so. Then what about atheists, people who do not believe in the existence of God?
In the Indian courts, the witnesses are asked to repeat “I swear in the name of God that what I say is the truth and nothing but the truth”. In Karnataka, if the witness does not know English or Kannada an interpreter is brought to translate it to the witness. So after all this inconvenience, do the witnesses actually speak the truth and nothing but the truth? Do they at least speak the truth because they have just sworn in the name of God? No. Otherwise why would A. Raja still fight his case, why would Kalmadi still defend himself, why would Hasan Ali still give the law a run around and why would Kanimozhi hire a top lawyer to defend her? Wouldn’t they all just tell the truth and let the law take its course? May be it’s a better bet to wire witnesses to a polygraph machine than waste time on oaths.
Indeed they say “truth will set you free.” But all these people know that in fact truth will do exactly the opposite “not set them free”. While truth may set their conscious free, physically they will end up in jail for a long time to come. So there is no way they will ever tell the truth — oath or no oath. Also may be since they take the oath in the name of God they want to be judged by Him and not another mortal like themselves. So they will wait to die and then accept God’s punishment of sending them to hell or heaven. Both mere concepts.
Oath is taken when a person is involved in a profession that entails mercy, concern, sympathy and justice. That is why you see Ministers, doctors and lawyers taking oaths. But have they kept their word? Well, quite a few did but many never bothered. Lawyers, when they graduate, had to take an oath during the pre - independence era when there were presidency courts. But that was stopped and now is being introduced again. So now will every lawyer sincerely defend their clients and not end up playing middlemen or even worse, sell out their clients to the opposition, just because they have taken an oath? We all know the doctors take that all too prestigious Hippocratic Oath, to practice medicine with human touch and ethics. But have they done so?
God or religion has never been able to dictate morality because both these concepts have been drenched in violence and immoral acts themselves. The purpose of an oath is that if you are a good person, you will soak it in and understand the higher purpose behind it. It is just a guiding light. It is meaningless for hypocrites whose vision is fogged in the pursuit of ill - gotten wealth and power.
When we were young, we all used the phrase “I swear on my mother” or “mother promise.” Yes, this was the ultimate pronouncement of the truth because as a child you never ever imagine losing your mother because we were told that if you swear on your mother and lie, your mother will die. Of course, there was “father promise” too but unfortunately it wasn’t the ultimate. But as we grow older, in modern India we fear not the loss of our loved ones but of wealth and power. In a greedy society that believes that justice will be delivered in the afterlife, oaths are meaningless.
