Bhagavana Mahavira and his Relevance in Modern Times

Author(s): Narendra Bhanavat, Prem Suman Jain, V P Bhatt
Publisher: Akhil Bharat Varshiya Sadhumargi Jain Sangh

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Mahāvira and His Relevance
Auschiltz, or Siberian camps, only proves the point. Not that India has been free of wanton large-scale killings and arson and destruction, the riots after partition and the unnecessary bloodshed is a recent example. All this deliberate and pointed killing of men by men, or even of men by man (as in recent hijackings) lead to only one conclusion that as early man can take life, he cannot give. Science and technology have come to his aid to add to the poignancy and lethal power of this nihilistic activity of man. And under what sweet names and masks and cloaks does he enact this drama of cloak and dagger, war to end war, what not !
Mahāvira's teachings, carry the prognosis of this element of pugnacity in the inherent animal nature of man, Nietzsche called war a biological necessity. All that may be partly true of the lower scales of lifemanifestation and life-assertion. But man does not live by Darwinian survival of the fittest rule of the mightiest setting in the right. Even Marxism which advocates class-war, dialectically defends violence and under the name of Cultural Revolution or suppression of any dissenting vioces violence has been used freely even in those countries which claim to have achieved the El Dorado of equality and fraternity (if not exactly liberty). The rise of New Class or a new serfdom only proves that violence is a sterile activity and in the human context, it only leads to super-violence,
While man has unlimited capacity to destroy, he has very limited means to re-construct or build or heal or enliven. Mahāvira's teachings, if widely applied would include all Pacifist movements in politics, all trusteeship and reconciliatory methods of arbitration in economic disputes, all guidance and readjustment therapy in social psychology. Advocates of extreme violence argue that they have no other alternatives. The Israilies have a motto in Hebrew which means 'No other way'. So do all terrorists and anarchists and Marxists-Leninists and what not theorize and call themselves Panthers or Quick-remedy believers. If one thinks coolly, in the ultimate analysis, it is merely loosing faith in man's goodness, in the possibility of a change of heart, in the basic trust an individual can transform a system.
The one objection which is generally raised against the type of non-violence advocated by Mahāvira, that it is humanly impracticable. But the argument can be rebutted by saying that all