Violence is only a means to make others accept or do a thing against law and order. By the use of physical force or weapons in violence people are made to accept or do thing against their will or freedom and rights. On the other hand, if people are willingly made to accept or do a thing by love, there the means used is called non-violence. Threats, terrorism, wars and dictatorship rules are all violent methods adopted by forceful persons to achieve their objectives and goals against the will of the people and the law and order of the civilized human society. Non-cooperation, boycotts, strikes and democratic rules are all non-violent methods of men of moral conscience to achieve their goals with the approval of the people and acceptance of the civilized human society. Hence, non-violence is the real power much greater than violence capable of making the rigid authority bend to its will.
Love is God
Wars were common very often in the past. Might was the deciding factor to settle any dispute between two parties. So, the strength of a nation depended upon its military power. Greeks and Romans built empires based on their military strength and wealth. Might was right and mighty kings were obeyed and worshipped as Gods by the people. Whatever the mighty persons said became the law of the land. Those who were struggling to survive had no voice to say anything for justice; instead they were suppressed by iron hands. So, for a long time, the rulers went ill together and struggles of the oppressed, though successful or not, went against the oppressors often. But the means they followed depended upon might only and not intelligence or reason.
There was no one above the king except the priest, who was the adviser to him as he was believed to be intelligent and possessing magical power mainly perhaps due to some tricks. So, the priest was controlling the king as well as the people. Arrogance, anger, hatred and domination were the attributes of animals and strong men, who used violence for their living. Just at that juncture, Lord Jesus Christ came into the picture to change the attitude of the people for the better. Love as well as mercy, compassion and forgiveness are the qualities of a human being valued high in the world. Jesus for the first time in the world used love, the non-violent weapon as the means to fight against authority and ignorance of the common men. However, mistakenly he was killed by crucifixion. But after his death, the whole of the western world worship him as God and by becoming Christians try to follow his principles to live as human beings in the world. That was why Love was called as God.
Religion Encouraged Violence
Even after the births of Christian and Islamic religions, violence has not stopped in the world. Violence is still continuing even in the name of religion, let alone politics, economy and ideological differences. The world conquerors and the colonialists of those religions converted the people of the nations they went to their religions by violence and gave the benefits like education, job, etc. that amounted to corruption. But they were not aware then that both violence and corruption are evils in religions. They preached about peace, love and brotherhood but practiced violence in the name of religion. They preached good things but practiced evil things. Because by violent means they spread their religions to various nations in the world, those religions had become world religions. On the contrary, Buddhism also spread to various centers of the world but not by violence and that religion also had become a world religion. So, it is clear that religion also is responsible for the spread of violence in the world. This is because the supplementary edition of The Bible encouraged violence for the spread of Christianity in the world by the rulers of that religion. So also the supplementary edition of Koran encouraged in lieu of Sufism to spread Islam all over the world by terror.
Power of Non-Violence
The violent kings, who vigorously came to India, were conquered by the natural beauty of the place, the richness of the culture and the significance of spiritualism. The wild conquerors were tamed, matured and settled in life here by its peace, culture and spiritualism. Among Muslim monarchs, Akbar became great because of his policy of religious harmony and wisdom even though he did not know how to read and write. Afterwards the British came to India as traders representing The East India Company here and became the rulers of India. They underestimated the simplicity of Indians, exploited them as much as they could and completely dominated them by their arrogance and haughtiness. People of India were treated as slaves; and so, Indians lost their freedom, rights and peace.
Just at that time Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi came into the picture to get freedom for India from the British rulers. He understood their contradiction, power of domination by violence and decided to deal with them by the method of non-violence. The English people relied upon and were proud of their physical and intellectual powers but did not know anything about spiritual power. Gandhi developed himself spiritually and became politically great because of his thoughts, words and deeds based on truth. He lived a simple life and had high thoughts, which attracted all sections of the people in India. Gandhi got full support for all his freedom movements from the Indian people. So, it became easy for Mahatma Gandhi to use truth as the nonviolent weapon and succeeded in getting independence for India from the British rulers. That was why truth was called as God. Also, from then on non-cooperation, boycott, fasting and strike have been used by the people as the non-violent weapons to fight for their rights and reasonable demands from the authority in any democratic country in the world.
Corruption and Violence
Buddha, Jesus and Gandhi were rare persons in the world. But today no one is like them and no one can live like them because of violence, corruption and sexual harassments everywhere in the world. It is rare to tackle any crisis with non-violence as a means. Even small matters of no significance, political people make into a big issue and indulge in violence at the expense of public property and innocent human lives. Sexual harassment to women is another vital issue going on unchecked in many working places in the society today. Tips are given for the service well done. Incentives are offered to the employees to induce more interest in the work and increase production so that profit is assured for any organization. But corruption is the reverse process. According to the bribes paid, work is taken up and dispensed before or in time depending upon the urgency of the person concerned. In this way corruption has become part of culture. Therefore truth, honesty, sincerity and non-violence have lost relevance in the society where violence is a routine matter today.
Political and Communal Violence
The practice of violence is going on everywhere unchecked. There are mainly two types of violence affecting the society very much and creating nightmares for many innocent men. They are political violence and communal violence. Political violence is due to communism, regionalism, secessionism and idealism of all hues. Communal violence is due to communalism, casteism and religious fanaticism. But today politics has control over everything in the society. So, political violence is a common thing due to any cause day and night. The uneducated, unemployed and the sadists of the society become rogues, rascals, rowdies, antisocial elements, extremists and terrorists. They enter politics, use politics as shield and do all sorts of crimes in the society scot-free. Therefore criminalization of politics is the main reason or cause for all kinds of violence in the world, which has to be checked at any cost and should be stopped by reforms, laws or other means so that peace, security and progress of the society can be maintained in the world.
Violence Based on Communalism and Criminalization of Politics
Independent groups are not as successful as the political groups indulging in violence to accomplish their demands. Communalization of politics and criminalization of politics have increased the vigor of political violence beyond all limits known so far. Gujarat violence and Kashmir violence are the best examples to quote in this regard. Violent fights between rival political parties have become almost a daily occurrence affecting the daily life of the people so much that many dislike political parties and even 30% of the people never cast their votes at all in the elections. Without the support of some to fight for one, one cannot survive in this mad world of political rivalries. Even the dress one wears is looked upon as worn is support of this or that party. So, one is supposed to know the political temperature of the day before one walks down the street to carry out one’s works everyday.
Each and everyone’s moves are watched by the political hawks to know one is for or against them. Even a slight suspicion of anyone’s opposition triggers the fanatical political group to start giving troubles in some form or other indirectly against the person in focus in such a way that police cannot take legal action against them. The result is mental torture or mental wreck to the civilians who come to know about that. This sort of violence or psychological war has become a regular affair in many areas of the towns, cities and villages today. This sort of a situation is termed as political activity by political observers in news papers and magazines, which serve as a fore warning to those who are about to visit such places due to some purpose. The vulnerability of the places to violence affects the daily life of the people there, business goes down and tourists also stop visiting such places.
Deterioration of Standard
The reason for the state of vulnerability of political situation is due to the deterioration of standards in all fields of human activities. The reason for the deterioration of standard in all walks of life in the society is due to the pursuance of the policy of socialism that has not encouraged competition, excellence, quality, talent and knowledge but has allowed the society to become immoral, uncultured, undisciplined and corrupt. Further because of socialism both the economy of the nation and the society have also not developed as expected by the policy framers.
All developments start from education only. Because of the mass of the people were not educated, socialism had failed and had been deleted from the policy framed for developments. So, the bad atmosphere of politics and the development of violence in all fields are the end result of socialism. However, had there been education, justice, decency and dignity as the foundation of socialism it could have been successful in the world. So, only in the highly educated society, socialistic democracy can be successful in the world. Hence, unless all are educated, violence will be there and nonviolence will have no role to play in the world.
