Jain Journal 1990 04

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 29

140
Kill the Enemy
Political himsă, the killing of armies in battle, murder en masse is justified as a necessity for national existence. On a declaration of war, each and every one of the countries engaged in war, consider that theirs is a just cause, and the hostile party is in the wrong. All the combatants pray to the same one God, to help them in destroying the homes and hearths of the hostile people, and pray for victory, which spells destruction of the opposing armies. Such is the excitement created by the priests, the clergy, the followers of the Prince of Peace, that even churches and hospitals, schools and colleges, libraries and museums, factories and workshops, shops and granaries, are not spared, nor are friends and relations. The crime committed at Kuruksetra ruined India that was. Mahabharata devastated Bharata Varsa, the land of Bharata. The Battles of the Crusade, the Wars of the Roses, the French Revolution, the War of American Independence, the Havoc of 1857, the Revolution in Russia, the Great War in which India and the leading great Powers of the World were engaged for five long years have very largely contributed to himsä on a huge scale, which though justified as political necessity, is himsă unpardonable.
JAIN JOURNAL
Municipal Slaughter
A very cruel slaughter and on a very extensive scale, is committed in the name of municipal and national economy, for the preservation of health and of property from pests. The wholesale destruction of stray dogs and of rats is horribly cruel. Widespread campaigns for the extermination of locusts were organised by Provincial Governments and Indian States, in which high-salaried officers, with high-sounding academic degrees, obtained from Foreign Universities, were engaged, and heavy allowances and retinues and expensive corps of subordinate officials were placed at their disposal, with costly appliances and apparatus. A local cess was imposed by Provincial Governments for this special purpose, and thus indirectly every person was made to contribute to and share in the commission of this horrible himsā. And it is not certain whether the value of the crops saved was less or greater than the amount of expenditure incurred in these big schemes. Again it is possible that statistics carefully made may prove to demonstration, that taking into consideration the vast extent of India as a whole, a flight of locusts, which is an occasional visitation, is not such a dire distress as it is imagined to be. The locusts are ephemeral insects, they do not live long, the period during which they cause damage of crops is limited, and the extent