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Wednesday,
January 9, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Maharashtra
Act for Delhi Pre-poll
melodrama |
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Intriguing
family feud THE Congress may be far from a comfortable position in Uttar Pradesh but even its adversaries concede that it does have a trump card in hand: Priyanka Gandhi. The pretty daughter of Rajiv Gandhi is expected to do to the party what even Sonia Gandhi can't: be a vote-catcher par excellence. But in politics you never know when a scandal is going to rear its head and strike you hard. It has come in the shape of the controversies surrounding Priyanka’s husband Robert Vadra.
Is
Islamic terrorism on the retreat? A much
neglected industry called tourism
Handling
couples at war
Heroics
of a Gujjar family as militants raid home for food
1981, Physiology or Medicine: SPERRY, HUBEL & WIESEL
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Maharashtra Act for Delhi DELHI
Police Commissioner Ajai Raj Sharma may find it difficult to live up to the boastful claim he made while breaking the news of the provisions of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act being extended to the national capital. He told the media that "I have some bad news for criminals". Amen to that. Every right-thinking and peace-loving Indian would like to share the note of optimism that the Delhi Police Commissioner struck. He explained at length the advantages of the application of MCOCA to the territory that witnessed a brazen attempt by a group of terrorists to cause damage to the country's symbol of parliamentary democracy on December 13. But he must remember that any law is as good as the man who works it. More laws may not necessarily translate into better policing of the national capital. The entry of a group of terrorists into what was presumed to be a high-security zone could not have been stopped even if the police on that day had the power to use the provisions of the Maharashtra Act for curbing acts of terrorism in Delhi. It was sloppy security that resulted in the macabre drama. Add to it the obsession to be recognised as VIPs that most politicians and bureaucrats simply do not want to give up. As a result the police and other law enforcing agencies at any given time are usually fighting the criminals with one hand tied. The refusal of the so-called VIPs to submit themselves to routine security checks should be recognised as a major threat to national security. Mr Sharma is too senior an officer not to know the limitations under which he has to keep the national capital region safe for not just the VIPs but also ordinary citizens. The Union Home Ministry has extended the application of MCOCA to Delhi for reasons that are apparently more political than security-oriented. The Congress has led the campaign against POTO (Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance) becoming POTA (Prevention of Terrorism Act). However, it cannot object to the extension of the Maharashtra law to Delhi for dealing with terrorists and terrorism-related activities. MCOCA was introduced by the Congress-led coalition in Maharashtra. The fact of the matter is that the provisions of MCOCA are only marginally less harsh than the re-introduced POTO. Under the Maharashtra law anyone found guilty of being party to organised crime can be awarded capital punishment. Those found guilty of providing shelter or any other form of assistance to members of crime syndicates, including terrorist groups, can face life imprisonment. The advocates of the right to privacy and freedom of speech may not entirely agree with the provision that would allow the police to tap phone conversations. The champions of harsh provisions argue that extraordinary crimes require extraordinary measures for dealing with them. But who is responsible for the situation getting out of hand? Weak laws or an inefficient machinery? It must be remembered that a bad workman quarrels with his tools. The one who knows his job seldom complains. This is equally true of those who believe that terrorism and organised crime can only be fought by implementing harsh laws. |
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Pre-poll melodrama PRE-election manouvres often border on musical opera. This is very much true with the Congress party and totally true with the party in Punjab this year. With six weeks to go for the polling, the party is nowhere near finalising its list of candidates for the 106 constituencies it proposes to contest from. The high command has been entrusted with the onerous task of selecting the winning candidates. But it has no clue since the district and state-level units have submitted different lists, not based on the winnability of the partymen but the support they will earn from local satraps. Thus the three top contenders for the Chief Minister’s post if the party wins a majority have presented their own list and are mounting pressure on the high command to concede their demand. Second, most of the MPs want the party ticket for their very close kins, in some cases wives, brothers or sons. This is against the party guidelines which permit only genuine social workers or political heavyweights to seek and obtain party nomination despite their relationship with MLAs and MPs. Then there is the dispute over the Congress conceding 11 winnable seats to the CPI, and even the logic of giving up nearly 10 per cent of the seats to a party that won only two seats in 1997. The Congress smelt electoral success about six months ago and has since then been witnessing an intense factional struggle stalling the promise of releasing the list well in time. But this is not to be and the time lag has only intensified the competition. It is now obvious that the party has lost a bit of the momentum it had acquired some months ago and it can regain it even at this stage if it demonstrates a new sense of unity and purpose. Its consolation lies in the disarray of the Opposition. The Akali Dal (Badal) has released a list of 36 candidates but that is only about one third of the total seats. It is yet to firm up an alliance with the BJP with many SAD members wanting to fight from urban areas to benefit from the last minute concessions. Urban areas are the preserve of the BJP and it is reluctant to give up these seats. The BJP has a legitimate claim to a determining strength in the Vidhan Sabha as in the previous House and it is not likely to settle for anything less. The two big spoilsports are the Panthic Morcha and the BSP. They may not determine the final result but can upset the applecart of the two main parties. |
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Intriguing family feud THE Congress may be far from a comfortable position in Uttar Pradesh but even its adversaries concede that it does have a trump card in hand: Priyanka Gandhi. The pretty daughter of Rajiv Gandhi is expected to do to the party what even Sonia Gandhi can't: be a vote-catcher par excellence. But in politics you never know when a scandal is going to rear its head and strike you hard. It has come in the shape of the controversies surrounding Priyanka’s husband Robert Vadra. He has been forced to issue advertisements in various newspapers in which he (through his lawyers) says that his father and his brother are "using my name to fool people". Since the allegation has not been made by rival parties but by Mr Vadra himself, it becomes all the more intriguing. Obviously, the public notices have been issued after due deliberations. The harm that would have come to the party and the Gandhi family by keeping silent must have been perceived to be greater than the damage that the insertion of the advertisement is going to cause. In a simultaneous development the Congress has reportedly asked PCC presidents and CLP leaders in all states to guard against Mr Vadra's father (Mr Rajinder Vadra) and brother (Mr Richard Vadra) who had been "duping people by promising jobs and other favours". What has the tongues wagging is the timing of the announcement. Elections are round the corner in Uttar Pradesh. Not only that, it coincides with Mr Vadra's entry into the Congress. While admirers of the family claim that Mr Vadra has managed to remove the millstone round his neck in the nick of time, its detractors have less charitable comments to make. The gist of them is that the father and brother of the celebrated son-in-law are being made to go over coals because of their old RSS links. Mr Robert Vadra has steered clear of the controversy by commenting that he knew that such insinuations would be made but nobody would appreciate what he is going through. Whatever the real motive may be, one thing is for sure. The parties opposed to the Congress have got enough incendiary material to go to town with. It may not be of much use in large urban centres but may prove electorally explosive in small towns like Moradabad where the Vadra family lives. |
Is Islamic terrorism on the retreat? THE September 11, 2001, attacks on the USA by Al-Qaeda’s air-borne terrorists marked the beginning of the end of Islamic terrorism. That this should have happened at the turn of the century and the millennium is significant. India has been the sufferer of terrorism emanating from Pakistan, for many years. General Zia of Pakistan gave a vicious religious twist and promoted the idea of fundamentalist terrorism from 1989 onwards. Whether it was General Zia, Ms Benazir Bhutto or Mr Nawaz Sharif, who presided over the destiny of Pakistan during this period, the impact of terrorism on Kashmir and the whole of India to some extent remained the same. It is because of this continuous and unchanging policy of hostility and hatred towards India that the relations between this country and Pakistan could never by normal. Even when General Musharraf came to Agra for peace talks he had the audacity to say that the splitting up of Pakistan in 1971 at the instance of India could not be forgotten by his country. After the Pakistan-backed Taliban became the masters of Afghanistan from 1996 the terrorist attacks in Kashmir showed a significant upward trend and a qualitative change. With the arrival of Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and his Al-Qaeda terrorist network with its camps for training Muslim youths from West Asia and South-East Asia, the problem assumed alarming dimensions threatening the peace of the whole world. The trained and brainwashed terrorists were dispatched to the USA, Europe, Russia, the Philippines, Indonesia and India. This country was a special target because of the Kashmir dispute. From 1997 onwards the percentage of non-Kashmiri and even non-Pakistani terrorists steadily increased. Francis Fukuyama, famous for his theory of the end of history, and Prof Samuel P. Huntington, author of the concept of clash of civilisations, have both written perspectively on the subject of Islamic terrorism. Fukuyama terms this brand of terrorism as “Islamo Fascism”, saying that the root causes for its growth were poverty, economic stagnation and authoritarian politics in West Asia. In many respects the Islamic world differs from other world cultures. Islam alone has repeatedly produced significant radical movements that reject most western policies but principles. The Islamo-fascist sea within which the terrorists swim constitutes an ideological challenge that is in some ways more basic than the one posed by communism. Muslims interested in a more liberal form in Islam must stop blaming the West for painting the religion with too broad a brush, and move forward to isolate and delegitimise the extremists among them. There is some evidence that this is already happening, according to Fukuyama. Professor Huntington’s original thesis was that there was bound to be a clash of civilisations, particularly between the Christian West and Confucian (Chinese) civilisations. In the context of recent developments, Huntington cites the Economist which listed 11 or 12 of the 16 major acts of terrorism between 1983 and 2000 committed by Islamic fundamentalists. The various factors which promoted this trend were the resurgence of Islamic consciousness; a great sense of grievance and resentment; envy and hostility towards the West and its wealth, power and culture; tribal, religious and cultural divisions within the Muslims; and the high birth rate in most Muslim societies resulting in unemployed youths being attracted to terrorism. Huntington believes that the “age of Muslim wars” will end with the decline of Islamic militancy such as that in Iran and the lessening of resentment towards the West with changes in the US policy vis-a-vis Israel and improvements in social, economic and political conditions in Muslim countries. The multi-faceted improvement in Muslim countries is indeed the most important change which is called for, particularly in the West Asian monarchies and autocracies like Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Libya, Algeria and Egypt. In none of these countries there is real democracy. With oil wealth flowing since the mid-1970s, members of the Royal House of Saudi Arabia have fattened themselves at the cost of the common man. The unfettered oil flow from West Asia was the prime concern of the USA which chose to ignore the highly negative aspects of the Saudi administration and other such autocracies in West Asia. Indeed, one of the primary motivating factors for Osama bin Laden to leave Saudi Arabia was his opposition to the Saudi royal family and its blind support to the Americans based there. Coming nearer home, however, hard General Musharraf may try to avoid facing the realities and the developments after September 11, there is no scope for going ahead with his earlier policy of promoting terrorism in India. It is now difficult to believe that he went away in a huff from Agra only because India insisted that the need to curb cross-border terrorism must be inserted in the joint statement. He had all along tried to project that Pakistani jehadis were not terrorists but freedom fighters for the cause of Kashmir. The General would not dare to mouth such inanities anymore. Now he talks of fighting terrorism everywhere. The steps he has taken half-heartedly against the Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammad are at best cosmetic and for misleading the USA. Even as President Bush was stating that he had urged General Musharraf to do everything he could to crack down on terrorists, Pakistani spokesman Gen Rashid Qureshi and Mr Aziz Ahmed Khan asserted that since there was no extradition treaty between India and Pakistan no action could be taken by Islamabad without evidence. General Musharraf has reportedly instructed the ISI not to support anymore Pakistani terrorists operating in Kashmir, but its assistance to Kashmir-based militants may apparently continue. The day the Laskhar-e-Toiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammad were termed as terrorist outfits and banned by the USA followed by Pakistan, the leaders of the two outfits operating in Kashmir announced that their managements would be transferred to Kashmiri activists. Needless to say that the entire exercise is an eyewash. India has done its best to give all evidence by handing over the material against the most wanted criminals based in Pakistan. The FBI has a liaison office as part of the US Embassy at Delhi and it is fully kept in the picture. The State Department as well as President Bush should, therefore, be presumed to know all the evidence which exists against the wanted criminals. Sooner or later real pressure has to be brought on General Musharraf to hand over all the wanted criminals to India. The support extended by the ISI to the terrorists in Kashmir should also be brought to an end completely. The western countries, particularly the USA and the UK, are alarmed over the prospects of a nuclear war, especially since there has been considerable mobilisation of forces by both India and Pakistan along the international border. There is, however, no possibility of a war unless something very serious like the December 13 attack on Parliament happens again. Meanwhile, the measures implemented recently such as the ban on the overflights of Pakistani aircraft, the suspension of Samjhauta Express and the Delhi-Lahore bus service, the reduction of the strength of their respective High Commissions will continue. If Pakistan does not launch a further crackdown on terrorists and refuses to handover the wanted criminals to India, New Delhi may withdraw the most-favoured nation (MFN) treatment to Pakistan in the matter of trade, put an end to the liberal doling out of visas to Pakistanis, conduct a special drive to round up the hundreds and thousands of Pakistanis overstaying in India and deport them to their country, ban Pakistani television channel PTV and stop giving admissions to Pakistani students in Indian institutions, etc. The multi-pronged squeeze is bound to have a cascading effect on Pakistan’s social, economic and political life. |
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A much neglected industry called tourism IF anyone has wondered why a country as rich in cultural heritage, as stunning in scenic beauty and as astonishing in its contrasts as India is behind city states with little to offer or desert destinations peopled with shopping malls, all it takes to find the answer is to visit the Taj Mahal. On a visit to the famed monument of love with a European friend last week, I found out how distressing the route to the Taj can be. Before setting out for the journey, one is warned of the pickpockets and touts, usually congregated around the ticket windows. Watch your wallet and keep your handbag close to your chest, one is warned. And do not buy film rolls from boys who hawk them because they are fake or old. Then follow the hurdles to the ticket window. Like swarms, boys surround you hawking photo albums, refusing to take “no” for an answer. There are others pressing you to visit their shops, trying to lure you with marble replicas of the Taj, with other marble work. You can peel them off only by a half promise of a visit after seeing the Taj. Then there is the most formidable hurdle, the guides. There are armies of guides, each pressing their services on you with a persistence worthy of a better cause. They can explain to you each inlay of each flower, they can tell you things you would not know otherwise. What if you want to admire one of the wonders of the world by yourself? There are any number of guidebooks that can fill you in on the details. The guides persist even after you get past the ticket window. After these marathon hurdles, you proceed to the Taj, exhausted and somewhat panting. The Taj still takes your breath away but resentment builds up within you over the sacrilege of those who would deny the visitor his or her chance of communion with Shahjahan’s teardrop of love, as poet Tagore called it. Must a visitor from far or near be subjected to third-degree methods by vendors and touts before being granted an audience of one of the most astonishing monuments of the world? At Fatehpur Sikri, this story was repeated in an even more macabre form. A man with legs as thick as an elephant’s was displaying his We call it by the antiseptic phrase of “culture shock”. We cannot abolish poverty at the altar of tourism. Indira Gandhi could not abolish it despite the electoral gains she made in its name. But even as we hear interminable speeches on the merits of tourism and great tourism projects are routinely advanced, the authorities fail to take the simplest measures to make a tourist’s visit a pleasurable one. And one must suspend judgement on the new efforts of the southern states to band together to promote tourism. Take the Taj, for instance. Why cannot the area be kept clear of beggars? Why cannot simple rules be made to confine vendors to an area to sell their wares? Why cannot guides be organised in a queue system, each taking his turn and being available for those wanting to engage them at advertised prices? Such steps would make a world of difference to the tourist’s enjoyment of the Taj and they do not require any great expense. The promotion of tourism in a big way, a rich source of foreign exchange, requires many things: good roads, good hotels, friendly people and hassle-free facilities. Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi looks like a waiting shed, compared to Dubai’s or any number of other airports. If several planes land around the same time, as they tend to, there are long queues. Immigration officials can do with more smiles. We now have a number of good, if not outstanding, hotels in Agra and other tourist resorts although more quality hotels are needed, as indeed are more reasonably priced clean hotels for tourists with modest budgets. Good roads and communication links require major expenditure but are essential for promoting tourism as also the needs of the citizen. And the modern tourist needs modern telecommunication links. Tourism can be a help to our own modernisation. Promoting tourism raises other questions because tourism has a cultural dimension in the influences it brings in its wake. Obviously, Can one hope for dramatic changes with Mr Jagmohan now being in charge of tourism, reluctant as he was to accept it? With his activist approach to his assignments, he has gained a reputation for cutting through red tape to achieve results. Tourism has traditionally been a much neglected ministry even as a succession of ministers have paid lip-service to promoting it. Grand plans are unveiled and either gather dust or are wrapped up. Little attention is devoted to implementing simple regulations or modifying age-old rules. Mr Jagmohan can make a beginning by clearing famous tourist sites of beggars and unwanted vendors. If guides are licensed, they can be surely made to conform to rules of conduct, in keeping with the dignity of a monument and, indeed, their own dignity. What a difference it would make to a tourist who has ventured from his distant home to see the Taj to approach it undisturbed by beseeching beggars, vendors and touts? And India would gain by getting more tourists to fill the state’s coffers. |
Handling couples at war THE Crime Against Women (CAW) cell in the Chandigarh Police was introduced in 1991.
Today, 10 years later, a follow-up of this CAW reveals that while its beginning was full of fits and starts it has graduated into an ideal cell. The year 2001 witnessed a radical change in CAW, Chandigarh. This could be achieved because the present Inspector-General of Police, Mr B.S. Bassi, was driven with a passion to ensure that CAW, becomes an ideal for the rest of the country to follow. “I wanted our CAW to direct its efforts for an amicable settlement between husband and wife. By the time the warring couples come to CAW, ‘intense bitterness’ is bound to be their third companion. Unless this companion is given a due burial, no mutually acceptable compromise or rapprochement is possible. The police needed to be a kindly leading light instead of a cold law-enforcing authority. This obviously was a hill-task as it meant total overhauling of the mindset of the police force”. To implement his ideas, a young officer, H.G.S. Dhaliwal, IPS, was given this charge in April, 2001. An ideal breed of tradition and modernity, this officer, who is affectionately called, Harry, has introduced a humane touch to this cell. “CAW, Chandigarh, mostly receives complaints of marital discords, dowry demands etc. While in majority of the cases the reasons behind marital discords are largely other than dowry harassment, and the girls come to CAW only when pushed to the wall. In fact, they have almost no option to fight or sort out any marital discords if the boy and his family adopt a stubborn posture or make some prestige issue. I wanted CAW to act as an ideal mediator to sort out the discords, instead of leading the door to registering of FIRs”, comments Mr Bassi. “We decided to introduce ‘counselling’ to the couples threatening to part their ways in a marriage. But much before counselling the couples, we needed to train our own investigating officers of the CAW Cell. We also needed to re-orient the mindset of our own police personnel. To achieve this, we decided to conduct workshops wherein psychologists and women NGOs were involved. The very first workshop was held in July 2001 in which we invited Dr Vidhu Mohan, Dr Reet Inder Mohan Kohli, Dr Promilla Vasudeva, Dr Sudha Pant, Dr Jagat Jerath and leading women NGOs of Chandigarh. They provided structured training in counselling to the personnel of CAW Cell, besides, rich interaction on women issues”, says Dhaliwal. “It is not always a man who torments his wife. We have come across cases wherein even women have proved to be tormentors. For instance, take the case of Home Guard Lalit Kumar. Our CAW was approached by a woman Home Guard, Balwinder Kaur, and accusing Lalit Kumar of tormenting her, she said though she had been living with him for the past one-and-a-half years, yet he was refusing to marry her. She accused him of demanding dowry, the demand which she was unable to fulfil. When we counter-checked with Lalit Kumar, a totally new story unfolded. He said Balwinder Kaur was already married and had three children, whom she had left in some ashram at Panchkula and that she had hidden all these facts from him. He said that he felt cheated and was no more thinking of marrying her. At this stage, CAW asked him to prove that she was married and mother of three children. “Interestingly, while Lalit Kumar was busy gathering proof, Balwinder Kaur even approached certain Nihangs to mount pressure on CAW, Chandigarh. A section of the media even jumped at the sobbing story of Balwinder Kaur and accused us of siding with Lalit Kumar. However, soon enough, Lalit Kumar not only provided a ration card of Balwinder Kaur, her husband and three children but also found out the ashram where the children had been left. She had deserted her legally wedded husband because he had turned a drug addict. Ever since we have learnt all the facts with full evidence, Balwinder Kaur is absconding from her duty”, narrates Harry Dhaliwal. “You see our lawmakers came out with a radical law like 498-A to help the hapless women in desperate situations. But many began misusing this law. We have come across a case in which the family members of a boy, who were living far away from the bride’s home, were also dragged into the FIR just to avenge their own daughter’s humiliating position. In reality, an aggrieved wife either wants respectable reconciliation or appropriate compensation in case of parting of ways. But the boy’s family often wants to get away without feeling the pinch of separation or divorce. They do not want to give adequate financial support to the estranged wife. So we are making all out efforts at our CAW to give priority to reconciliation. Our CAW staff and the leading social activists from various NGOs jointly give counselling to both husbands and wives to give them clarity of thought. It is only in irretrievable cases that we help them negotiate mutual compensations. We are giving last priority to the registering of FIRs. After all, marriage is a delicate bond and should be handled like a fragile piece of glass, says, Mr Bassi. The success of CAW, Chandigarh, can be gauged from the study of cases of 2001
alone. Of the total 510 complaints received, counselling by CAW and NGOs helped 197 couples to compromise and resume their married life. In 158 cases no charges could be framed under any offence. However, 36 cases were registered under 498-A and other clauses. Harry Dhaliwal feels that majority of the Indian girls and their parents do not want a divorce. “That is why counselling has turned out to be such an overwhelming success. The use of 498-A at the drop of a hat ensures divorce at a heavy price by both sides. At CAW we want to ensure that such stringent laws should be used only by the most desperate, hapless women, which is not hard to identify, especially when we have seasoned and mature women activists like Sheela Didi, Oshima Rekhi, Amrit Kohli, Dr Vidhu Mohan, Satinder Dhawan, etc to guide us”. “We are now planning to include welfare and cause of children in CAW. We are likely to modify its name to widen its horizon to pay attention to the abused children. The purpose is to create a door which hapless mothers and children can knock at the times of crisis,” says Mr Bassi. |
Heroics of a Gujjar family as militants raid home for food WHEN two militants of Lashkar-e-Toiba barged into a “Gujjar” hutment in Baltangoo Khund village, little did they imagine that their usual demand for food and shelter from innocent but terror-stricken inhabitants would meet with stout resistance. Militants in Jammu and Kashmir have over the years cultivated the habit of extracting food and shelter from villagers at gun point. And they love to label such forced acquisitions as signs of public support for their movement. But the Gujjar family of Baltangoo decided to revolt and teach the militants a lesson. It proved to be a costly experience for the Lashkar-e-Toiba members. Talking to ANI, Alok Kumar, SP, Kulgam, said, “It was quite late in the night when the Lashkar men came knocking at Hashmatullah Gujjar’s house in the Kond forest area of Qazigand. They wanted milk and eatables.” “As the family objected to their high-handed behaviour and intrusion, one of the Lashkar men shot at the houseowner, Hashmatullah, from an AK-56 gun,” he stated. “The bullet hit Hashmatullah in the leg. His son-in-law, Ghulam Hassan Deedar, however, could not bear the sight. In a rage, he picked up an axe and struck the militant on his head, killing him on the spot. Alarmed and amazed, the other militants simply ran away,” Kumar added. Deedar later informed the Army about the incident. Next morning, troops of 17-Punjab Battalion rushed to the spot and recovered the militant’s body. They also seized his AK-56 rifle, four hand-grenades and one wireless set. In recognition of his valour, the Inspector-General of Police of Kashmir has rewarded Hassan Deedar with Rs 25,000. Security is also being provided to the entire family.
ANI Mini-pigs to provide organs for humans US researchers have cloned a miniature pig, deactivating a gene believed responsible for human rejection of transplanted pig organs, according to a study published in the US Science magazine. Scientists from the university of Missouri-Columbia and Immerge Therapeutics cloned the mini-pig but first made inactive the gene, marking an advance in efforts to produce pig organs for human transplant. The feat parallels that of British biotechnology firm PPL. Therapeutics, which first announced in April that it had produced cloned piglets. PPL said on Wednesday it had cloned five piglets and deactivated the gene in question, placing the two teams in direct competition.
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Abstention from cruelty (ahimsa) is the highest religion. Abstention from cruelty is highest self control. Abstention from cruelty is the highest gift. Abstention from cruelty is the highest penance. Abstention from cruelty is the highest yajna. Abstention from cruelty is the highest puissance. Abstention from cruelty is the highest friend. Abstention from cruelty is the highest happiness. — The Mahabharata, Anushasana Parva, 116.28-29 (Gita Press edition) *** By not killing any living being, one becomes fit for salvation. By non-violence one attains the supreme state, the parama pada. —
Manu Smriti, 6.60,75 *** Just as Ahimsa is highest among all religions, granting of fearlessness (abhaya dana) is the highest of all gifts (dana). — Adipurana, 1.19 *** Just as rivers following straight or crooked path enter the ocean, likewise, all sins (adharma) surely converge into violence (himsa); that is himsa is the greatest sin. — Padampurana, Uttar, 243.6 *** The truth which involves violence is not truth. — Devibhagavata, 3.11.36 *** Purification is of two kinds. Outer purification is effected by removal of adherences and inner purity is effected by ahimsa. The physical body is purified by water; intellect is purified by knowledge; the truth. — Baudhayana Dharmasutra, 3.10.23-24 *** Of all sacred vows, I am (the vow of) harmlessness ahimsa. — Lord Krishna to Uddhava in Srimadbhagavata, 11.16.23 For ‘meat’ destroy not the work of God. — Romans, 14.20 |
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