The Evil of Intolerance

The protest against the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) at Jamia Milia Islamia University has been mostly peaceful until one day the scene turned ugly.

- JOE ERUPPAKKATT

A gun-wielding man appears from nowhere. He starts using abusive words. He pulls out a gun and opens fire on protesters. Thankfully, the spray of bullets injured only one person, but that was enough to cause fear and panic in the minds of the people. The man, later overpowered by police, was an extreme case of intolerance, bigotry and prejudice.

Intolerance may be defined as “unwillingness to accept the views, beliefs, ideologies, or behaviour that differ from one’s own”. It may be due to our incapacity to put up with the views and beliefs of others. These beliefs could be religious, social, or political in nature. Persons with such mindset can cause disaster as intolerance produces hostility, and hostility breeds violence.

Intolerance, often, is produced by a cocktail of politics, religion, race and caste. For example, an intolerant politician of a particular religious belief makes an irresponsible statement, declaring those opposed to his ideology and religion are antinational and are to be expelled from our country. This poisons the mind of his blind followers who resort to violence and killing. Religious intolerance accounts for most cases of terrorist attacks, vandalism at places of worship and persecution of innocent believers in many parts of the world. Intolerance based on socio-economic status can be the cause of caste violence, racist attacks, honour killing, discrimination against the lower class/caste and oppression of the weaker ones.