“Mitron!” said the leader of a nation, stroking his white beard, “here are laws you can break!” Saying so he placed the tablet of stone on which he had engraved the said laws. The crowd roared its approval. It was the first time they’d been given laws they could break without punishment, and hooligans, thugs, ruffians, rapists yelled their approval as the leader showed the laws they could break to them.
Soon vigilant mobs roamed the country, thrashing, assaulting and lynching those who followed another dietary preference to theirs. They stopped trucks, carrying animals who’s taste they did not subscribe to, beat and killed owners and drivers.
They looked into homes where women cooked and if their noses smelt smells their own kitchens ne’er produced they pulled those women out and had their way with them, even as they confiscated and took away meals meant for the poor and hungry who couldn’t afford what these mobsters ate.
With the ‘breakable laws’ written and pinned to their sleeves they mobbed what was once a peaceful nation, rushing into places of worship where citizens worshipped in ways different from theirs, broke walls, burnt sacred objects, molested worshippers, thrashed priests, and with jeers and cries of jubilation, went to the next.
They separated couples in the name of love warfare, pulling women away from lawful wedded spouses and murdered those men who dared fall in love with another from their own faith.
The leader of the nation, stroked his beard and watched first with knowing smile, but same smile became frozen, turned to shock, then confusion. “Stop!” he cried, “What are you doing?”
But the mob did not stop.
They had learnt to break the law, and now with the taste of blood, they wanted more:
They marched into hospitals, smashed X ray machines, ransacked operation theatres, threw cancer patients from their wards, injured doctors.
They shot journalists dead, point blank, whose writings they cared not for.
They added these new freedoms to their list of ‘breakable laws’ pinned to their sleeves.
They ran into college campuses, pulled out those who thought different, battered them, whether they wore trousers or skirt.
They stopped cars on highways. Raped women travelling in them. They stopped the screening of films whose plot they did not understand. They followed tourists, and if perchance they did not allow selfie with them, beat them up, groped theirwomen, left them wounded, bloodied.
“Stop!” shouted their white bearded leader,as the world press asked questions. “Stop!” he cried then watched helpless. “Stop!” he feebly whispered as foreign presidents commented how unsafe his country had become. “Stop!”
But today the mobs, ruffians, thugs, rapists,touch the laws sewed to their sleeves. They cannotstop the bloodlust, now embedded in their hearts..!
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