End Justifies The Means

Sat, 25 Feb at 6:47 pm

“End justifies the Means”
The old, yet evergreen, dictum is “end justifies the means” and it has been debated since eternity.

The question, therefore, arises what is wrong with polarizing voters on religion or caste issues and winning elections and fulfilling the party’s agenda? At the national level, Congress and BJP do it and at the state level, regional parties do it. The objective is to come into power and implement the agenda.

Or

Seeking money from any source as political donations? All political parties do it. That is the reason they are one on this issue. Running a political party needs money and it hardly matters where it comes from.

Or

Supporting an entrepreneur in developing the country’s infrastructure, without bothering his source of funds? There are business lobbies to influence government policies and if that brings in development, it serves the nation. In return, there will be some political gains regarding donations, but that is okay.

Or

For that matter, is anyone doing anything as long as it is good for him and his family? There has never been a widely accepted definition of right and wrong, not in the context of self or family welfare, so why worry?

Gandhi ji said-

“For me, it is enough to know the means. Means and ends are convertible terms in my philosophy of life. We have always control over the means but not over the end. I feel that our progress towards the goal will be in exact proportion to the purity of our means. They say 'means are after all means'. I would say 'means are after all everything'. As the means so the end.”

I think, as long as the means are within the framework of existing laws and rules, there should be no problem.

The laws and rules were formed after lengthy discussions and amended with changing times.

At the same time, these laws and rules have been broken also.

What do you think?

 

If we look back, we will realize that means adopted by us for achieving our ends were not always good. The very definition of good is variable. We have used shortcuts and when we use shortcuts, there is no morality.
On political and business fields, the less said the better. In fact, it is just not practical.

 

Dear Shri Viswa,
Both Mahabharata and Rama-Ravana wars were for the victory of truth over untruth or right over wrong. Every effort was made to avoid the war. But once it became inevitable, the rules of wars took over. These days, we say, everything is fair in love and war. But back then, everything was not fair in war. The wars started at sunrise and ended at sunset. No one was stabbed in the back. No one was hounded once the war ended.
There were some manipulations in Mahabharata but all justified by Lord Krishna.
This only proves that not only the end but the means too have to be justified.
But as I said, it is not practical for mortal humans with so many pressures of livelihood.

 

But temple Hundies are opened in the presence of authorized persons, and priests and the account is kept accordingly.
There is no doubt that temple money is misused.

 

In our village, we have a small temple. Except on some special occasions, not many devotees visit the temple. However, the pujari was expected to visit and do daily puja and collect offerings in cash or kind, if any. He was paid a monthly salary. He was accused of not reporting all offerings correctly. A locked hundi was kept to be opened by the pujari, village pradhan, and one more person. The three were accused of not reporting correctly and sharing the offerings. The Hundi now is lying in a corner. Now one person from every family accompanies the pujari to the temple by rotation and collect the offerings and handover to the village pradhan. Here again, there are allegations of misappropriation.
There appears to be no foolproof method, except the Hindi system.