Think of this scenario. A girl is walking at night and is chased by a bunch of hooligans. They have deadly weapons with an intent for violence. A cop car on patrol notices this and the cop gets to the spot. He pulls his gun and fires a warning shot. The hooligans don’t budge and come closer.
As the cop aims to fire at them, he notices something. One of the attackers is his classmate; and an another is his cousin with whom he played a lot; and an another was his childhood teacher.
He appeals to them if they would give up the violence. They don’t listen. Now, this cop puts his gun down and says “heck why should I be the one killing up my family” and tries to walk away. He gives a reason that violence is bad and guns are bad [as though he never shot anyone before]. The real reason is that he is just chickening out because the opponents are people he knows and friends with. He is trying to do non-violence not because it fits his nature or is appropriate for the situation, but because he is emotional for the people he is friends with.
What is his boss controlling the radio supposed to advice?
As you might have guessed, in the case above there is no problem for the cop to use violence and shoot one or more of the violent people. In fact, he would considered a criminal if he just drops his gun and walks away from shooting his friends & relatives, thereby putting the girl to a certain death.
Fortunately for you, I gave a fairly simple black & white ethical problem. . You do agree with violence when needed and a person shirking from duty would be considered criminally negligent.
What if the situation is slightly more complicated? This is where the core of Bhagvat Gita comes from. How do we apply this core principle to the broader aspects of Dharma is where Krishna talks about in 18 chapters.
Hinduism’s core feature is that it is practical. Many other religious give a unrealistic advice about showing the other cheek, give up violence, no one is born a criminal yadda yadda yadda. The practitioners know that they cannot follow this and pay only a lip service to those morals. Hinduism’s primary morality is connected to the daily realities of a world that has inequalities, criminals who wired that way etc.
Many religious ideas have a feel good factor [like saying all people are born equal] with no basis in reality. We know that we are not born equal at all [biologically, socially, economically] and many of the criminals are born that way by lacking specific inhibitors in the brain or lacking specific social upbringing. That means one’s actions and duties depend on one’s own skills and prior commitments. There is no one size fits all.
Sure, there is a place for a teacher who could have taught the criminals better and reduced their violent intent. Maybe city designers could have planned things better to avoid dark alleys. But, the cop at that moment cannot think through all this. He has only one thing to do — protect the person under attack. A cop cannot get into analysis paralysis about all the social things and get away from that core duty.
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