Skip to main content

Dangerous People


More than 2200 years ago, The Chinese philosopher Hsun Tsu wrote: “When stars fall or a sacred tree groans, the people of the whole state are afraid.  We ask “Why is it?”  I answer: there is no (special) reason.... These are rare events.  We may marvel at them but we should not fear them.  For there is no age which has not experienced eclipses of the sun and moon, unseasonable rain or wind, or strange stars seen in groups ... but when human ominous signs come, then we should really be afraid.  Using poor ploughs ... spoiling a crop by inadequate hoeing and weeding ... these are what I mean by ominous human signs.”

Han Fei Tzu, a contemporary of Hsun Tsu, wrote: “If the ruler believes in date-selecting, worships gods and demons, puts faith in divination, and likes luxurious feasts, then ruin is possible.”

We Indians are bogged down by both of the above problems.  Replace the examples given by the philosopher with contemporary examples.  We have contractors and engineers, for example, who construct roads or buildings that have  very short lives.  Our food is adulterated, our water is no more free, our air is unbreathable... The cow is more sacred than human beings.  Our religious leaders demand sterilisation of people belonging to particular faiths.  Human ominous signs are rampant putting us on our guard.

It is not the gods in the mythology or the heavenly bodies of astrology that control our lives.  It is us.  Especially our leaders who form the policies and shape public opinions.  Quite many of our leaders are yet to acquire a fraction of the wisdom that some of our forefathers possessed more than 2200 years ago. 


Labels:

Comments

  1. UnknownApril 13, 2015 at 1:39 PM

    I had read that article on sterilization yesterday. While many opposed the sadhvi's views, I am afraid there were some who supported it too. Right there, in the comments section, there was a religious fight going on.
    I don't understand why some elements are out to provoke people rather than bringing in peace!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 13, 2015 at 2:11 PM

      Varieties of evils exist in every society all the time. An efficient govt is able to keep a check on dangerous trends and vices. But there are certain govts which directly or indirectly encourage certain vices and evils to take the front stage. Reasons are more political than religious or any other. We now have such a govt at the centre led by a man whose credentials are known to all Indians. Some sick people are taking advantage of the situation.

      Delete
  2. magiceyeApril 13, 2015 at 3:59 PM

    The writing is on the wall!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Saru SinghalApril 13, 2015 at 6:12 PM

    Right! We control our lives. Problem is we are allowing such jerks to feed us wisdom and believe all they seek while they are filing their coffers.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 13, 2015 at 7:07 PM

      The leadership matters, matters much more than I had ever imagined.

      Delete
  4. UnknownApril 13, 2015 at 6:37 PM

    A very real analogy with our lives and the world we live in today.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 13, 2015 at 7:09 PM

      We will have to live through it for a few years more, I guess.

      Delete
  5. Kokila guptaApril 14, 2015 at 10:15 AM

    very true and sad ... we don't 'learn' anything from History and mythology .. but yes we do 'know' how to twist a line/story/anything for our convenience ... dangerous .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 14, 2015 at 10:53 AM

      It is dangerous, no doubt, Kokila. By the time they are done with before the next elections, much damage will have been done already to the nation.

      Delete
  6. copinlightingNovember 10, 2022 at 12:12 PM

    Thank you for your post. This is excellent information for me. keep up it! led light strip for automatic gate

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

Two Nuns and two questions

The nuns kept in custody  Two Catholic nuns were arrested on 25 July 2025 at Durg railway station for allegedly trafficking tribal women from Narayanpur in Chhattisgarh to Agra in UP. Today’s newspapers in Kerala have expressed their contempt of the act more vehemently than I had expected. It seems secularism has hope yet in this country. For those who are not aware of the incident, two nuns were arrested because some criminals of a depraved organisation called Bajrang Dal in Chhattisgarh chose to conclude that the nuns were committing the crime of human-trafficking. Since that charge wouldn’t stick, because the women confessed that they were going voluntarily to take up jobs with the help of the nuns in order to raise their families from miserable poverty in a country that claims to be a $5-tillion-economy, another charge was fabricated that the nuns had indulged in religious conversion. Now let us look at certain facts. Though I keep questioning the Christian churches for...
8 comments
Read more

Missing Women of Dharmasthala

The entrance to the temple Dharmasthala:  The Shadows Behind the Sanctum Ananya Bhatt, a young medical student from Manipal, visited the Dharmasthala Temple and she never returned to her hostel. She vanished without a trace. That was in 2003. Her mother, Sujata Bhatt, a stenographer working with the CBI, rushed to the temple town in search of her daughter. Some residents told her that they had seen Ananya walking with the temple officials. The local police refused to help in any way. Soon Sujata was abducted by three men, assaulted, and rendered unconscious. She woke up months later in a hospital in Bangalore (Bengaluru). Now more than two decades later, she is back in the temple premises to find her daughter’s remains and perform her last rites. Because a former sanitation worker of the temple came to the local court a few days back with a human skeleton and the confession that he had buried countless schoolgirls in uniform and other young women in the temple premises. This ma...
22 comments
Read more

The Chhattisgarh Story

Deforestation in Chhattisgarh Kerala’s Catholic Church is teeming with rage these days because of the arrest of two nuns in Chhattisgarh on false charges. No one seems to understand the real politics behind the Modi government’s enmity towards Christian missionaries in Chhattisgarh as well as other backward states in its neighbourhood. Modi is selling the tribal areas and forestlands to the corporate sector part by part, his friend Adani being the chief benefactor. The Christian missionaries are a severe hindrance in that commerce. Let us get some facts right, at least. The Adivasi villagers allege that Gram Sabhas (local governing bodies) were forged or manipulated under pressure from Adani and the BJP government officials in order to take away their lands. In Hasdeo Aranya, minutes of the local body meetings were altered to show the villagers’ consent for land transfers. Also, the Chhattisgarh Scheduled Tribes Commission found that Panchayat secretaries were detained and coerc...
10 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
18 comments
Read more