Check the following:

• Khap Panchayats in North India sentence young married couples to death and execute that.
• In Kerala, a lecturer’s hand is chopped off for asking questions from a chapter from a book written decades back, following a fatwa.
• In Karnataka, a minister threatens to remove the tongues of those who dare speak against the Chief Minister.
• In the legislative assembly of Karnataka, a minister dares the leader of the opposition to come to Bellary and repeat what he has said there—the leader of the opposition takes it up, goes to Bellary, and does it!

All these have only one thing in common—the intolerance levels of society at large going up. This comes from the attitude that one is always right and, as a corollary, others must be wrong. Anyone professing views contrary to one’s own should be “dealt with” at all costs and by all possible methods. It is not just the saffron gang or the green gang that is responsible for it. The trait has become common to all sections of society. It is just that these groups are more vociferous and violent. Moreover, they are well-organised and funded, too. As far as political parties go, they think that once a person enters the field, he or she is invincible. Similar intolerance was shown by a minister of the Karnataka government who manhandled an ordinary citizen for overtaking his car. In the month of August, we had a press conference at the Press Club of Madikeri in which we were asked about the so-called miracle of the Kaveri river gushing out on a particular day. When I replied that we did not know how it was happening and would be glad to investigate it if given permission to do so, this statement was carried in the next day’s newspapers. It was followed by press releases from little-known organisations that threatened us with prosecution for “hurting religious sentiments.” Though more than a fortnight has elapsed since, nothing seems to be forthcoming. Our society has reached a stage where one cannot question the origin of a river without “hurting religious sentiments”!

As for the professor in Kerala, the whole issue was the name of the person involved in an imaginary dialogue. It happened to be that of the Prophet of Islam. What was totally forgotten was that there are innumerable Muslims with the same name all over the world, and any one of them could have been the subject of the quoted conversation. More surprising was the attitude of the management of the college where he was working: he was placed under suspension and, after the chopping of the hand episode, dismissed from service. The management’s claim is that it is obeying the law of the land! The state government, though aware of the threat, did little to protect him—so much for their Leftism. It was that they too had an eye on the vote banks of the so-called minorities and did not want to displease them.

Coming to the rights of minorities, they raise these issues in places where they are not in sufficient numbers to influence electoral results. For example, in Karnataka, where the ruling party, being a votary of Hindutva, has passed a bill in the assembly banning cow slaughter, minorities have risen in anger and realized that their rights to consume the meat of their choice have been infringed. But they hardly bother about the rights of those who want to consume pork—as one recalls, this meat is haram for Muslims! The same people who raise the issue of the hijab in countries like France, which want to ban them, forget the atrocities done by the Taliban in the name of Islam. Again, the very same Hindu right-wing, which threatens others with hurting religious sentiments at the drop of a hat and shouts from rooftops that minorities should respect the sentiments of the majority, litigates for minority rights in countries where they are a small minority. One can recall the results of one such litigation in which a Hindu settled in England and, having become a British citizen, wanted to be cremated in the open air. It was no matter to him that it would hurt the sentiments of the majority there. Again, when he won his case, it was shouted from the rooftops by the very same people who talk about minorities respecting the sentiments of the majority here. Again, the so-called minorities who club together here are at each other’s throats elsewhere, where they are the more dominant ones.

One does not hesitate to quote science here. The kangaroo courts going in the name of Khap Panchayats have quoted books of genetics for opposing marriages within the same gotra, but have conveniently forgotten that there is more in common genetically between maternal first cousins who don’t have the same gotra and can marry without any objections from them. In South India, marriage between first cousins on the maternal side is quite common, and among some communities, the uncle marries the niece. If the Khap Panchayats are so keen to avoid inbreeding, they should promote inter-caste marriages, since the possibilities of common genes are less there. But they are more opposed to these and, in fact, have committed murders of those who have married outside the community. They have also hailed the murderers as heroes, rallied behind them, and even collected funds from the community for their defense. The opportunistic political class has kept mum about this outrage, and some have even come out in support of these atrocities.

The rise of intolerance has resulted in a situation where everything is dictated by the so-called spokespersons of a particular community. In an incident that took place near Mangalore, a boy who was accompanying two girls was attacked by a gang under the suspicion that he was a Muslim. It turned out that he was not—but the reason quoted for the attack was that he was wearing a T-shirt with an Arabic inscription on it. Similar is the case of a lady teacher near Kasaragod who refused to wear the burqa and was attacked by members of her community; she had to move the High Court, which ruled in her favor, and she has now been given police protection. In this country, the so-called spokespersons of a community can pass rules infringing one’s fundamental rights and get away with it.

When such is the situation in a secular, democratic country like ours, one can imagine what happens in countries that profess a particular religion. In one such country, one person dared to ask a question to the self-styled propagator of science in Islam, Dr. Zakir Naik, for which he was branded an atheist, and of course, one can guess what the punishment would be. He chose to commit suicide rather than endure that. There are recent reports in newspapers that some young people in Pakistan have rejected God and declared themselves to be atheists. One cannot imagine what would happen to them in that place where mullahs dispense justice in their kangaroo courts.

Are we too heading in the same direction? Are we going to have inquisitions like what the Catholic churches used to do in the Dark Ages? Last month, I was told by a professor of English in a college at Konark, “We have tolerated you enough.” When I asked him who that “we” stands for, he said, “We Hindus.” When I asked him who had appointed him as the spokesman of the community, he told me to go to Saudi Arabia and say what I want there. I had to tell him that he better go there and build a temple, and he was furious. I told him that I am a citizen of India and have every right to have and express my views. Then I had to remind him of his Western attire, his teaching of a language of the West, and he flew into a rage. If this is to be the attitude of a college teacher, one has to wonder how less literate people would react. Or would it be that they would not react this way since they have not been brainwashed by so-called education? Only time will tell in which direction we want to go—a 16th-century mindset superimposed on 21st-century technology or a liberal mindset with the latest in technology.

Are we heading for mob rule? Are we going to have kangaroo courts dispensing justice presided over by rabble-rousers or a proper judicial system as laid down in our constitution? It is for us to decide. I would like to quote Justice M. N. Venkatachaliah, the former Chief Justice of India: “We are moving from a constitutional democracy to one that is populist. It won’t be surprising if we move to mob rule.”