Law.......Evolution, Enforcement & Dharma

Welcome to my second blog. First of all I would like to thank all those who visited my blog and gave valuable comments. Last time I left many a questions unanswered, here I will try to solve all questions that I raised. This article will also deal with Law; rather you can say that this is the next episode of my first blog. Here at first I will try to answer the questions raised by readers then I will move to evolution of law and enforcement of laws.

The very first question I got from one of my reader that, ‘How can you say that DHARMA is a law?’ I really respect this question and my answer to this is that –

There are two words, i). Religion and ii). Dharma. People use these two words interchangeably. But there is a huge difference in the meanings of these two words. As I said earlier also that there is no analogous word of dharma in any language. The concept of dharma is related to our karma (i.e. our work) but religion is related to the god and worship. Dharma says what is right and what is wrong and definition of religion also says this , then what is difference between these two. There is a very fine line of distinction between ‘Dharma and Religion’. Religion leads to dharma , when in Gita lord Krishna says to arjun that fight for Dharma , what  actually he meant with that , he was not trying to say that fight for  your or any religion he was asking to fight for the right. Here I would like to give you a definition of dharma from Mahabharata-

 Tadrisho ayam anuprashno yatra dharmaha sudurlabaha
Dushkamha pralisankhyatum tatkenatra vysvasyathi
Prabhavarthaya bhutanam dharmapravachanam kritam
Yasyat prabhavasamyuktaha sa dharma iti nischayaha.
^{SHANTHI PARVA - 109-9-11}
It is most difficult to define Dharma.
Dharma has been explained to be that which helps the upliftment of living beings.
Therefore, that which ensures the welfare of living beings is surely Dharma.
The learned rishis have declared that which sustains is Dharma.

If you will see it from other side, then also ‘Dharma is made from Sanskrit word i.e. Dhri(to sustain; hold, carry). It refers to the life and behavior of human being to the social order. It means ‘nyaya’(justice). Now compare this with Law, what law does, does it not regulates human life, does it not try to sustain the social order. It does so we can say that Dharma is also law . With this I would like to conclude this topic, I think I have given a right answer to your question. Later in this blog I will give you a very interesting use of Dharma.

Now the main question which I raised last time is “How Law is evolved?”

At first we have to think does law has evolved or invented?  My answer to this question is law has  a very wide area , as I discussed last time also that almost in every aspect of life law prevails so it cannot be invented in one or two days . It has evolved through slow and gradual process and still it is evolving and taking a new shape every day.

Let’s talk about primitive ages , the very first question that strikes my mind that does law prevailed there , most probably the answer will be NO because it was a state of anarchy , the quote of the day was “ Survival of the fittest” and “ Might is right”. In these type of situation law cannot stand. But see it from other perspective, that when a person is making a plan to kill someone, now here I would give my argument that “Law are rules and when a person is  fighting and trying to survive he will follow some rules” one can counter me that in war and fight there is no ‘rules’ but here I am not only talking about fight , I am also talking about survival . So from this perspective we can easily trace that in primitive stage also there were rules; I am not using the word ‘Law’ because what I think that the word Rule is prior to the word Law and this word (i.e. law) is mainly used for “Justice”. With this we can easily say that the law has been gradually evolving from the day when life has started on this planet. (Animal kingdom also follows rules.)

Here I would like to add one more point that law is discovery because, it was in society and time to time it discovered. The circumstances made law to be discovered. For example take ‘Common Law’. What is Common Law, its name only suggests that the laws which were common in society judges used them for justice and after that it became law (i.e. in Britain).

Many social scientists had researched and tried to find the history of evolution of law , and today we have a discipline in academics related to this topic widely known as “Legal History” . There are researches that give instances of codified laws of ‘Babylon’ which is dated back to 3000 BC.

So here to conclude this discussion I can say that –“ Law has evolved slowly and gradually and it is in the process of evolving everyday because new problems are arising and people are finding new ways to give justice and what is custom yesterday has become codified law today.”

The second topics I am dealing here is “Enforcement of Laws”.

The very first question that arises when law comes into picture that why people will bind themselves to some restrictions, when they born free. As Rousseau also points out that “Man is born free but everywhere he is in chains”. Think in this manner if there would be no law then life would have simple and this very laws makes life complex so why . The answer is very simple that if there would be no law the life of a person is always be victimized, everyone would have been living in fear of death. So law has to come into the picture. Now who will enforce , this was another question raised in human society then the answer came that society collectively will enforce laws. We can imagine that for some days it would have been right but with passage of time persons would have rebelled to society and must said that who are you to punish me and enforce laws on me . Then this problem was also sorted out and state came into picture which has authority to do so. But now a days what we are seeing around us that the state is also not able to maintain law , there are stringent laws but still there are murder cases , there are different offences , new offences have aroused , conflicts are always present, so what we should do now. This is the biggest question which is in floating in front of eyes of intellectuals, policy makers, and social reformists. I would like to suggest what I think will be most effective step to solve this is “ Awareness” but the counter argument of this is state is making  all the efforts to aware people , and what I think every person is this world knows that Murder is an offence , but still there murders so what we should do next. Then my answer is give Education, counter argument will be that we are giving education still it is not working and even lawyers and judges are offenders( there are many cases) .  Then I  will here introduce what I discussed above  that “Introduce Dharma in Education” because Dharma will make people “dharmik” and they will follow right path , peaceful path.( please don’t relate dharma and dharmik , with any religion as I have given the meaning of Dharma)

So with this I conclude the article and I hope you must enjoyed it and hopefully I will take another issue next time, if you all will encourage me like this only.

                                                Thank you again !