That is the ominous sign of a new political storm brewing on the horizon. One of the political parties has put down its foot. It will not undergo reforms unless its leader is released from jail. As it looks, they will push that agenda come what may. Droves of lawyers are coming from abroad to pitch a legal Armageddon!

The head of the other political party has been busy on the phone, shoring up support for her leadership abroad while the party is divided at home. It looks like this party will rather break than bend. Its hope for reforms looks as remote as those phone calls going from the chairperson.

From the look of it, the reform process may not be sweet and short. But the real concern is the murmur of discontent, which is slowly rising not from professional politicians, but from professionals who have embraced politics. I don't know how others see it. To me it is an indication of the ultimate futility. We might be able to reform the politicians, but not the politics.

Compare it to an outbreak when the virus mutates and becomes airborne. That is when the virus is widely diffused and the spread is hard to contain. Last week, the university teachers have showed clear sign of infection. They are the most enlightened amongst us, yet they staged a protest on flimsy ground.

They read newspapers and watch television. They should know that the two former prime ministers are not exactly Holy Basil. The country has terribly suffered under them, and they must be held accountable for it.

More than the students, more than the lawyers, the teachers have shocked us all. All stripes and colors of them, blue, pink and white converged on the black of badges, which they wore to sympathize with politicians whose integrity is questionable. What ideals have these teachers put forward in front of their students? Those who came to learn from them must wonder why teachers should act like partisan hacks.

One can always argue that nobody is guilty until proven. That is true when a case is in the court. But public figures such as these Prime Ministers are surely guilty by the verdict of people. They headed governments, which were dens of corruption.

Leaders of their caliber don't need to be caught red-handed. They are guilty if their good faith is questioned. For them it's equally bad to condone an offense as it is to commit one.

It would have been meaningful and acceptable if the teachers protested against mistreatment of politicians who were arrested for fighting against an unjust law, a despot or foreign domination. But why should they bother if former Prime Ministers, whose notorious regimes marked long years of inefficiency and deterioration, are made to face the law? Nothing comes to my mind for which one could be foaming at the mouth to defend either of them.

Now this part is a plot taken right out of a horror movie when something mysterious gives you a creepy feeling, when normal people bitten by zombies also turn into zombies. If some politicians have gone to jail, others into hiding and the rest are trying to change colors to save their skin they have already bitten enough people and infected them.

It's scary to think that politics have so many lines of defense. One line falls and another rises, leaving doubt in one's mind that we are going to lose the war even if we win the battle.

It could mark, and I bite my tongue before I say it, the beginning of a renewed confrontation, which could end in one of the two extremes. Either the government will back down to accommodate political resentment or crush that resentment with unfeeling hands. One could take us back to anarchy. The other could constrain the army to stand strong in their boots and drop the civilian veil.

That is why I am more upset with the teachers than anybody else, because these gifted minds have behaved in an irresponsible manner, putting party over country and leader over people. It is a shame that the purveyors of knowledge showed outrageous ignorance when it came to exercise of good judgment.

Who is going to tell them that a sliver of black cloth pinned on the shirt can have far-reaching implications? The teachers not only put their own honor on the line by crusading over a smack of scandal. But they also planted the seed of discontent, which could turn into a blinding storm.

Chinese philosopher Mo Tzu, who probably lived between 470 and 391 BCE, said that when the honorable and wise run the government, the ignorant and humble remain orderly; but when the ignorant and humble run the government, the honorable and wise become rebellious. Our problem is unique which no philosopher could have anticipated. When the ignorant and humble run the government, the honorable and wise worship them.

Yesterday, some 200 teachers of another university did it again. They went on mass leave for one day to demand the release of a politician. I don't know what to say. Humans and chimpanzees like to unite behind a male leader. Bonobos unite behind a female leader. Likewise our teachers like to unite behind sensational politicians. Nature has tuned different minds for different choice.

But I know for sure the teachers have made a wrong choice. Benchmarked with rest of the country, the storm is already on the way.

Mohammad Badrul Ahsan is a banker.