The news of a Malayalam professor whose hands have been cut off by a group of Muslim extremists is the talk of Kerala these days. Professor Joseph’s right palm was cut off by a gang of six people while he was returning home from Church on a Sunday. Two Popular Front activists have been arrested in connection with this incident. Popular Front, of which the accused are members of, is alleged to have links to Islamic terrorist organizations like Lashkar-e-Taiba and SIMI (Student Islamic Movement of India) as is read from their Wiki page.
The incident has to be condemned and the culprits should be brought to justice, as we cannot excuse any form of terrorism or extremism, regardless of which community it comes from – the majority or minority. But there are a couple of issues attached to this incident.
The problem arose when Mr. Joseph, a professor of Malayalam in Newman College Thodupuzha, included a narrative in a question paper that he prepared for the students of the college. The narrative was from an article written by film maker/politician P T Kunjumuhammed. Kunjumuhammed had written about the script that he wrote for his award winning movie “Garshom”. He wrote that the scene in which the protagonist of his film talks to God was inspired by a lunatic in his hometown. So the lunatic would call God and God would respond “what is it, you son of a dog“? (I am unsure that “Son of a dog” interprets it’s Malayalam usage “Naayinte mone” well though). The question that came with the narrative was to supply the punctuation.
P T Kunjumuhammed’s article:
The controversial part of the question paper:
Courtesy: Mathrubhumi.com
Prof. Joseph took the passage and instead of leaving the lunatic nameless (as in the original passage) he added a name (which he did not have to do) and the name he chose was Muhammed (which also he did not have to do as there are many other common Muslim names if he had to give one). This was really unnecessary for Prof Joseph to include such a twisted version in the question paper. When this became a controversy, the college management and Church apologized for having to hurt the Muslim sentiments and they suspended Joseph when the question paper became a controversy which was a rightful thing to do.
But this gruesome act of extremists leads us to another thing – how a group of radical Islamists have begun to unleash their terror openly in the Kerala society. They are in large numbers and comes in different names. They have infiltrated into the liberal, democratic and political spheres in disguise. And if they are not stopped now, Kerala will soon become an Islamist playground. The under current is already on.
That was well judged. Felt good to see the balance that you maintained with absolute zero bias!
Suspending the person, all the legal things – OK (even though it was a slightly hyped issue) but going the Taliban way – really shocking and can never justify it. If the political parties take soft stand on this, we, the people will suffer.
This is ridiculous. How the heck can these questions (silly they may be) be construed as blasphemy ??!!
This is what extremist/fanatics of both side want.Attack each others.Do the justice outside the court.Have their own verdict on each issue.Here the fanatics at one side know very well that our Indian court proceedings will take 5-10 years to make a conclusion on this case,and at the end the professor will go scot free,as there is no evidence or blah blah reasons.
So,they went ahead and did their justice system.
Infact, our society is getting deeply divided in the root.Expect more hatred and violence in coming days,unless our leaders find the real cause and eradict the cause of hatred.
Read sites like haindavakeralam and watch youtube videos of Sasikala Teacher.This is the way hatred is injected to innocent minds.We need to educate the youth and stop this pollution from growing.Else our next generation will die killing each other.
There are a number of person with name ‘muhammed’ in kerala.
Hi
Now only I got a real picture, so far none dared to publish what was that controversial question paper.
Introduction of new scheme in school plus two syllabus has started generating such weird type of question settings. Old way of asking direct questions is over. Even science subjects questions are asked in such fashion. Student can answer any rubbish to such sort of rubbish questions. Perhaps Joesph was not aware that Mohammed is alias of Nabi prophet or did he include for a fun.
But chopping one’s hand is no ordinary matter. Kerala government has suppressed any action against Muslim fundamentalists starting from Kozhikkode bus stand bomb case, Kalamassery bus fire incident, for getting some Muslim votes. Both LDF and UDF are responsible for that. Now Xian school headmistresses will be attacked for implementing uniform in schools, some want head covering which some schools does not allow.
If police is not doing a fair job and if police is not allowed to do a fair job, certainly a Xian Islam devide will be created and its harmful for Kerala.
CPM want a castewise divide which may help them to capture power again. But the police force of Kerala should raise to occasion and nab the culprits and bring them to justice. When coming before court chopping of hand is no serious crime and lack of evidence may leave the accused set free, LDF/UDF will allow this by deploying useless public prosecutors when case is charged, to appease again Islam fundamentalists.
Whole Keralaites irrespective of Hindu/Xian/Islam should oppose such moves to protect our communal harmony. Why cant police be allowed to implement Taliban way of eye for an eye to be implemented in this special case.
If Calicut bomb case had been properly investigated Thadiyantavida Naseer could not plant bombs in Bangalore and many lives could be saved. Kerala police are nt inefficinet, but its the ruling party which makes then eunuchs.
Why cant police be allowed to implement Taliban way of eye for an eye to be implemented in this special case.
Did you really mean to say that? If so, what makes a modern civil society different from the mob culture?
Regardless of where the question has come up, how can a principal of a well-known college allow a question paper with the phrase with S-O-B written to be given. Does the management have no responsibility over what their staff does? I am a Christian, and I feel ashamed that a Christian college would do such a thing.
Dear Jo
There is no eye witness to this attack and if someone dare to stand as eyewitness he will also be threated and silenced. So the accused in this case will go scot free after a long court proceedings. So the justice will never be done. Sometime God may do justice that in some other incident the guy who chopped the hand will get his own hand removed in some accidents or so. Many cases such criminals were given punishment by god but court will not punish them.
Those who do Taliban sort of revenge should be ready to get back in same coin.
Recently a woman was brutally murdered and police killed that goon, but now the goon is a martyr and police are facing punishment.
Its true we are a civilised society but barabarians are making misuse of that. In TN such thing will never happen, they have an encounter method to finish of Kasab type people. In Jayalalitha’s time almost about 60 goons were killed in encounters which finished a series of atrocities againt women happening in that time.
Similarly 2 students who brutally ragged some juniors were finished off in encounter by AP police. After that ragging ended in AP.
In Kerala always the criminal get best of our civilised nature. So we are afraid to go out after 8 pm with ladies even in cities. You go out of Kerala and see how night life is in other cities.
This is totally a situation where we cant take a proper stand or side .Muslims being a hypersensitive religion others should have refrained from doing such an act which is this time on an extreme side .Government should have taken action against the lecturer at the time itself to avoid a such
Aarushi: Ha! Talk about encounter killings. Read any news about the false encounter killings and how it is being deployed as a tool to exterminate those whom you don’t like? You are suggesting a barbaric system against a barbaric system rather than a civilized response. I can understand the immediate response triggered by the anger and frustration, but think about that again.
And what is that thing about “God” punishing criminals? If he was doing so, he has been punishing many innocent people everyday too. So who should punish God for being unjust?
Ram: There are hypersensitive and intolerant people in every religion, that’s not specific to Islam. We have so many examples world over and in our own country.
My first comment on your site..and am glad to get a full picture of the whole issue…
The incident is shocking indeed but if we force ourselves to think beyond religion, have we not heard/read about more brutal acts in Kerala itself?
Have you forgotten how a teacher was hacked to death in front of his young students? nd those murderers never got the punishment they deserved nor did many others… so I guess we shall pay attention only when the issue is religious.
And since the criminal rarely gets punished, why cannot a few fanatics do what they want?
God’s own country indeed!
Very good article. Very balanced.
Agree with Happy Kitten.
The debates on TV channels are funny.The party who has most criminal records in Kerala,who has done most of the murders in Kannur,speaks against this incident.
Sometimes,I feel pity on the news anchors and their innocence/helpless situation.I think ,its time they avoid these political party people and bring common man on debates.I’m sure 80% of Keralaites still love peace and want to live in harmony.
As I mentioned earlier, these are just 2 sides of coins.Every religion,community,caste,society has some <10% bad elements.Let us (the 90% ) control them,suppress them. If we allow that 10% to control us, we are going to get into deep trouble.
I salute Jo for such dating blogs,which portrays the an impartial observation of the facts, than posting some biased views.
Hope your blog reaches to many more and lets all work together in our neighbourhoods/friend's circle to restrict /reduce those <10% to <5 or NIL.
[...] Jo agrees. According to him, The incident has to be condemned and the culprits should be brought to justice, as we [...]
[...] Jo agrees. According to him, The incident has to be condemned and the culprits should be brought to justice, as we [...]
Every crime is effect or blot on the Secular credential, don’t point out only this attack is break secularism, how many crimes happening in our country every minute for defferent reason or for nothing? why people are killing each other in Kannur(BJP vs CPM vs CONGRESS)is doesn’t effect secularism? Crime is Crime, whoever it’s done by..don’t link to any religion,dont use such a word like extremism, terrorism on this crime..about this crime T.J.Joseph himself is reason for his own mess..wher was the Politicians while M F Hussain attacked by Shiv sena criminals and finally he give up Indian citizenship.. why it’s not crime?.is it secularism?.why India Protecting Salman Rushdie, Tasleema Nasreen and Varun Gandhi? Secularism……….
Professor Jospeh only took the passage from a prescribed university book. Again, when it became a controversy he publically apologized. He is also an active member of leftist association. Can’t that be the reason why he choose P T Kunja Ahemmed. Only those who think that a madman is certainly Prophet Mohammed can pin him on this.
Kerala society has become so helpless that even the social leaders have become distinctly selective on criticism. There was one Sukumar Azhikode who generally occupies social renovation space of newspapers. Remember the ruckus he created on the advertisement of Mohanlal. He seems to be on vacation now.
I think Kerala is hopeless. Attacking Christians, Churches, properties has already become an accepted norm in India where Christians don’t have double digits. It is no exception even if there is double digit population figure.
Religion can make people mad. The majority of people died on the earth due to communal fights. To start with it was tribal then by religion. Now the political interests play a major part to take advantage of the communal split. British did this long ago, before independence. It is a joke when people killing the other believing the religious commandments…. Religion as Marx once said is the opium which tranquil the minds.
[...] as democracy Disguised as democracyIn my post about Prof. Joseph’s hand-chopping incident, I had written about the intrusion of religious elements into the liberal, democratic and political [...]
Good article…giving an in depth coverage of the whole unfortunate incident..
Iam a keralite, but living out side in various other states for the last decade..It is really unfortunate to see how sad the affairs in my home state have become… This is similar to what is happening in Afghanistan or Pakistan.. and we call ourselves 100% literate..
All this political and religious violence and the back to back hartals and bandhs, have steeled my resolve never to return to Kerala to settle down!! (YEs I wanted to settle down in kerala once my finances were in order)
Sujith:
I would like to know in which state you live now and in which all states you have lived so far. Just to compare those states with Kerala and see if Kerala ain’t better than any of those states to settle down.
for just putting a common name in a wrong place some angry man cut one’s hand . in retaliation if another man cut that offender’s neck who will be the loser? if there was a fear factor it would not have happened.
dont misunderstand me. i am just pointing out how weak our judicial system is. the law which cannot invoke a fear factor is useless. it will be only feeding the lawyers and judge’s family.
look at saudi arabian laws. people should fear the law and court.
if the popular front do some to their benefit no body can justify it because we have a good judiciary to handle this type of issues if we give punishment what is use of our police and judiciary if we are believing in the god how one can do this type of job. there may some type of financial benefit. these financial benefit motivated them do this type of job. suppose one who do this type of work just think about our mulim society it will affect the society whole
Kerala society has changed a lot. There was a time when these things would have gone unnoticed. Since one religion protects its interests too much, to the level of mental sickness, such things are happening. Think of the good old days and stop this vulgarisation. I think Joseph only played with a film dialogue.
which professor in kerala will choose a question with words like “nainte mone” “aila” etc. etc. this shows how a degraded professor he was. Any why he didnt choose “mathai” joseph” chako” instead of mohammad ?
Sameer is right on the point.
No sane person would choose such sentences for a question paper.
Either Prof. Joseph blasphemed or he is downright stupid.
What happened is unfortunate, but what this teacher did was also not acceptable.
I find it impossible to believe that he was so innocent that he did not know Muhammad! He 100% did it on purpose. But he never thought such consequences would take place.
I think people of karala should stop responding to things like this. If the students do not want to answer these questions..let them fail in the exam. Talibanis in karala should he hanged.
There is no denying the fact that the professor had all the umteen names that would readily come to mind. He was stupid to choose the name ” Mohammedh”. The choice served no good purpose. He should have known that fanatics are incorrigible.
And another far more glaring point is that these criminals who acted as the custodians of Islam – did they feel so meek that they feared their faith to be so frail and fickle that a supposed name calling would bring down their God?
Intolerance, bigotry, and fanaticism are the biggest threat to the world and that unfortunately is seen most in Muslims.