GOOD SHEPHERD & GENERAL ELECTIONS

Reflections on the Fourth Sunday of Easter: Acts 4:8-12, 1 John 3:1-2, John 10:11-18

The General Elections 2024 are here and it is time for the largest democracy’s greatest dance. The Election Commission estimates that some 98.8 crore Indians will exercise their right to vote in over 12 lakh polling stations to elect 543 members from among 62 political parties for the Lok Sabha. As the world’s largest and most expensive election process is underway, we are bound to relive some unfortunate trends and recurrent manias that have become integral parts of our election drama and dharma. Highlighting three of them, we reflect on how this Good Shepherd Sunday can help us respond to these challenges. 

1. The Quinquennial (once every five years) Meet & Greet:

For a vast majority of us, it is only once in five years that we get the darshan of our political leaders and candidates. Roads and streets adorned with larger-than-life-sized banners, colourful posters, and bright lights will witness the processions / rathas of our leaders travelling in their modified vans, cars, and bullock carts. And when they get down from their chariots, they go about touching the feet of their prospective voters, hugging and kissing them, knocking at the doors, requesting their votes with folded hands “Look, I am one among you. I know you and your needs more than anybody”, they proclaim. When the voting is done and the results are announced, they disappear and we are likely to wait another 5 years for the next darshan.

Contrary to this once-every-five-year model, the Good Shepherd constantly waits at the door within sight and within reaching distance of his flock. He knows his sheep just as the Father knows him and his sheep know him just as he knows the Father. They are not merely a number or a vote bank! Here is a Shepherd who knows the name of this sheep (John 10:3). And when he calls them by name, his sheep respond to him because they recognise his voice (10:4). This mutual knowledge between the Good Shepherd and his sheep is the foundation of Jesus’ alternative model of leadership and governance. Do our leaders know us? Do we care enough to study if our candidate truly deserves our vote? A true leader does not make rare appearances once every five years exclusively during rallies. S/he is available to the needs of the flock.

2. The Empty Promises:

The elections bring along with them the most preposterous, absurd, impractical and empty promises. Parties and candidates publish poll manifestos with pages of guarantees ranging from employment, infrastructure, and quality education to magical solutions to water crises, monetary promises, subsidies, computers, and freebies. We hardly take time to understand the feasibility or the logic of these promises. So, when we hear them, we don’t get too excited either because we know once the election is over, these manifestos will disappear too! And when they are not met, we don’t get disappointed either. We always knew they were empty promises anyway. The Election Commission of India (February 2024) and the Supreme Court of India (October 2023) in two separate instances have clarified that neither the Commission nor the Court can control promises made by political parties before elections. The onus is on us.

The Good Shepherd doesn’t need empty promises to woo his sheep. They are his own. Hired men promise to take care of the flock but when faced with danger or when their worktime is done, they flee! The Good Shepherd is ready to lay down his life for his sheep. He consecrates his life to their care and when faced with imminent danger, he chooses to risk his life for them. As the Gospel insists, no one takes his life from him, but he lays it down on his own. He has the power to lay it down, and the power to take it up again. Unlike our leaders, the Good Shepherd keeps his promise. The mystery of the cross is proof that the Good Shepherd does not hesitate to become the sacrificial lamb for the sake of his flock.

3. The Divide and Rule Policy:

The romantic affair between elections and identity politics is indeed a long-standing one. So much so that every election, the whole nation enters into an identity crisis. We are constantly asked to remember who we are. Strangely, however, our identity is reduced to adjectives picked and chosen to suit their political narratives and agendas. We allow ourselves to be defined by our religion, caste, language, tribe, gender, sect, etc., Passionate and often inflammatory election speeches that play with these identities ignite suspicions, divisions, and even violence. We are asked to vote not to elect a capable leader but to save our identities. We know well that politicians have to employ these religious or caste cards to create vote banks for they can’t really inspire us with their visions or strength of character. Now more than ever, identity-based divisions are misused to divide and rule.

The Good Shepherd does not need to divide or play the identity cards to govern his sheep. He declares, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. These also I must lead, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock, one shepherd”. In Jesus’ vision of the one flock, our individual identities do not cause division. They are not interpreted as the basis for exclusive belonging or isolation. Our plurality and diversity are acknowledged and celebrated. The Good Shepherd challenges us to overcome our narrow and pre-defined identities. He liberates us from our adjectives so we can enter into a lasting relationship with “the other sheep”, who do not necessarily belong to our ‘flock’, those who are outside the visible borders of the Church, those of other religions, castes, language, ideologies, or gender. Pope John XXIII’s image of the Church is still relevant today. For him, the Church is not a closed building, but one with open doors and windows.

Jesus, the Good Shepherd invites us to an alternative model of leadership, another way of living our citizenship: being permanently present to each other, walking our talk, and promoting unity in diversity.