No More Bribing The Gods

article by Sameer Raote

We the people of Arsa state got our independence from the colonizers in the year 1922. Initially things were in chaos because the colonizers had their officers in all key places of the state management. They ensured that none of our local individual got educated enough to take over those positions.

So once we had to form our government we didn’t have any competent officials. The government had to struggle and learn things all by themselves by referring to the distorted pre-existing constitution formulated by oppressors. Fortunately we also took references from our ancient texts to improve our management. This was difficult since our oppressors burnt most of our texts.

We learned pretty early that if we are to develop as a nation then education has to be one of the focus. To get more and more people knowledgeable enough to rise in the ranks to manage our state. To a certain extent we succeeded in raising the average intelligence of people by forming the educational capital of Arsa in form of Dyanikar city and The Wall Of Knowledge Initiative. This was good but not enough.

What was observed surveying the state that there were no pre-existing schooling structures in many rural areas of the state. Hence we’d have to fund every individual community to establish schools for the people in that area. This is not plausible considering the current financial condition of the state.

Although it has been observed that there is one kind of public place that commonly exists in every village, town and city. Strangely it occupies the largest area and yet least used throughout the day. These are the religious institutions i.e. the temples.

Over the many years since our independence the temples have gotten richer. Primarily because this is where our gods said to reside. Gods that protect us, give us wealth, power and probably wisdom. Since by law the government is not check the account books of these religious institutions their wealth has grown exponentially.

Their primary funding comes from rich businessmen who bribe the gods for their personal well being as a way to clear their guilty conscience. This is where a lot of their black money goes. This system might have worked until now since nobody dared to question these temples. Well, we are questioning them now.

It has been decided that after this bill becomes a law the temples will no longer be privately owned. The state government will own them, run them and put them to proper use by transforming them into educational institutions. You will no longer be able to bribe the gods for your well being.

This is a big change but a good one. We will visit the temples regularly as we usually do but that will be to educate ourselves and be competent enough to take care of our own well being. New priests will be hired that spread knowledge and wisdom in addition to preach the name of gods.

Now, before you commence your march to the capital in protest to this bill let me direct your attention to our one of the most revered ancient text, Divykatha. In it the God himself mentions that,

“The gods are there to educate us, to enlighten us, to teach us the lessons of life. If you are to believe that the gods reside in temples then it is here you should go to learn, educate and be better versions of yourself. If you don’t feel yourself to be more knowledgeable than what your were prior to entering the temple then the place where you just been to is not where the god resides.”

This is our plan. Starting next month we’ll start the process to execute the word of our god by transforming our places to pray into the places to learn. Now, this is not possible without your support hence we hope that we join together to make this change and be the better versions of ourselves by visiting a temple.

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written by Sameer Raote

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