A Hindu lawyer’s inner guilt
Alcoholics and other addicts refer to it as a moment of clarity.As I stood in the police cell amidst a cacophony of sound and rising nausea the unlikely effects of such a ‘moment of clarity’ washes over me.
Here I stood in Southall Police station in the early hours of Sunday morning looking at the collapsed heap of my client, as he lay writhing in a heap of his own vomit and urine. Here I stood, a solicitor and Officer of the Supreme Court of England and Wales in all my pride over my client accused of beating his wife in an allegedly vicious and unprovoked attack.
December 26th, 2006 at 2:49 pm
Excellent article.Makes you really think how sometimes Hindus can easily compromise their dharmic values for a cheque.
December 26th, 2006 at 5:49 pm
Very interesting! I totally agree with what this guy has to say about proffesional and dharmic life. I do belive there is a thin line between the two, its like yes and no.
So should we put our proffesion first or our dharma?
Pav.
December 27th, 2006 at 9:49 pm
What other jobs can there be that would clash with out dharmic values.Would Selling beefburgers in a Hindu owned grocery shop be a clash ?
December 28th, 2006 at 5:03 pm
Excellent article. I wish all of the professionals should have a wake up call in mid life and work for hindus and humanities.
January 2nd, 2007 at 12:00 pm
I think everyone should realise that it is impotatant not to abandon one’s true dharma (principles) in the pursuit of wealth. This applies more so to the “professionals” like accountants,lawyers,doctors,etc. A lawyer’s job is not just to get his client free but to ensure fairness and justice for all; an accountant should not help criminals to continue operating fraudulent schemes and evade taxes and a doctor should report any doctor who he suspects of negligence,etc. Let that be the New Year’s resolution for many readers.
January 2nd, 2007 at 4:53 pm
A thought provoking piece. That is why it is so importent to choose the right profession when still at school. But so often it is not in our hand. It may be heart breaking for some one to defend the undefendable, especially in case of domestic violence as they knew that his client, once released is going to reoffend and the victim, in most cases are women and children.
So often it is the same dilemma for a surgeon who may have to operate on a sex change patient, especially if this is not the first time he or she had changed of mind, does not know whether he is male or female. It is a waste of scarce resources when cancer patients are dying of neglect.
Yet our legal system demands that every one is innocent until proven guilty, even the worst offenders like sexual preditors and habitual child molesters who offend again and again until they are locked up for good.
I wonder how much moral, ethics and dharma come into consideration when facing with such a dilemma, situation. Yes defending such scums would leave any one shaken, heart broken, may even question that one is in the right profession?
Unfortunately society, law and legal system demands that personal feelings should not come into consideration when defending one’s client.
He must get the best representation the law can provide.
Yes, it is a good question, can one separate one’s profession from one’s personal life, belief and dharma? It is a million dollar question with many a varied answers.
It is not the person but the society, the legal system and law that dectate one’s action. So often we all become the innocent victims of such a lar!
Bhupendra
January 2nd, 2007 at 11:26 pm
Poor Bhishma, Drona, and Krishna’s army. How sad they would be that we would say they chose wrongly in following Krishna’s orders.
This article is perhaps the most important article yet written. It is easy to take sides and say I am good. Easy to say you are bad. Easy to design a nuclear weopan and launch it.
It is hard to live in the real world while pursuing dharma. It is hard to love a drug addict that is genetically related to you. It is hard to raise a wonderful child who will travel off to another continent for a new life. It is hard to be dying with so much yet undone.
This is the true beauty of the Gita. You are not allowed simple childlike recipes - don’t do this, don’t do that. All the worlds other scriptures take the easy way out. Not so the Gita.
The world does not run if everyone becomes an enlightened buddhist monk, or a chaste chirstian monk, or a Mulsim sufi. Indeed the world runs full of earth, mud that is, and in that mud a lotus rises, the lotus of the human spirit ascending to that which is greater.
The ascent is not an abandonment of the mud, we must carry it with us. We must seek justice for the scum, we must save the life of the suicide attempt, we must build the bridge that may well carry an army to carnage. The occupations of professionals is the most important thing. There are some who do everything for money, so be it. But most professionals care for or love even what they are doing. A professional public health official can save more lives than a doctor. A doctor can stop the suffering of the living due to phsychological and biological problems. An engineer can reduce the suffering of a great many backwards villages. A teacher, teach how to think deeply about things, a taxi driver how to get to that child’s birth, an excavator how to safely design the base of a home…To the panwala who gives us a respite from the fray of complexity. To act professionally is the Gita. To act with detachment, renunciation, in the service of others - this is the Gita.
So this article is very important. But we understand that sometimes we will be on the wrong side of history (as Bhishma) and on the right side of Krishna.
In all that complexity of acting in this world with knowledge and wisdom,
hariaum