Vaishali Institute Research Bulletin 3

Author(s): R P Poddar
Publisher: Research Institute of Prakrit Jainology & Ahimsa Mujjaffarpur

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VAISHALİ RESEARCH BULLETIN NO.3
do not deny that it is a great ideal, however. In spite of shortcomings?, non-violence can, to a major extent, serve as the ideal means for democratic patterns of behavior. It is certainly true that it offers a great counterpoise to bloodshed, ravages and colossal destruction which are the consequences of large-scale military operations. War results in a slackening of morals. Hence both in internal and international diplomacy, genuine and cooperative efforts have to be made for the concretization of Ahimsa, to the maximum extent possible, if a world federation of democratic states is the desired objective. The lessening and possible elimination of pugnacity, brutality and warfare should be the criterion of the evolutionary progression of mankind. Machiavelli says that only those prophets succeed in history who have at the back of them political power. Moses, Cyrus, Theseus and Romulus succeeded because they had force, while Fra Girolamo Savanarola was executed as a heretic because he had no support.48 John Stuart Mill also refers to several instances in the history of mankind when the use of thwarting and neutralizing forces has resulted in the suppression of truth. He says that the dictum that truth always triumphs over falsehoods is a pleasant common place refuted by experience. He refers to the failure of Arnold of Brescia, Fra Dolcino, Savonarola, the Albigeois, the Vaudois, the Lollards, the Hussites etc. He also says that early Christianity could succeed only because the persecutions were occasional. He, therefore, does not accept that truth has an automatic power of successful assertion.49 It is difficult to deny the historical veracity and insight in the statements of Machiavelli and Mill. But as a believer in the superiority of the power of truth, Gandhi would urge along with the Upanishads that truth being the sole reality, has eventually a conquering power. The survival and continuity of the world and of the various species amidst cruelty, war and destruction is a proof, according to Gandhi, of the superiority of the law of love over the law of force. Survival eventually triumphs over extinction. Suffering triumphs over brutality. The potency of Ahimsa is, further, revealed by the millions and millions of cases and instances in human domestic and group life where tensions and conflicts are solved by love. Gandhi wants that this law of love should not remain confind to individual conduct alone. It should invade by its
47. Some faithful devotees of the Mahatma say that the shortcomings
are not of non-violence as a norm but of man. True it is that man has shortcomings. But it is unrealistic to place absolutely utopian ideals before man. The ideals have to be so conceived that there are
even some remote chances of their realization. 48. N. Machiavelli, The Prince, Chap. V, "Of New Dominions which
have been Acquired by one's own Arms and Ability." 49. John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, Chap. II.
ideals before mars. But it is unreal; but of man.