Lynch is a bad word today, with mobs roaming the country lynching for the smallest reason and the Supreme Court asking to frame an anti-lynching law!

But there’s a choice, would you be a lyncher or lynchpin?

“Lynchpin?” you ask.

Journey with me to yonder village; you hear the rumble afar of ancient cart, and slowly bull and the cart it drags come into sight. The road is rough, the load heavy, and you wonder how crude wooden wheels are not coming apart, till you look closer and see the lynchpin, wedged in through the hub into the axle. The wheels can shake, the cart can totter, but the lynchpin sits grim and firm, holding all together.

The lynchpin holds no power of its own to move forward, nor strength to carry load, it’s just a fastener used to prevent the wheel from sliding off!

When India fought for Independence, Gandhiji often played a lynchpin role, binding different leaders with different ideologies together, making them fight for a common goal!

Another was Nelson Mandela of South Africa who fostered reconciliation twixt black and white across the nation!

Both were lynchpins! But look closely; they be pins, not mere cogs! A pin does an important job; it holds together! In describing key individuals, those who are central to the success of an enterprise, we often use words such as backbone, cornerstone, anchor, buttress and pillar, but here’s one more, a ‘lynchpin for the nation’ ‘the lynchpin of your family’! Could that be a way to describe what you are going to do from this moment?

In cricket this key person is often the wicket keeper, standing there behind the wickets, he encourages and motivates bowlers, fielders and sometimes a demoralized captain! Today you hear him clearly through the stump mike, quite often cheering his team to victory. The victory of eleven players made up of different men, from different communities, different castes, different creeds and religions, spurred on by a lynchpin behind the wickets!

Our country needs such lynchpins today, not lynchers!

You need not be the bull of the cart, nor the driver, nor the cart itself, but just a little ‘holding together’ pin!

Quiet peacemakers, bringing warring factions together! Calm minds moving beyond a conflict and seeing solutions! Firm men and women, not jostled by circumstances! Those are whom we need today!

Sssh! Do you hear the rumble of the village cart? Wheels tottering, load swaying? But behold the lynchpin, firmly fixed, unmoved, unaffected, untroubled just uniting!

Or do you want to join the violent mob and lynch with ropes, stones and words?

To be or not to be, lyncher or lynchpin, that should be your question..! 

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.