Professor T.J. Joseph’s Harrowing Story of Fundamentalist Outrage and Violence

From trivial beginnings to outsized outrage

The year was 2010. Professor T.J. Joseph was happily teaching at a Catholic college in the Indian state of Kerala, in which Islam, Christianity, and Hinduism all coexist peacefully–most of the time. Little did he know his whole life was about to thrown into complete chaos by an absurdly trivial choice.

Joseph was a professor of Malayalam, the unique language of Kerala, and as part of his teaching duties he was preparing a grammar exam. The exam consisted of excerpts from literature which he lightly edited, requiring the students to punctuate them as part of their evaluation. For one of his questions, Joseph chose an excerpt from a book written by a Muslim author, in which a character identified simply as a madman interacts with God, and God, fed up with the character’s constant questioning about irrelevant issues, calls him a son of a bitch. Only, Professor Joseph made a small change. He gave the anonymous character a name: Mohamed. This is a popular name in muslim cultures, and it never means “the prophet Mohamed” outside of obvious religious contexts. Similarly, in Latin American cultures, many people are named Jesus, and no one thinks that calling out that name on the street is a reference to the second person of the Christian trinity.

One of the students, thinking that it portrayed God insulting the prophet Mohamed, edited it to satisfy her religious scruples, and also told others about the supposed offense.  Professor Joseph had insulted the prophet!  As always in these instances of religious outrage, no one stops to wonder at the oddity of the accusation: why would anyone make a question on a grammar quiz the one place to take their blasphemous stand?

The report spread like wildfire and soon his very life was being threatened by religious extremists. Strangely, the authorities immediately took the side of the extremists and put out a warrant for his arrest. Due to the threat of violence, Joseph went on the run and hid in neighboring cities, hoping for the uproar to pass. Unfortunately, it did not pass. After a while, and in secret consultation with his lawyers and friends, he decided to turn himself in and allow the courts to try the case. After some time in jail, he got released on bail.

An attack in broad daylight

As I mentioned before, Professor Joseph worked at a Catholic college and he was himself also a practicing Christian at the time. Returning from church on Sunday after his release, he was attacked by a gang of extremists. They hacked into his vehicle with an axe, also injuring his family members, dragged him out on the street and chopped his right hand off with the axe, tossing it into his neighbor’s yard. The rationale for this specific act was a prescription for “cross amputation” found in the Quran (Surah Al-Ma’idah 5:33):

Indeed, the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and spread mischief in the land is death, crucifixion, cutting off their hands and feet on opposite sides, or exile from the land. This ˹penalty˺ is a disgrace for them in this world, and they will suffer a tremendous punishment in the Hereafter.

However, after cutting off the hand, the attackers became confused and started to work on Professor’s right leg, instead of his left leg, injuring it. Then, one of them saw the mistake and they switched to the left leg, which they damaged quite badly, but fortunately they were not able to cut off his foot before they had to flee.

Profesor Joseph came very close to death after the the attack, but he survived, and one of his neighbors even found his discarded hand. Thinking quickly, they put it on ice and it was reattached. Unfortunately, though he still has the hand to date, he has lost most of the functionality. I have to admit that I was a bit nervous when I met him at the esSense meeting regarding whether or how I should shake his hand. He offered it up to me, holding it up with his left hand.

No Crime

To get a full picture of the situation it is important to note that India does have a federal blasphemy law, Section 295 A, which criminalizes “deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs.” The law comes from the era of British rule and it survived into Indian independence. It has an interesting source, with thematic connects to the case of T.J. Joseph. In 1924, the publisher of a book about the sex life of the Prophet Mohamed (yes that Mohamed in this case) was arrested and brought to court by Muslims who objected to the content. However, it turned out that at the time there were only laws against offending people of other religions, and the publisher was a Muslim. Section 295 was crafted to address the problem more broadly. The publisher, unfortunately, was murdered in court when it had become clear that he had not done anything illegal.

And so the key point in the legal case of T.J. Joseph was whether the act of writing the question was “deliberate and malicious.” Since it was all a misunderstanding, the court ruled in his favor. No crime had been committed.

Betrayal

And yet, the worst was actually still to come: not more violence, but a cold-hearted stab in the back. While extremists from one religion attacked him physically, his own Christian religion, like Pilate, now washed its hands of him. His school had already suspended him, and kept renewing the suspension, even when he was found to be innocent and was eager to go back to work. The school’s posture had come all the way from the top catholic bishops, who went so far as to circulate “pastoral letter” in the churches of the area, declaring that as far as they were concerned, the professor, regardless of what the law might have to say, was guilty of inciting the wrath of the muslim community. It was his fault they were mad.

When you consider the demographics of Kerala, the instinct to throw the professor under the bus has a relevant source: Christians are about 18%; Muslims are about 38%. But also, Christians have a long history as educators in Kerala and they need Muslims to trust them enough to attend their colleges. And yet, exigent circumstance do not nullify cowardice.

Then came what was perhaps the worst blow: he came home one day to find his wife’s body in the bathroom. She had been severely depressed at the turn of events, on medication, and after yet another failed of attempts to get back on the school’s payroll, facing retirement age with the specter of no income–she had even looked into getting work in the fields–she gave up and committed suicide. By this point Professor Joseph’s story was well known throughout India, and the outcry at this final tragedy (not the event itself, but the bad publicity) finally led to action by the school. They agreed to allow professor Joseph back to work at the school for one day, in order to fulfill a technicality that would get him his retirement pay and unlock other government benefits.

The true outrage

This Saturday I had the privilege of interviewing T.J. Joseph at a meeting of esSense Global, a secular Indian organization that promotes reason, science and atheism. It was my job to introduce his story to the english speaking contingent of the event. After speaking to some of the participants, I realized that this entire ordeal is very well known to people who live in Kerala, or are from the region. It has left a strong impression on them. But the conclusion is not the one you might think: not so much outrage at the violent extremists, for this is, tragically, par for the course. It’s not surprising when your enemy attacks you. The biggest outrage is that of a church that discarded one if its own in their time of greatest need. This, it seems, has created more atheists in Kerala than axe-wielding fanatics. And it’s understandable, for the betrayal reframes the church, in a much more prosaic way than extreme violence, as a mere human institution–not the powerhouse of supernatural power and love it proclaims itself to be.