Yesterday's incident of cutting off a teacher's hand in broad daylight has given us some serious hiccups.
Prof. TJ Joseph of Newman College, Thodupuzha, is no angel.
He was on the run a few months ago after preparing an inflammatory question paper which had hurt the religious susceptibilities of the Muslims. The professor was (suspended from the College by the College authorities), arrested and kept in remand before he was released on bail.
We need to look at this incident from different angles.
First of all, what Prof. TJ Joseph did was wrong. He should not have abused his position as a teacher to insult the feelings of a community.
He is free to have his opinion and faith. Our Constitution gives one the right to practise and propagate one's faith.
Mr Joseph has all the freedom to propagate his faith. But he has no right to insult or make fun of another faith.
I dug up from the Internet the controversial parts of the question paper. If it was what he had included in the question paper, he has to apologise to the entire Kerala public because it shows a contemptuous attitude and approach to other faiths.
It doesn't fit into the cultural fabric of a civilized society. No man of maturity--especially one who is a teacher--should allow such remarks in a question paper.
The second angle is the retaliation by a group of unknown (?) people. (fanatics)
Yesterday we saw the lethal combination of fanaticism and terrorism raising its ugly head. And it is sad, if not tragic, how we respond to situations and people who disagree with us.
The way a group of people dragged Mr Joseph out of the car when he, his mother and sister were coming back from church and cut off his hand is brutal and barbaric.
It was not the hand of a teacher that was cut, but a chunk of a peace-loving people's heart.
Mr Joseph is a teacher, and teachers are people who are to equip and shape our children, the torchbearers of our tomorrow. His chopped-off, lifeless hand symbolises our rotten present and precarious future.
Where are we going? What's happening to us? Where is love? Where is tolerance? And, where is our proclaimed unity in diversity?
What happened to Mr Joseph is the microcosm of what is spreading across the world--terrorism in the name of religion.
Religions are a code of conduct for man's harmonious co-inhabitation. But we see bloodshed and barbarism in the very name of religion.
Yesterday we also saw the effigy of the chief minister being burned for the comments he made against the late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. The Congress followers took to the streets seeking an apology from Mr VS Achuthanandan.
And, we are into the second day of hartal protesting fuel price hikes. We pretty well know that these hartals are not going to bring the prices down. But we will 'freeze India'--that's our political will.
We also saw media reports about the finance minister's failure to level all the potholes on roads across the state. We have counted that over 49,000 holes have been levelled so far, but more are left. And, some media have treated it as a grave slip from the government on a day when there was a stab at our conscience: on a day when a teacher was dragged out of his car and his hand was chopped off in vengeance.
But no one had the will or spleen to come out in the open and protest against the vandalism that saw a teacher being butchered in front of his elderly mother and sister, and his child being thrown away like a discarded chocolate wrapper.
Where are our political leaders? Where are our religious leaders?
Can we stand together to defeat this cancerous growth which is spreading to all organs of our social system?
Of course, there have been protesting words from all corners of the society condemning the act. But, aren't those words impotent? Aren't they just wet crackers? Aren't they just obligatory expressions of 'shock and indignation'?
We have the political will to howl at an MP who happened to keep his hand on his chest when the National Anthem was being sung. We have the moral high standards to make sure a minister, who was instrumental in fielding a cricket team and allegedly seeking his sweat share, is out of the cabinet.
But where are we today when a group of terrorists has plunged a knife deep into the very core of our heart?
I don't condone what Mr Joseph has done, but to cut his hand off in the open in front of public shows the lawlessness of our society.
We know that in certain Middle Eastern countries, a thief's hand is cut off as punishment. But a thief will always be a thief unless his heart is changed. If he doesn't have hands, he will still steal by other means unless his heart is changed.
The organs are just tools of execution; it is the heart that is to be healed.
It is a matter of heart--that's where evil is born and bred. That's exactly why we need to have a clean heart, more than anything else.
While we clamour about the potholes on our roads, we don't realise that there is an abyss in our heart.
Can we do something about it?
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(Yentha Editorial. yentha.com----Sabin Iqbal)
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