Opinion
Can Non-Violence Still Solve
the Problems of Today? by TA Ramesh
Violence is only a
means to make others accept or do a thing against law and order. By the use of
physical force or weapons in violence people are made to accept or do thing
against their will or freedom and rights. On the other hand, if people are
willingly made to accept or do a thing by love, there the means used is called
non-violence. Threats, terrorism, wars and dictatorship rules are all violent
methods adopted by forceful persons to achieve their objectives and goals
against the will of the people and the law and order of the civilized human
society. Non-cooperation, boycotts, strikes and democratic rules are all
non-violent methods of men of moral conscience to achieve their goals with the
approval of the people and acceptance of the civilized human society. Hence,
non-violence is the real power much greater than violence capable of making the
rigid authority bend to its will.
Love is God
Wars were common very often in the past. Might was the deciding factor to settle
any dispute between two parties. So, the strength of a nation depended upon its
military power. Greeks and Romans built empires based on their military strength
and wealth. Might was right and mighty kings were obeyed and worshipped as Gods
by the people. Whatever the mighty persons said became the law of the land.
Those who were struggling to survive had no voice to say anything for justice;
instead they were suppressed by iron hands. So, for a long time, the rulers went
ill together and struggles of the oppressed, though successful or not, went
against the oppressors often. But the means they followed depended upon might
only and not intelligence or reason.
There was no one above the king except the priest, who was the adviser to him as
he was believed to be intelligent and possessing magical power mainly perhaps
due to some tricks. So, the priest was controlling the king as well as the
people. Arrogance, anger, hatred and domination were the attributes of animals
and strong men, who used violence for their living. Just at that juncture, Lord
Jesus Christ came into the picture to change the attitude of the people for the
better. Love as well as mercy, compassion and forgiveness are the qualities of a
human being valued high in the world. Jesus for the first time in the world used
love, the non-violent weapon as the means to fight against authority and
ignorance of the common men. However, mistakenly he was killed by crucifixion.
But after his death, the whole of the western world worship him as God and by
becoming Christians try to follow his principles to live as human beings in the
world. That was why Love was called as God.
Religion Encouraged Violence
Even after the births of Christian and Islamic religions, violence has not
stopped in the world. Violence is still continuing even in the name of religion,
let alone politics, economy and ideological differences. The world conquerors
and the colonialists of those religions converted the people of the nations they
went to their religions by violence and gave the benefits like education, job,
etc. that amounted to corruption. But they were not aware then that both
violence and corruption are evils in religions. They preached about peace, love
and brotherhood but practiced violence in the name of religion. They preached
good things but practiced evil things. Because by violent means they spread
their religions to various nations in the world, those religions had become
world religions. On the contrary, Buddhism also spread to various centers of the
world but not by violence and that religion also had become a world religion.
So, it is clear that religion also is responsible for the spread of violence in
the world. This is because the supplementary edition of The Bible encouraged
violence for the spread of Christianity in the world by the rulers of that
religion. So also the supplementary edition of Koran encouraged in lieu of
Sufism to spread Islam all over the world by terror.
Power of Non-Violence
The violent kings, who vigorously came to India, were conquered by the natural
beauty of the place, the richness of the culture and the significance of
spiritualism. The wild conquerors were tamed, matured and settled in life here
by its peace, culture and spiritualism. Among Muslim monarchs, Akbar became
great because of his policy of religious harmony and wisdom even though he did
not know how to read and write. Afterwards the British came to India as traders
representing The East India Company here and became the rulers of India. They
underestimated the simplicity of Indians, exploited them as much as they could
and completely dominated them by their arrogance and haughtiness. People of
India were treated as slaves; and so, Indians lost their freedom, rights and
peace.
Just at that time Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi came into the picture to get
freedom for India from the British rulers. He understood their contradiction,
power of domination by violence and decided to deal with them by the method of
non-violence. The English people relied upon and were proud of their physical
and intellectual powers but did not know anything about spiritual power. Gandhi
developed himself spiritually and became politically great because of his
thoughts, words and deeds based on truth. He lived a simple life and had high
thoughts, which attracted all sections of the people in India. Gandhi got full
support for all his freedom movements from the Indian people. So, it became easy
for Mahatma Gandhi to use truth as the nonviolent weapon and succeeded in
getting independence for India from the British rulers. That was why truth was
called as God. Also, from then on non-cooperation, boycott, fasting and strike
have been used by the people as the non-violent weapons to fight for their
rights and reasonable demands from the authority in any democratic country in
the world.
Corruption and Violence
Buddha, Jesus and Gandhi were rare persons in the world. But today no one is
like them and no one can live like them because of violence, corruption and
sexual harassments everywhere in the world. It is rare to tackle any crisis with
non-violence as a means. Even small matters of no significance, political people
make into a big issue and indulge in violence at the expense of public property
and innocent human lives. Sexual harassment to women is another vital issue
going on unchecked in many working places in the society today. Tips are given
for the service well done. Incentives are offered to the employees to induce
more interest in the work and increase production so that profit is assured for
any organization. But corruption is the reverse process. According to the bribes
paid, work is taken up and dispensed before or in time depending upon the
urgency of the person concerned. In this way corruption has become part of
culture. Therefore truth, honesty, sincerity and non-violence have lost
relevance in the society where violence is a routine matter today.
Political and Communal Violence
The practice of violence is going on everywhere unchecked. There are mainly two
types of violence affecting the society very much and creating nightmares for
many innocent men. They are political violence and communal violence. Political
violence is due to communism, regionalism, secessionism and idealism of all
hues. Communal violence is due to communalism, casteism and religious
fanaticism. But today politics has control over everything in the society. So,
political violence is a common thing due to any cause day and night. The
uneducated, unemployed and the sadists of the society become rogues, rascals,
rowdies, antisocial elements, extremists and terrorists. They enter politics,
use politics as shield and do all sorts of crimes in the society scot-free.
Therefore criminalization of politics is the main reason or cause for all kinds
of violence in the world, which has to be checked at any cost and should be
stopped by reforms, laws or other means so that peace, security and progress of
the society can be maintained in the world.
Violence Based on Communalism and
Criminalization of Politics
Independent groups are not as successful as the political groups indulging in
violence to accomplish their demands. Communalization of politics and
criminalization of politics have increased the vigor of political violence
beyond all limits known so far. Gujarat violence and Kashmir violence are the
best examples to quote in this regard. Violent fights between rival political
parties have become almost a daily occurrence affecting the daily life of the
people so much that many dislike political parties and even 30% of the people
never cast their votes at all in the elections. Without the support of some to
fight for one, one cannot survive in this mad world of political rivalries. Even
the dress one wears is looked upon as worn is support of this or that party. So,
one is supposed to know the political temperature of the day before one walks
down the street to carry out one’s works everyday.
Each and everyone’s moves are watched by the political hawks to know one is for
or against them. Even a slight suspicion of anyone’s opposition triggers the
fanatical political group to start giving troubles in some form or other
indirectly against the person in focus in such a way that police cannot take
legal action against them. The result is mental torture or mental wreck to the
civilians who come to know about that. This sort of violence or psychological
war has become a regular affair in many areas of the towns, cities and villages
today. This sort of a situation is termed as political activity by political
observers in news papers and magazines, which serve as a fore warning to those
who are about to visit such places due to some purpose. The vulnerability of the
places to violence affects the daily life of the people there, business goes
down and tourists also stop visiting such places.
Deterioration of Standard
The reason for the state of vulnerability of political situation is due to the
deterioration of standards in all fields of human activities. The reason for the
deterioration of standard in all walks of life in the society is due to the
pursuance of the policy of socialism that has not encouraged competition,
excellence, quality, talent and knowledge but has allowed the society to become
immoral, uncultured, undisciplined and corrupt. Further because of socialism
both the economy of the nation and the society have also not developed as
expected by the policy framers.
All developments start from education only. Because of the mass of the people
were not educated, socialism had failed and had been deleted from the policy
framed for developments. So, the bad atmosphere of politics and the development
of violence in all fields are the end result of socialism. However, had there
been education, justice, decency and dignity as the foundation of socialism it
could have been successful in the world. So, only in the highly educated
society, socialistic democracy can be successful in the world. Hence, unless all
are educated, violence will be there and nonviolence will have no role to play
in the world.
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