Nobody needs the death penalty, nobody deserves it. In fact, not only the death penalty, no other
kind of punishment is right, because punishment never cures the person.
Every day the number of criminals goes on growing; every day you build more prisons. This is
strange. It should not be so. Just the opposite should be the case, because with so many courts
and so many punishments and so many prisons, crimes should be less, criminals should be less,
slowly, slowly prisons should be less, courts should be less. But that is not happening.
I am reminded that in Great Britain, just one hundred years ago, corporal punishment for stealing
was the common thing. And the punishment had to be given in a public square so people could see
what happens when you steal – just to teach them. It would be a lesson to them, that if you steal
this happens: a public humiliation. The person had to be naked and lashed till blood started oozing
from his body.
But what happened – just one hundred years ago – was that the punishment had to be dropped
because it was found that when the crowd was there ... and thousands gathered to see – it was
not a good sign. When thousands of people come to see such an ugly scene it shows something
in them is wrong. Perhaps they also want to beat someone naked, but they don’t have the guts; at
least they can see it being done.
That’s what you are doing everywhere. You love football: you don’t play – there are professional
players – you watch. You become identified with a certain team of football players and you are so
excited, as if you are participants. Just look at the crowd in a stadium: thousands of people so
excited, as if their life and death is in question – shouting, screaming, throwing their caps, their hats,
fighting with each other because the person by their side is giving encouragement to the party they
oppose.
The football players are playing their games, and the thousands of spectators – what are they doing?
They are also, in a psychological way, participants – perhaps more excited than the real players. The
real players are professionals, that is their business, and these idiots are unnecessarily becoming
so hot.
And this is not the whole crowd; the real crowd is sitting by their television sets, millions of them –
listening to commentaries on their radios.
I had a friend in the university; he was a professor, but a fan of hockey matches – in India, football
is not so hot. One day I was sitting in his room and he was listening to the commentary on his small
transistor that he used to carry continuously, keeping it close to his ear so he did not miss anything.
I was sitting there and I told him, ”I have come to say something to you.”
He just told me, ”Keep quiet!” and went back to his commentary. And then something happened: he
threw the transistor and it broke into pieces.
I said, ”What happened?”
He said, ”My team, they failed me! I had so much hope for them.”
”But,” I said, ”if your team failed, why did you destroy the transistor?”
He said, ”You won’t understand. I was in such anger that you should feel fortunate that I did not hit
you with the transistor.”
”But this would have been too much! First you destroyed the transistor, and I am just sitting waiting
here for you to get finished with your transistor, and you wanted to hit me with it,” I said.
”Yes, I was so angry,” he said, ”I could have hit you. For a moment I was just going to and then I
changed my mind.”
I said, ”This is good – next time I will never be around anyone listening to the commentary on hockey
matches. This is dangerous, even to be around.”
Now this man is so much involved .... The whole world has become a world of spectators.
No comments:
Post a Comment