Leaders have a duty to protect all their citizens from wrongdoers.

Kings, heads of state, and government leaders represent the Sovereign Lord Krishna and govern solely under his authority. They have a duty to protect society from the evil deeds of thieves, thieves, and other criminal infidels.

They have the power to protect their respective peoples from the evil deeds of wrongdoers and other impious beings. They have received from God the power to protect all beings born on land or in water. This protection extends to all human beings without exception, as well as all land and aquatic animals, and all plants, from the blade of grass to the tallest trees.

Thus, respecting and strictly adhering to divine directives, and seeking the well-being of every citizen, they put to death all those who committed a crime, in order to spare the sinful soul terrible suffering in its next life, unless it offered its present life as a sign of expiation. Let us not do as we do today, where “democracies” abolish the death penalty, ignoring that by doing so they condemn the sinful soul to suffer in its next life, and sometimes for several lifetimes instead of just one. This is simply inhumane. No one has the right to take the life of anyone, human, animal, or plant, for there is no justification for taking life.

The king and the heads of state and government chastise criminals and punish evildoers for their own good, so that through the punishment received and the pain felt, they may atone for their sins, reduce the number of accumulated sins, and realize that their impious acts have consequences for which they will have to suffer the associated punishment and suffering, leading them to penance and repentance. Furthermore, by arresting these wrongdoers, the leaders offer the rest of the people a harmonious and peaceful life.

This is why God advises us to live according to His teachings. We must therefore become holy, thoughtful beings, submissive to the Lord, and seek to know the glories of Krishna, God, the Supreme Person, from the lips of a true spiritual master, and in doing so, please the Lord by surrendering to Him and serving Him with purely spiritual love.

In his teaching concerning the perfection of spiritual knowledge, God says: “It is not necessary to have a more elaborate description of these good and bad qualities, for constantly seeing good and evil is in itself a bad quality. The best quality is to transcend material good and evil.”