Introduction
Forgiveness and vengeance are the words that lead our heart and soul to two opposite dimensions: Destruction and prosperity. Forgiveness has the magical power to mitigate the hearts and souls of two rivals as well as instil immense peace in their minds, whereas vengeance mars both of them and only results in violence, restlessness, and makes the lives hell. Vengeance, in some cases, leads to bloodshed. Forgiveness is the strongest power that helps a man forgive anyone for his mistakes or even crime, while weakness is the worst means of the weakest who himself is neither safe nor confident of his security. So, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the father of India, said, ‘Forgiving is the attribute of the Strong’. Precisely, forgiveness leads us to peace and progress, while vengeance takes us back to terrible and restless past events and keeps us lingering on those things that bleed our heart incessantly, and even blocks our humanistic progress of mind. Vengeance is the worst power of the weakest, out of humanity, strength and security.
Strength and Weakness
In reality, it is difficult to forgive the person who harmed us anyway. Our strength of mind and courage always help us to stand up those who hurt and try to denigrate us. None, but the weak people are offended and hurt with any derogatory remarks or activities of the offenders. Weakness makes us lead uncertain, worried and vulnerable life as we always suffer and miss our strength and security. As a result, it is impracticable to bear and forgive those who harm us any way. On the contrary strength makes us confident to solve or destroy at any moment, so there is no question of any such feeling; rather it generates feelings of forgiveness towards the culprit.
Strengths broaden our heart while weaknesses wrinkle our heart and make it narrow where there nourishes narrow-mindedness, narrow ideas, thoughts and feelings. While strength broadens our heart, helps open our hearts to all irrespective of status, caste, creed and religion, makes our heart immense like the vast endless universe where there everything grows peacefully. Only then does it become able to hold greater human values like mercy, forgiveness, generosity, kindness and charity and above all, love.
The weakness of our heart bears the means of violence, malice and hatred and forms a vicious circle that makes us more and more violent. Since the day of our independence struggle till now, the communal riots that have been happening in different parts of our country at different times manifest our weakness, not our strength. The sole reason behind this unrest and disharmony is the narrowness of the communities. They are the victim of their petty and narrow ideas that are not at all fit for humanism and philanthropy.
Contexts of Crime and Sin
It does not, however, mean to forgive a criminal, and let him go on doing one after another crime; it is rather our weakness, fear for life. The matter of retribution and rehabilitation of criminals largely depends on their crime. Punishment should be the first treatment, then comes the matter of rehabilitation, chance of reformation as it is crucial to bringing harmony, security and solidarity in the society.
‘An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind’, said Gandhiji. This attitude keeps us without benefits and fruition, simultaneously results only in damage and loss as taking revenge, neither benefits nor brings peace on either side. It is, however, not always just to forgive some offender, especially who commits a sin. In this regard faith in humanity is important to judge and decide to forgive someone. This faith comes from assumption, which assures and makes you believe that the sinner’s act will be an instance to others to commit something offending the same race. The assumption also may be that the sinner will now begin to change himself or even be a changed individual, he will repent of his sin and resolve to reform himself radically for the sake of his own life, his community as well as the human race. It also seems that raging for revenge is far more impractical and inhuman than forgiving someone, but it practically depends on the level of crime or sin in relation to the exiting conditions and situations.
The Dadri case is an epitome of the rising intolerance among the communities instigated by various other social factors which help increasing spread of intolerance between each community because of coexistence in the web of dissatisfaction due to a broken ground past. Bringing peace and progress in such social situations, it calls for the initiatives undertaken by the govt. and non-govt. organisations along with the persons from either community enlightened and practising broader humanistic senses, rather narrow communal feelings and interests. Then comes the matter of forgiveness for creating better and greater feelings among them.
Conclusion
However, recent proceedings of activities show a different scenario. The committers find it easy to avoid with crimes by just plead. Money and influence have replaced regret and guilt. It is high time to draw a line of demarcation between the acts of forgiveness and improvisation.