If a Person commits suicide to protect his country, will he go to hell?
‘Adhityan Yadhav’ asked like this:
“Prabhu, today’s post about Glorious death is good and I too thought of asking you some important thing related to death
Suicide is wrong as per Krishna’s rule, so these suicide committing souls will roam as ghost and additional hellish punishments also for them
But in our country many centuries back, many brave kings and queens single handedly defeated the foreign invaders, but if situation goes out of control, these brave Indian kings even committed mass suicide bomb attacks on enemies troops, even some queens immersed their whole body in ghee and oil and setting fire on their own body , they jumped over enemy kings to kill them by fire, I think u can understand… Even our Sri Rangam Temple also got saved from mughals like these…
So these very brave acts done to protect our nation culture temples women from evil invaders should not be considered as suicides by karma department ,,, but as a glorious death only, so these brave souls should be given immediately after their death the great happy life in heavenly planets… As resting period
Because they suffered that much severe pain during death… That we can’t even imagine…”
REPLY:
You have confused the suicide with the assigned duties of kshatriyas.
A kshatriya or king or queen or prince or soldier or a police person is expected to live for his people, not for himself.
And, even a common citizen has the duty of protecting his country.
So, even committing suicide to protect his country is allowed if it is sudden attack.
(Why in some countries, the Krishna devotees face harassment? READ HERE!)
If a kshatriya sees an enemy invading his control area, he should at any cost prevent the entry or advancement of that enemy into his area.
There are two types of wars:
One is an organised war that follows the war rules fixed by the scriptures.
For example, these organized wars are started punctually at a particular time and ends at a particular time every day.
Though Side A is ready to start the war at that stipulated time, the Side A should patiently wait till the Side B signals that they too are ready to fight. They used conch to give signals.
(BACKGROUND OF KURUKSHETRA WAR & BHAGAVAD GITA! READ HERE!)
We are aware that though Kauravas were ready on the first day of the Kurukshetra war, they were waiting for more than an hour till Krishna finished preaching Bhagavad Gita to Arjuna and then Arjuna and Pandavas too became ready to fight.
This is the well organized war.
Another type of fighting is facing a Sudden attack from the enemy and hence reacting to fight back to protect his country.
For example, Pak sudenly attacked Kargil and our Indian army reacted.
United States’ sudden attack on pak soil.
Such sudden attackes happened so many times in the past throughout the world as you said srirangam temple’s deity that was protected by the people themselves.
(Why Rama killed Bali (Vali) from behind a tree against dharma? READ HERE!)
During these Sudden attacks, no rules need to be followed because these instances are betrayals of trust or Violation of war rules.
So, at that point of time, even a single minute should not be wasted.
When an enemy is attacking suddenly, we can’t see Good time to react.
During those times, if the people or soldiers have weapons, they can use them and fight back.
But, when there is no such protection is possible, they themselves sacrificed their lives to protect their country.
They themselves committed suicide immolating themselves as well as the enemies.
The ultimate goal is to kill the betraying enemies.
So, any process they adopt to eliminate the enemies will be acceptable when the enemies do not follow the war rules.
Even Lord Krishna suggested some tricks to kill Duryodhana and Karna because they followed adharma against pandavas.
Dharma is used if the enemy too follows dharma.
(Does Bhagavad Gita encourage violence as accused by some people? READ HERE!)
So, during the sudden attacks, no war rules apply.
Kshatriya dharma says: “If a new enemy starts to grow, he should be eradicated even before he grows in strength”
The meaning is that a kshatriya should not allow his enemy to gain strength.
On this basis even those who commit suicide FOR PROTECTING THEIR COUNTRY are still considered to be great fighters.
They too are given life in the heavens for their brave act by killing themselves to protect their country.
The soldiers are always safe. Though they fight from the side of an adharmic king, they too go to the heavens if they die in the war.
The soldiers of both the sides Pandavas and kauravas were given life in the heavens because dying in the war for the country they are living in, is considered to be a sacrifice.
But, committing suicide because of our cowardness to face the life is punished with a ghost body and then some p[eriod of hellish life.
Hope you are clear now whether it will give hell life iff a Person commits suicide to protect his country.
(Where did the Kings killed In Kurukshetra war go after death? READ HERE!)