Mt.22: 34-40
Hathras is no more an unknown village of Uttar Pradesh. This village will be remembered in our history for the heinous crime towards a 19-year-old young Dalit girl. This tragic incident proved the fact that even in this modern time, violence against weaker sections of the society especially against women is deeply rooted in our society. The incident took place on 14th September; the woman went to collect cattle fodder from the farm. She was allegedly dragged by four men, belonged to the high caste, and molested her. The culprits left her with severe spine damage and as a result of strong strangulation, her tongue got cut off. Her mother found her naked, bruised, and half dead.
The family members rushed her to the police station unfortunately the police force was not ready to respond to their plea since she belonged to the lower section of the society and the culprits were elite members. The victim’s health condition remained critical and she confessed the names of rapists when she could respond a little better. After all, the family had to undergo extreme mental pressure from the part of the government as well as the police force to hide the truth. She died on 20th of September. The dreadful human rights violation was yet to come. The police force who is pledged to protect the citizens themselves cremated the body without the consent of her family so that they could avoid further medical investigation and protect the culprits. The autopsy report stated her cause for death as the spine injury caused by blunt force trauma. It was very evident that even the medical report was in favour of these criminals, hiding the fact that she had undergone brutal rape and murder attempt. The event froze our conscience and terrified the fact that the main culprit was a next-door neighbour to the victim…
One of the virtues that we need to inculcate in our life journey is reverence for the dignity of our fellow brethren. When we come across a person for the first time, some of the questions that we pose are not specifically to know the very being of the person as such rather know the backgrounds such as his/her linguistic group, caste, religion, gender, or colour. Very often this dignity is violated based on a person’s background. Unfortunately, this background defines the dignity of the person and not the fact that that person is my fellow brethren created in the image and likeness of God. This structural evil is deeply rooted in our minds.
In today’s gospel, Jesus reminds the people of Israel about the centrality of God in our life and also the need to love our fellow brethren as we love ourselves. The religious leaders posed the question: ‘which is the greatest commandment?’ with a wrong motivation to entrap Jesus. The Ten Commandments describe our prime duty towards God and our fellow brethren. They expected that Jesus would point out one among the Ten Commandments as the supreme commandment. They thought that Jesus would say either respect God or love fellow brethren. If so, they could accuse Jesus, of going against the Ten Commandments given by God through the instrumentality of Moses. Knowing their mind well and Jesus summarizes the Ten Commandments into two; love God above all and love one’s neighbor as oneself. Jesus instructed them that the entire scripture, that is the laws, prophecies, wisdom teachings, everything can be summarized into these two commandments.
The Jewish society was a theocratic society and fidelity to Yahweh was the centrality of their life. Even their conversation, customs, dress code, celebrations everything communicated this message. However, when it comes to love for their neigbour it was very much fragmented. Their strong religiosity could not mend the economic disparity among them. The Pharisees, Sadducees, Scribes all of them competed to prove that who was more pious and devout in their relationship to Yahweh. Many of their external gestures were mere exhibitionism than convinced practices. These people had a deep knowledge of Torah, Prophetic writings, Wisdom sayings, etc. Even then they could not recognize the Messiah in Jesus. They considered Jesus teaching as a threat to Judaic beliefs, traditions, and customs. Jesus did not abolish any of their teachings rather he perfected it by introducing the dimension of love, especially for one’s neigbour.
Our society is very much religious yet we fail to encounter the same God in our fellow brethren. We are reluctant to share our resources, talents, and love with our brethren. The gospel message of the day is the best remedy for the social disparity and human rights violation that we encounter in different parts of the world. We all know that Hathras is not an isolated event. The crimes that violate human dignity in varied forms are very common in our societies. All of us are called to be a good neigbour to our fellow brethren. Let us live the gospel values in our day to day life situations and build the kingdom of God through our authentic witnesses…