An Ahimsa Crisis: You Decide: Concern For Ahimsa In Delivering Justice

Several years ago, I was a guest in Bhopal, India at the house of Mr. Suresh Jain IAS, a very prominent activist and leader of the Jain community not only in Bhopal, but in the whole of India. His wife; Mrs.Vimla Jain was at that time a Session Judge (later she became a Justice of the Madhya Pradesh High Court). During our discussions, I observed to Mrs. Jain that during her judicial duties, she must have awarded death sentences several times to convicted criminals and wondered how she as a Jain handles such decisions. I asked her what resultant thoughts and emotions she experienced while writing such decisions with her own hands.

She openly and plainly told me that the very first time she awarded the death sentence, her hands (while writing the sentence) trembled and she could not sleep for several months. She questioned how she—herself a mother who had changed the diapers of her own children—now with the same hands was writing a death sentence for another human being. She said to me that she had researched the case very thoroughly, read and re-read it at least ten times to make sure that the accused had not been set up and framed by police, by witnesses, and or by others with vested interests. When she was convinced in her own mind that a very heinous crime had been committed, and the accused deserved at least that much or maybe even a more severe sentence, only then did she write that judgment. She has observed the same care and diligence with the underlying consideration of principles of ahimsa in her role as a senior judge. Even though there is some himsa involved here, the action is taken without any malice and in discharging the duties of the State. This is Raajkeeya Himsa.