23 November 2001, 12:16am IST
Pranav Khullar.
The preamble to the united nations charter sums up our existential dilemma of today in an intensely evocative way, stating that ‘‘since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that defences of peace must be constructed’’. in a land where history had sought to be sketched in an arc from gautama to gandhi, it is but appropriate to reflect on such defences and revive them in a time when war and terrorism have cast their shadow today. it is in the rock-edicts of asoka that one finds the earliest instance of the transformation of a king who not only abjured war, shaken by its horrendous consequences, but who went on to ban war in his kingdom as a measure of state policy. his inquiry into the psychological roots of war led him to believe that hatred for the other’s beliefs is the primary cause of war but that hatred can never be appeased by hatred; it ‘‘can be appeased only by love which is the eternal law’’. this inner understanding transformed asoka into the great apostle-king of peace and spiritual values, remembered today not because he fought and won wars, but because he had the courage to perform the more difficult task of winning the hearts of the people. wars of all kinds have been fought since the dawn of history: wars of aggression, wars to end wars, patriotic wars, religious wars, trade wars, cold wars, wars in self-defence and ‘just’ wars, but their roots lie in the prejudices, complexes and fears which have plagued the human mind. it is in the ‘freedom from fear’, as krishnamurti said, that the solution and alternative to war lies. and it is search for such a freedom which has led men of varied stature, from gautama and mahavira to gandhi and martin-luther king, on the path of ahimsa or non-violence. ‘‘belief and behaviour go together’’, exhorted dr radhakrishnan, ‘‘...if we believe in blood, race, soil, our world will be filled with buchenwalds. if we believe in universal spiritual values, peace and understanding will grow’’. it is this leap of faith, as juxtaposed to the faiths one is born into, which alone can catalyse the human mind today to greater brotherhood and bonding. the famous urdu short-story writer, krishan chander, narrates a poignant story of two soldiers journeying back home in a pensive mood after the world war ii, one soldier hoping that someday all the soldiers will lay down their arms and refuse to fight, to which the other responds, that in that case the enemy would win. the story captures powerfully our innermost insecurities and conditioning which would require an enemy even when none might exist. at the crossroads of history today, when a ‘clash of civilisations’ is being spoken about, when social-secular orders are crumbling under the weight of ideologies, one needs to take a walk beyond the clouds of concepts and despair. the search for the holy grail of peace is a journey which must begin with a reality check within, of our real anxieties and fears and hopes, the realisation that these are common concerns, which alone can trigger off an empathy and understanding beyond ideologies. it would be worth the effort to tear apart this veil of malevolence and double-speak which seem to shroud us all today, and tread the old pilgrim path to brotherhood and bonding, to resurrect the value-systems which have ennobled our traditions and kept them alive for us. ‘‘why should we honour those only who die on the battlefield? are they any less heroes who go into the abyss of oneself?’’ exhorted yeats. it is such heroes and such traditions we need to revive and resurrect today more than ever, when images of blood and destruction seem to pervade and haunt us daily. for what is needed are not critiques but compassion, what is required are not theories but the therapeutic balm of understanding. as even president eisenhower realised, ‘‘...with everyone a loser in any new war, a better understanding than ever before is essential among people and nations’’. as the shadow of wasteland looms large in a very real way, greater than what was even imagined by the poet t s eliot, we have not merely a wasteland wrought by war but a wasteland of values. in a time of the world’s most tragic and turbulent crisis, one is reminded of the hauntingly evocative affirmation of the human spirit in the cult john lennon song imagine , which captures this quest for peace in the shadow of war — ‘‘you may say i’m a dreamer, but i’m not the only one, someday you too will join us, and the world will be one’’.
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