Should devotees hate criminals who commit extreme crimes?
From: Keshav
Should a devotee hate criminal’s ? If a person commit’s extreme crimes like murder,rape,molestation like its now going on in Delhi . The whole society says hang him , in other word it takes totally extreme stand on him . How should devotee’s see all this and react ?
Transcript
This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Question from Keshav Turu Should a devotee hate criminals? If a person commits extreme crimes like murder, rape, molestation like it’s now going on in Delhi the whole society says hang him in other words, it takes totally extreme stand on him. How should a devotee see all this and react? Answer Devotees don’t hate anyone no matter what be the kind of actions that they perform Devotees are the well wishing friends of everyone as the Bhagavad Gita 12.13 describes At the same time this friendship and this well wishing nature is not based on a utopian naivety Devotees must understand that ultimately everyone is a part of God and in that sense everyone is loved by God and is worthy of our affection and everyone deserves the chance to get Krishna’s love and become reformed so that is the basis that seeing the spiritual potential of everyone and wanting to offer the opportunity for devotional elevation is the basis of a devotee’s love even those committing misdeeds at the same time this love is expressed differently towards different people so the same Bhagavad Gita which tells Arjuna that a devotee loves everyone also exhorts Arjuna to fight the war against the Kauravas because the Kauravas were vicious law breakers who were out to destroy Dharma and Bhagavad Gita told Arjuna that he should impose capital punishment on those law breakers so that capital punishment is not out of hatred but it is with the recognition that those people are so bound to their own notions of what is to be done so that they can enjoy life. Those people cannot be reformed and rectified in this life so punishing them by separating them from their bodies which are conditioned to sin and immorality and crime is one way of at least checking their mistakes in this life and by giving them the new karmic reactions they can in the next life become elevated.
Of course situations change slightly when Krishna is personally present because Krishna’s personal presence can even liberate those who die remembering him or beholding him or in his presence but in general capital punishment is not is not discouraged in the Vedic culture where it is necessary for the protection of the society by the maintenance of the law and order and for the redemption of that person who is not corrigible in this life so certainly the atatais are those who are aggressors they can be punished by killing and those who commit like violence that you mentioned one of the kind of atatai is one who attacks another man’s wife so and of course another is one who kills one who kills or poisons or burns with the intention of killing sends weapons with the intention of killing so that would commit a murder so extreme climate murder, rape, molestation so murder and rape from the Vedic perspective can be punished with with the death sentence of course every rule has its nuances of circumstances which have to be considered before application so Jaidrath abducted Draupadi but Yudhisthira forgave him when he begged for forgiveness so it’s not on the other hand Ravana never begged for forgiveness and Lord Rama gave capital punishment to him so now molestation it will depend on what is the nature of the molestation and so basically the idea is that the law codes depending on the magnitude of the crime have to have adequately strong punishment for it the punishment serves as a deterrent for that person as well as for others for committing a crime again and the punishment also serves to purify that person because that particular karmic reaction doesn’t stay hanging but gets executed exhausted and therefore the person on seeing the consequences coming may be less inclined to repeat the crime so nonchalantly therefore certainly those who do wrong should be punished that punishment should be in proportion to the extent of the crime committed and as devotees we should not hate such criminals but still we should ensure that justice be established so that proper law and order is maintained in some cases especially where the person is repentant and reforming then beyond justice mercy can be given but in general mercy is an exception especially where criminal wrongdoing is involved and punishment so that justice is done and law and order is maintained is the standard