Dharma Himsa Tathaiva Cha

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DHARMA HIMSA TATHAIVA CHA

( By Swami Chinmayananda )

 

Personally, I am no advocate of violence. But violence, too, has its

rightful place in life, life does not preclude death. The average

Indian has been moulded into a particular national mentality of

quixotic tolerance. His attitude is shaped into its distinct pattern

by the ideologies and moralities preached in our national literature.

And no single work in our classics has gained such a wide influence on

our people as the Bhagawad Gita: and in, this century, no other single

message had such a universal appeal to our countrymen as the single

line, " Ahimsa Paramo Dharmah " -- " Non - Violence is the greatest

Dharma. "

 

This line in its over - emphasis, has sapped both initiative and

energy in our millions, and, instead of making us all irresistible

moral giants, we have been reduced to poltroons and cowards. And

banking on this cowardly resignation of the majority, a handful of

fanatics have been perpetrating crimes which even the most barbarous

cave dwellers would have avenged. To clothe our weaknesses, we

attribute to them glorious names and purposefully persuade ourselves

to believe that they are brilliant ideologists !

 

Let us for a moment go to the original sacred verse and investigate

the significances of the moral precept: Ahimsa Paramo Dharmah. This is

the opening line of a stanza, and the very next line reads: Dharma

himsaa tathaiva cha. " So too is all righteous violence. " Indeed, non -

violence is the supreme policy to be adopted by man to foster enduring

peace in the world; but there are certain dire moments in the life of

individuals, as of nations, when we will have to meet force with force

in order that justice be done.

 

To every individual his mother, wife and children are the nearest

dependents and to guard their honour and life is the unavoidable first

moral duty of each head of the family. This is an obligation whether

the victim be a member of the majority or of the minority class within

a country, province or city.

 

By the over - emphasis laid on non - violence we have come to witness

the pathetic situation of today, when thousands, in cowardly fear take

to precipitate flight, leaving their innocent children to be butchered

and their unarmed helpless women to be dishonoured or converted or

killed. Under the cloak of glorified non - violence, an entire nation

of cowards fly from their homes, when a small sect of fanatic

barbarians boldly stalk in and out of their open undefended thresholds

to kill, to rape, and to loot. When will we learn to fully interpret

our Vedas, scriptures and Upanishads. If only we all learn that dharma

- himsa is equally noble as ahimsa.

 

To me it seems that the only solution for the day's internal chaos is

to bring home to the people the significance of the much neglected

teaching of dharma - himsa. As it is, a misled and over - excited

minority in the country has the sole monopoly of violence; and non -

violence is a dangerous folly. However ideal a moral precept may be,

so long as, in a society, innocent children, helpless women and

defenceless old are left to be butchered dishonoured and tortured,

while the youth of the land is made to watch impassionately the

hellish scene, we are to conclude that either the idea is a dangerous

one, or that we have not rightly understood the full meaning of the

precept.

 

Under the present available scheme of chaos in this country, when

under the planned instigation of a few power blind, reckless men, a

minority community is rendered into a murderous gang of fanatics, it

is the duty of the majority to win back the erring thousands. The cure

depends upon the disease; the potency of the medicine is decided upon

the virulence of the illness. Today when looting, arson and rape are

the dharma of a few, it is rank cowardice for the many to suffer the

tyranny of the unprovoked violence in meek submission. In the

battlefield, when violence is rampant, it is the dharma of everyone to

meet that maniacal violence with determined, restrained, violence not

only in self - defence but also to convince the aggressive vicious few

that 'it rarely pays to be violent.' !!!

 

( from sobg.org

 

 

 

 

Rathi