Penitence in Public Life:

June 03/2013: Emperor Asoka is one of the biggest achievers in ancient India. He carried Buddhism from a local faith to that of being a global religion. But his other big achievement was in abjuring violence in a dramatic manner and accepting peace. He got this story told to posterity in a powerful language in his edicts that say a lot about the mayhem he had himself caused in Kalinga, and his thoughts thereafter. After annexing Kalinga in the 3rd century BC, King Ashoka understood the virtue of penitence in public life. A portion of one of the longest among the edicts reads: "150,000 persons were thence carried away captive, 100,000 were there slain, and many times that number died" .

His penitence followed. "Directly after the annexation of the Kalingas began His Sacred Majesty's remorse for having conquered the Kalingas, because the conquest of a country previously unconquered involves the slaughter, death, and carrying away captive of the people. That is a matter of profound sorrow and regret to His Sacred Majesty" . It is doubtful if history would have remembered Asoka for his conquests alone. But since the discovery of his edicts and coins by 19th century British civilians in India, he captured the imagination of Indians as a king who not only felt remorse for his past wild and inhuman behavior but could turn his repentance into an ideology which traveled far and wide.

Why the leaders of today do not understand the virtues of penitence in public life is a matter of immense regret for the common man. Remorse and sorrow for wrong deeds committed as an administrator were not alien to Indian thought, as proven by Ashoka's transformation. Mistakes being owned up and corrective measures adopted instantaneously that resulted in forgiveness by the subjects was a feature that has been encountered many a times in the history of this sub continent.