Siddharth 
Non-violence and warfare have been two eternal truths of our civilization. Two of the greatest apostles of non-violence, Buddha and Gandhi, have embedded non-violence in our social outlook as perhaps the greatest virtue to aspire for. While the former’s ideas have shaped our civilizational values, the latter’s ideology has been intricately woven into our nation’s ideals. In particular, Gandhi’s attitude towards non-violence was uncompromising to the extent that he once suggested to Britons “to allow yourself man, woman and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance” to Hitler’s armed forces. This viewpoint is starkly in contrast with that of many of our other civilizational icons, both godly and human, like Rama, Krishna, Kali, Guru Gobind Singh, Shivaji, Subhas Chandra Bose, and Sam Manekshaw, who are revered for valor and warfare. In these tense times when a full-scale warlike situation is building up with the ongoing Operation Sindoor, it is proving difficult for many to reconcile these two eternal truths of our civilization—non-violence and warfare.
Many proponents of non-violence are calling for peace, de-escalation, and restoring normalcy, often using the beautiful Gandhian quote: An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. This is akin to taking an absolutely non-violent position even when war is knocking at our door. Make no mistake by jumping to conclusions and disowning Gandhi, for it was his great insight that if we start taking up arms against the Britishers, violence would one day consume us so much that we would use the same means against our people. Non-violence is surely an ideal that is very dear to us and has been instrumental in the survival of our civilization over millennia. But, if we dig a little deeper into our culture, we will conclude that while non-violence has been the norm for us, it is not our be-all and end-all cultural value.
In the war against Adharma, violence has never been our Dharma unless all other modes of maintaining peace and stability have been exhausted. Our epics duly note this and guide us. Let me just quote three examples here. First, when Rama reached Lanka after building a bridge over the sea, despite being away from Sita for a long time and having an army at his disposal, he did not declare war right away. In fact, to not be held responsible by posterity for the thousands who would die in the war, Rama sent Angada as his ambassador to King Ravana’s court with a last-ditch peace offering.
Even with all the troubles that Rama and his army had undergone in the preceding months, he offered Ravana that if Sita were returned, the whole Vanara army would just turn back and leave right away. We all know what happened soon after when Ravana showed contempt for this offering. Second, at another time, Krishna himself served as the peace envoy between the Kauravas and Pandavas to avert the great war. In all earnest, Krishna, as a last resort, pleaded with King Dhritrashtra that if Duryodhana and the king would agree to just give away five villages from their vast kingdom to the Pandavas, the war would be averted. Krishna also looked towards posterity when he made this offer. Probably even Krishna’s divine shoulders were not powerful enough to bear the burden of responsibility for the catastrophe that would fall upon thousands in the great war. Evidently, war was the last resort, not the norm. Later, the same erstwhile peacemaker Krishna convinced a hesitant Arjuna to take up arms against his own kin because that was Arjuna’s Dharma at that point in time. Visibly, Mahabharata teaches us that even the ideal of non-violence can take a back seat in the pursuit of Dharma against Adharma.
Finally, in 1974, India conducted its first nuclear test, codenamed “Smiling Buddha”. The name may appear to be counterintuitive. After all, how does one reconcile the venerated Buddha’s smile and a nuclear bomb? Read on, there is a beautiful tale behind this etymological innovation. It is said that in Buddha’s time, the neighboring kingdoms of Magadha and Vaishali (both lying approximately in present-day Bihar) were at war. While Magadha was a monarchy with an accompanying centralized system of governance, Vaishali was a street democracy and thus, by its very nature of governance, it bordered on anarchy. While in Magadha, all decisions about warfare were taken by the monarch and executed with precision and speed, the empowered citizens of Vaishali spent most of the time deliberating. As a result, every citizen in Vaishali acted like a monarch, and decision-making was atrociously slow. Certainly, when Magadha attacked Vaishali with all its might, the latter was annihilated. When the news of this event reached Buddha, who was meditating at the time, he supposedly frowned in dissatisfaction and contempt. This is what drove the choice of the codename “Smiling Buddha” at a time when powerful nations across the world and in our neighborhood were developing nuclear weapons. Again, going into war with all your might is not only a good military strategy, but it is also one’s Dharma.
For far too long, India has tolerated terrorist attacks from Pakistan without giving a befitting punitive response. True to our non-violent Dharma, we held ourselves back after the 2001 Attack on the Indian Parliament, 26/11 in Mumbai in 2008, and the Pathankot Airbase attack in 2016. In the latter two, we even went to the extent of giving indubitable proof of the attack’s planning and origin to Pakistan and inviting them to collaborate in the investigation. Let me remind you that this was our consistent position for more than a decade across two ideologically opposed governments at the center. All this led to naught. All we received in response were denials and more terror attacks on our soil (Uri in 2016, Pulwama in 2019, and Reasi in 2024, to just name a few). Tulsidas writes beautifully in Ramacharitmanas: बिनय न मानत जलधि जड़ गए तीनि दिन बीति। बोले राम सकोप तब भय बिनु होइ न प्रीति॥ We did undertake limited retaliation in 2016 and 2019, but being a responsible member of the international community, still showed restraint in escalating the conflict further.
The Pahalgam attack on April 22 this year has been the proverbial final straw. It is the most heinous attack on our civilians since 26/11, and the manner in which our civilians were killed by segregating them based on religion boiled the blood of all patriots in our nation. We can no longer tolerate this on our soil. Enough is enough. The mode of killing chosen by terrorists was aimed at inciting violent unrest in India, but we showed (and continue to show) a remarkable and mature restraint. Now that the bugle of war is about to echo and the situation seems to be escalating rapidly, we can be sure that it is our Dharma now to trust our armed forces and let them respond in any way they deem fit, including escalating the conflict. Over the last two decades, we have not only exhausted our patience but by showing restraint for this long, we have earned in posterity’s assessment, the right to respond in a language that Pakistan’s establishment will understand. It may be a short-term conflict or it may become a long-drawn one, but there must be no going back now till we tear apart this “moth-eaten” army-run nation-state once again, just like we did in 1971.
Stock markets will recover, emotional trauma will heal with time, and the sun will rise again beyond the horizon, but know that a society not following its Dharma in the war against Adharma will surely get decimated. In the great poem Rashmirathi, just before Mahabharata was about to begin, Ramdhari Singh ‘Dinkar’ aptly wrote
अब देर नही कीजै केशव, अवसेर नही कीजै केशव.
धनु की डोरी तन जाने दें, संग्राम तुरत ठन जाने दें,
तांडवी तेज लहराएगा, संसार ज्योति कुछ पाएगा.
Gandhiji, we venerate you now just like we have always done, but these are extraordinary times requiring extraordinary measures against Adharma. We promise that we shall soon be back on your path again. We are only taking a short detour through Kurukshetra, and on our way, we hope not to make Buddha frown during this journey.
Jai Hind, Jai Hind Ki Sena, Bharat Mata Ki Jai 🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳
#IndiaPakistanConflict #IndiaPakistanTensions #JaiHind #bharatmatakijai #IndiaPakistanWar
Image credits: Gemini
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