Imagine the outrage if someone stated “Churches/Mosques won’t create jobs for tomorrow”. The entire nation would grind to a halt. There would be allegations of saffron-fascism, majoritarian oppression and religious intolerance flying across news channels and social media platforms. And rightfully so, since places of worship fall exclusively in the social domain, and have next to nothing to do with economic matters, let alone job creation. This is exactly what happened when former advisor to Rajiv Gandhi, Sam Pitroda claimed at a Youth Parliament at Karnavati University that “Temples aren’t going to create jobs for tomorrow”. We hardly disagree, since temples would create very marginal number of jobs barring the construction stage, especially since a lot of the work required thereafter is done by the priests as something inherent within their duties. So why bring it up?
It has to be said, this statement by Sam Pitroda makes next to zero sense. The building/preservation of temples is an entirely social affair, and has neither positive nor negative ramifications on the availability of employment in a nation. One must wonder why Sam Pitroda has conveniently chosen temples, and not churches/mosques to get his point(?) across.
Sam Pitroda joins a long list of people, who we are not afraid of accusing of simply hating temples. Kapil Sibbal seems to have dedicated his remaining years in politics to ensuring that the Ram Mandir is not built. He seemed so dedicated that the popular belief is that the bid to impeach CJI Dipak Mishra was Kapil Sibbal’s brainchild all along in order to prevent a conclusive verdict in the case. Congress President Rahul Gandhi has in the past claimed that ‘those who go to temples molest women’. The same individual repeatedly accuses the ruling government of neglecting minorities and attacking people’s religious beliefs. Hypocrisy much? If India wasn’t this tolerant a nation, where one can blatantly insult and directly accuse the followers of the majority religion of being molesters, people like Rahul Gandhi and Sam Pitroda would not be able to make such statements that clearly attack the religious sentiments of crores of Indians.
Watch Rahul Gandhi’s statement claiming that ‘those who go to temples molest women’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQSxjSLmEAU
Its clear from the recent events that not only do the left-liberals specialise in selective outrage, they also seem to employ selectiveness when mixing up a purely social element with a purely economic one. Sam Pitroda seemed pretty careful in choosing his words, by employing and mentioning only temples instead of any other places of worship. Its hard to think of the last time when the construction of a temple actually cost the nation jobs.
It is important to note here that Rajiv Gandhi single handedly brought him into the political fold from relative obscurity, before being given very important portfolios to handle by Manmohan Singh a decade or so later. Sam Pitroda is one of the accused in the National Herald scam.
Sam Pitroda is a highly qualified and decorated individual, which is what makes his statement even more disappointing. But if one does some digging, he seems to have openly supported some of the absurd things Rahul Gandhi has said in the past. Many have suspected Pitroda of being a mentor of sorts to Rahul Gandhi, with the former confessing that he has given ‘tips’ about software engineering to the Congress President back in 2013. For what purpose did Rahul Gandhi need coding tips, we’d never really know. But the impact of his mentorship of the Congress President seems to have had a direct impact on the protege, considering the equally ridiculous statements that Rahul Gandhi is so infamous for.
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, after all.
