Move On!

Hi Ilites

I am posting an article below which appeared in Times of India. I am the proponent of Forgiveness as I have myself practised it in my life. That is why I have never shared my painful story, as forgiveness helped me to heal quickly and develop positivity. I don't mind you all having different views but still this article may help you to have a different perspective. Please read on and post your views

MIND SET


Sonia Gandhi granted clemency to Nalini, but the widows of the policemen who died on 26/11 seek retributive justice. Forgiveness has its own logic, says Monobina Gupta


Women are intrinsically compassionate . It is often believed that they have a capacity to forgive acts of violence more easily than men, even if the act has taken a terrible personal toll.
But it now seems that it is not always possible, even for women, to abandon their longing for retributive justice. Three days before the first anniversary of the Mumbai terror attack, Kavita Karkare and Smita Salaskar, wives of slain Mumbai Anti-Terrorism Squad chief Hemant Karkare and encounter specialist Vijay Salaskar respectively, met UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi at her residence . After the meeting, the two widows told the media that Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving captured terrorist, should be hanged.
It was difficult to overlook the paradox of that meeting. Here were three widows wives of the two policemen and Sonia Gandhi herself and each had been a victim of unbridled violence fuelled by revenge. Each had suffered tragically. Karkare and Salaskar said the conversation was personal and that they reiterated to Gandhi that families of the victims and those of the martyrs wanted Kasab hanged .
Few will forget how Sonia Gandhi , after losing her husband in a coldblooded terrorist assassination, granted clemency to Nalini, the assassin . She had Nalinis death sentence commuted to life imprisonment . Like Kasab, Nalini was also the sole surviving conspirator of the five-member squad responsible for Rajiv Gandhis murder. Compassion for Nalinis five-year-old daughter had clearly taken precedence over Sonia's personal longing for retributive justice.
Priyanka Gandhi was in her teens when her father was blown up. Seventeen years on, treading in her mothers footsteps, she went to meet Nalini in the prison to come to terms with the violence haunting the entire family . Later, she said: I dont believe in anger, hatred and violence. And I refuse to allow it to overpower my life.
Perhaps it is different right now for Karkare and Salaskar. Perhaps images of the violence that took away their loved ones remain vivid and the wounds it inflicted on their lives still bleed. One year, after all, is barely enough time to recover from such irremediable loss. The desire for an eye for an eye appears to be stoked by raw grief.
In todays increasingly brutalized world, we come across many striking examples of women turning inwards to come to terms with personal tragedy, letting go of their desire for vengeance. Forgiveness , while liberating, is also a way of making the transgressor own up to his/her terrible actions. It also does not mean absolving oneself from remembering.
Gladys Staines forgave Dara Singh, the man who torched to death her missionary husband Graham Staines and their two young sons while they were asleep. Was it her religious faith or her gender that made her so brave It (forgiveness) opens up the channel of healing in our lives. Instead of bitterness, we have love and healing and peace. It also releases the person to be forgiven, Staines had said.
At 10, twins Eva and Miriam Mozes were taken to Auschwitz, the Nazi concentration camp where Dr Josef Mengele used them for medical experiments. The sisters providentially survived Auschwitz and the infamous doctor. Separated from their mother at the camp, the twins were sometimes injected with doses of poison, virus or bacteria. Miriam never really recovered from the torture and died in 1993. Eva survived and later forgave her torturer.
In a film Forgiving Dr Mengele, Eva said, What the victims do does not change what happened. And the best thing about the remedy of forgiveness is that there are no side-effects . And everybody can afford it.
However, there are many women who have chosen violent redressal methods to avenge injustice done to them. Nalini was just one of the many, ready to play with people's lives for what she believed was the greater good . The politics of violence and retaliation spawns more soldiers to the cause and many of them happen to be women.
But these so-called warriors seeking to right historic and systemic wrongs by spilling blood help instead to keep intact the very structures of violence they loathe.
Meanwhile, law-makers and victims alike resolve to meet violence with more violence. The destruction of the twin towers in New York on 9/11 by terrorists and the inhuman treatment meted out to the law-breakers by the state at Gunatanamo Bay are part of the same philosophy of merciless punishment, shutting the door on any alternative discourse which is perceived to be less masculine .
Nelson Mandela was brave enough to risk wearing the scoffedat emasculating tag. His Truth and Reconciliation Commission, no matter its problems, spoke the language of healing in post-apartheid South Africa. Victims of horrifying acts of discrimination faced their aggressors at the hearings, sometimes breaking down as they spoke.
But the act of forgiveness is undoubtedly fractured by complexities. In no society can there be a unilateral , uniform response to brutality. Coping differently with trauma is just one part of the human psyche. In that sense, there can be no total forgiveness or total revenge.
Co-existing with the concept of the unforgivable, forgiveness derives its strength from the fact that absolute forgiveness is almost impossible in individual human terms. But it is not dissociated from delivering justice.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission got the torturers and murderers to admit their crimes but the process of national cathartic healing could be completed only when forgiveness was lodged in the South African psyche. The act of reconciliation still remains heartbreakingly brave.

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Abhibaby

Thanks for your response. I agree with your observations. I fully empathize with Mrs. Karkare. She may forgive the terrorist but she should never forgive the apathy of the political leaders who belittle the supreme sacrifice of the soldiers and police.

I have come across a couple of incidents from the common people who have set examples of forgiveness(of course from the western world), forgiving the murderer and accept him in their NGO where he now works as a drug rehabilitrator after completing his sentence.

True, our mothers, grandmothers as well as many times fathers, husbands/wives have practised forgiveness

Ansh
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Abibaby

I have practised it myself. It was really very very difficult initially, but, now it is lot more easier. But i don't share those personal incidents as it will look like preaching. I practiced forgiveness as I found it gave me much more peace and positivity as compared to harbor bad feelings for someone who had hurt me.

I think forgiveness is quality that makes us different from animals. The natural reaction of an animal to attack is fight or flight, but our superior brain helps us to think and proceed in a much more rational way.

These are my personal views

Regards
Ansh
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Very right Kavya, keeping grudges, harboring negative feelings releases harmful chemicals in the body and harms oneself more than the other person.

When I chose to let my husband go, it was partially because I was hurt and the forgiveness could be granted to that person by moving away.

I want to clarify here, forgiving doesn't mean staying in an abusive marriage and keep forgiving the abuser and taking the abuse again. Forgiving means get out of that situation and let go the hurt. After divorce try to brush aside the pain by discussing positive things, try not to relive the pain by cursing the person again and again. I know it is difficult, I too found it difficult but I could do so with continuous practice.

In many cases where I thought I could never ever forgive that person, I found myself letting it go. That person is my close relative whom I meet every other day and with the forgiveness relations improved.

Regards
Ansh
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Hi Rachael and everyone on this forum

Through this post I ma emphasising Forgivenss, I haven't idolised the politicians as the article is not written by me. I have mentioned the source. The article except for Sonia Gandhi doesn't cite anyother politician.

Staines murder case in which Mrs Staines chos to forgive Dara Singh is not the csae of politcians, nor is the case of Twins on whom the Dr. xperimented.

I have clearly stated the empathy towards Mrs Karkare and no-where have I stated that she should not ask for justice.

Please, don't misunderstand me. I have also clearly mentioned that forgiveness doesn't mean to take all abuse. It means getting rid of bitterness and and moving ahead. Most of you are well read and might have come across many cases where the murderer was forgiven by the family, it doesn't mean that the murderer was not punished, but the family didn't harbour any hate for him.

I hope Racheal, my clarification clears my stand on 26/11

Regards
Ansh