The article, “ >In maya, the killer and the killed , Jan.14), is a subdued and veiled attempt to justify the acts of the Charlie killers by presenting them as the victims of what the writer calls “emotional violence”. He is wrong is concluding that merely because emotional violence is not measurable it is not treated as crime. If one look at laws in the fields of defamation, marriage and human rights, they treat emotional violence indulged in with the malicious intention to harm the victim emotionally as a crime and prescribe punishments for such a crime. There is also a significant difference between physical and emotional violence. Physical violence is inflicted on the victim without his consent but no infliction of emotional violence is possible without the victim’s consent.
The progress of a civilisation means an evolution from barbarianism into intellectualism. No human progress is possible without emotional violence with benevolent intentions. When scientists first broke the news that it was bacteria which caused communicable diseases to the people who believed that they were the punishments inflicted on them by angry gods, it would undoubtedly have amounted to carrying out emotional violence on them but still necessary to save them.
S.P. Asokan,
Chennai
The truth is that everything is maya. Spoken words can’t be taken back. Similarly, life cannot be given again. As Thiruvalluvar said, a burn can heal but the words that cause hurt can never heal an emotional wound. Though a publication has the right to publish anything in the name of freedom of expression it does not have any right to hurt a religion. We must remember that science doesn’t gives answers to all questions and there are certain things we need to believe in.
Vijayalakshmi B.,
Chennai
I am not familiar with the work of Mr. Pattanaik, but found his philosophical perspectives on “violence” to be astute. Therefore, I was surprised to find a few readers going off at a tangent in their analysis. Nowhere did the article suggest that the writer was justifying the actions of the attackers or that Charlie Hedbo was pursuing the so-called “true democratic freedom of speech” as Prof. Mahmood Mamdani in his interview (Jan.15) has elaborated upon by making a distinction between religious blasphemy and religious bigotry. The writer did not draw parallels between the attackers and soldiers, Godse or the perpetrators of domestic physical violence nor was “Brahminism” used in its literal sense. Instead, the writer had used intellectual, metaphorical and allegorical terms to state his proposition which was the crux of his argument — i.e. we all live in maya, the world seen and interpreted through measurements. In this world of maya we can measure physical violence but not an emotional one as the former is “seen” but the latter only “felt.”
Shakti Singh,
Shimla
I’m at loss for comprehension after reading the article. What was the writer trying to say? He said much and ended up saying nothing. Many of his statements were deficient. The Peshawar carnage was not the karma of the unfortunate innocent children, nor of the intangible pain the Taliban felt. It was plain and outright bizarre madness that has no boundaries when it comes to matters of fanaticism and faith. The demon has the same face, be it in Peshawar, Paris, or Timbukuttu — an unwillingness to recognise and respect differences in opinions or beliefs.
To say that intangible violence and pain is ignored is untrue. Even courts take cognisance of mental torture in many cases and do not seek only symbols confirming physical torture. Deflections created by abracadabra-like questions of “maya and karma” cannot hide the fact that certain sections of society refuse to shed the medieval mindset and are paranoid at the sign of questions and evidence rubbishing archaic notions and claims.
Anilkumar Kurup,
Thiruvananthapuram
