An Ahimsa Crisis: You Decide: Honesty In Business Pays Dividends

About fifteen years ago I went to the city of Antwerp in Belgium. Antwerp has been a world center of wholesale trade in diamonds for several hundreds of years. The trade there is mostly in the hands of Jewish traders but now, during the last fifty years, Jains from India also control about twenty-five percent of the trade there. Thus Jains and Jews not only trade with each other but also with other traders at large.

Many transactions are worth millions of dollars and involve trust and absolute faith with those with whom one is trading. Most of the time, deals are done verbally and very little is in writing. There, one prominent Jain diamond dealer told me that Jains enjoy a high level of trust and acceptance there due to their honesty. I was very delighted to hear this. I have been told many times that Jains in India used to be famous and noted for that kind of trust, truthfulness, and honesty in trade and also in the courts of India. I wonder, do we still have that reputation?

Additionally, many young couples in the West are choosing conflict-free diamonds or human-made diamonds to celebrate their love. Increasingly, it is a commonly held belief that diamond mining is brutal and inhumane, and all diamond trade is tainted by this. The US blockbuster film, Blood Diamond, did a lot to raise awareness of this.

Most young women now do not want a diamond engagement ring unless it’s certified to have come from Canada, which certifies their diamonds with “green” ecologically friendly and human rights friendly practices. Or, couples will choose moissanite or another human-made stone to avoid child labor or slavery tainting their symbol of love and commitment.