Christopher Hitchens has made an interesting comment. He maintains, "the most intolerant and narrow-minded are those who think that they are very tolerant and most open-minded." Indeed! Often in our life we meet people who are made of such sick stuff.
Most often they would be in positions that are 'powerbaaz'. Or at least so they think. Such people hence ride rough shod over even the topmost Head. They would take minor to major decisions without, forget consulting, even informing him/her.
Such people are like King Louis XVI who used to argue,"L'etat? C'est moi!" It means i am the state. Such crude crooks would have their lackeys who would lick whichever part of the body not even offered.
As a result, such people, given their self-aggrandisement, lose their connect with reality. Living in a swollen-head's paradise, they think they are always right. Life has its own ways to teach the right lessons to such "i am central most" types.
They undoubtedly vitiate the institutional framework as well as atmosphere because they can go to any extent to establish the over-reaching power baazi of themselves and their crooks. In the public space, however, such people are truly dangerous.
Let me give you an example. There are certain people in our midst who think that Veer Savarkar is their bete-noir. They would declare that he wrote apology letters to the British. The fact of the matter is that those days such was the formal way of writing. Everybody wrote the same way!
Such pointless intolerance shreds the society bare. In the name of tolerance, such intolerance and stupidity ruins a tolerant togetherness. Thus begins the competitive "give-you-back" game. Often neither party would have read up anything basic in the field. Thus emerges a chamber house of echoes, much worse than the din at a psychiatrist ward!
Wish people did not hate for the sake of hatred. Wish everyone consulted a lot of material, especially the basic texts, before shooting their mouth. Otherwise the hatred of each others' opinions would result in a scenario much worse than the Tower of Babel!
Pratima@ "Intolerance is a form of violence and results in loss of democracy," says Mahatma Gandhi.
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