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with white bed sheets, with cloth masks on their faces and brooms in their hands and clean the streets of India.” If these accounts do not bring one pain, what will? The Jain community has abdicated many of their duties and responsibilities to respond to the constant changes facing the community, and to help shape it. Jain sadhus and sadhavis, with their lifestyle of austerity, their vow of five Mahavaratas, and their scholarly knowledge of Jain agamas, provide a great service to the community in terms of imparting knowledge and keeping the Jain community and traditions alive. But Jain sadhus, because of the limitations of their code of conduct, cannot be expected to be experts in all aspects of the day to day practice of ahimsa as they themselves don't experience the daily challenges and pressures of householders' lives. For example, sadhus cannot be experts about professions such as business, accounting, law, engineering, medicine, new and developing technologies, the ecology and environment, sustainability, public administration, police, military, trade, investing, accounting, and on issues such as abortion, end of life situations and decisions, and bioethics. Just a simple talk or discourse on the basics of ahimsa is not enough to help ordinary people find suitable and practical answers for day-today practitioners of such professions. Even if some sadhus are dynamic and social reformers, they too often shy away from discussing such topics in public. Most are content in delivering the daily or weekly pravachan purely as a ritual and that too is only given on non-ahimsak topics. The Jain community likes to attend lectures that are entertaining rather than perceptive, critical, visionary, and rational. In general, they (householders) also lack the interest and patience for discussing and hearing such lectures about ahimsa. During the last few years, I sought to organize Ahimsa Vichaar Manch (ahimsa discussion forums) and seminars on An Ahimsa Crisis: You Decide
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