Religious Sentiments

July 4, 2010 was probably the most horrific day of Professor TJ Joseph’s life. News channels, newspapers and magazines flashed with the news of the attack on the Professor by a group of eight people.

Professor TJ Joseph was a Professor of Malayalam language at the Newman College in Kottayam district of Kerala. The incident occurred after the Professor set a question in the Malayalam semester examination paper for second-year BCom students in March 2010.

The passage is said to have been adapted from a lecture given by Malayalam film director PT Kunju Muhammad, in his book titled “Thirakathayude Reethisashthram”. The character in the lecture was unnamed and Professor Joseph ended naming him as “Muhammad”, hence creating confusion and making it open to an interpretation as it, being a conversation between God and Prophet Muhammad, hence alleging blasphemy. Many Muslim organizations came forward in protest, as this hurt their sentiments and said that it defamed Prophet Muhammad.

The professor was in fact suspended from college and was booked by the police for creating religious hatred. The attack came right after this, three months into the arrest was when the professor was attacked.

Did the professor create such a question with a motive? Did he intend to defame Prophet Muhammad? Or was it a coincidental act, which ended up creating a controversy? We don’t know.

Whatever the motive was, that particular question did create a lot of tension among the religious community concerned and it is a fact that the Professor should have been more careful.

But the professor, in an interview with the media had said that he had used an extract from the university approved book and that the unnamed man in the extract was named “Muhammad”, after the original author PT Kunju Muhammad.

Now the question is do the people have the rights to take the law in their hands? Is that fair to do so? The community shook with rage when they saw that their community was being mocked at, but who gave them the right to take the law in their hands? How can they do that?

What about article 19 of the Indian Constitution that states our Freedom of Speech and Expression? The laws created by our Indian constitution, I thought are to be followed by us.

Well it is really sad how life changed for the professor after this incident. His hand was cut off, he lost his job, and had no means to make both ends meet, due to which his wife after mental tension hanged herself to death.