Ban the Gita? A look at Arjuna's doubts vs Krishna's wisdom

A Siberian court will shortly pronounce its verdict in a case calling for a ban on the Bhagawad Gita. The alleged reason: the Gita is apparently spreading social discord - or, at least, the Russian translation of it. As a complex text that can be interpreted in many ways, it’s no surprise that people unfamiliar with the Indian cultural ethos might read all kinds of subversive meanings into it. Is it a call to war, or is it an allegorical work calling on each one of us to fight the evil within, as Gandhi would like us to believe? It’s probably both, since the context of the Gita’s message is a war. But that does not make it a war-mongering text. If a lack of cultural understanding can get a sacred text banned, there is a strong case to ban even the Bible and the Koran, which don’t lack for controversial passages themselves. [caption id=“attachment_159541” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Krishna does not say that war is the first option, but that it is important in a certain context. ISCON/Flikr”]  [/caption] No doubt good sense will prevail in Russia, but this is a good time to check if even we understand the essential import of the message of the Gita. I am no expert in either Sanskrit or the Gita, but I would like to offer a commonsense understanding of its central message — and especially its core message on war and peace. I find that even Nobel laureates like Amartya Sen miss the point. Like any sacred text of the world, the Gita offers both eternal principles to live by as well as contextual guidance. So it is important to acknowledge both the context of its message, and the broader bits of wisdom. The context is this: after repeated attempts to obtain an honourable peace, the Pandavas realise that there is no option but to go to war with the Kauravas. The latter were their kin, but they had usurped the Pandavas’ kingdom through chicanery. For their part, the Pandavas foolishly agreed to a high-stakes game of dice in which they lost everything. However, when the armies assemble for combat, Arjuna loses his nerve on finding that he will have to battle and kill kith and kin and many of his teachers and elders. He is about to abandon the fight when Krishna intervenes. The Gita’s message on war is given in this context – and is not a general exhortation to wage war on your neighbours. Krishna’s advice is simple: when you have decided on war after all options for peace ended, you have a duty to fight. That is your dharma. Krishna does not say that war is the first option, but that it is important in a certain context. Amartya Sen has often taken the side of Arjuna – and treats Arjuna’s doubts as an important argument in favour of pacificism. No one can enter a war lightly. Arjuna’s doubts were legitimate, but the doubts were the result of allowing emotion to cloud clear thinking. Amartya Sen’s laudatory references to Arjuna’s self-doubts are wrong precisely because genuine pacifism can come only from strength and a willingness to fight for what is right. As Gandhi stressed, non-violence is the weapon not of the coward, but the truly brave. The problem with romantic pacifism is that it ignores a fundamental paradox: the only way to ensure peace is to be ready for war. Seeking peace without having a deterrent is like sending an open invitation to plunderers and marauders to come and destroy us. Just imagine what would have happened if Arjuna had opted out of the war. Of course, we would have had less bloodshed – but we would also have sent a powerful message of cowardice, where truth and honour are not important. The war had to be fought to prevent other warmongers from assuming that the nation will not fight. In the second world war, Vichy’s France and Quisling’s Norway did not fight Hitler and the fascists. They were saved because Churchill’s England and Stalin’s Russia did not opt for the same cowardice. Vichy and Quisling let Arjuna’s doubts stymie them; Churchill and Stalin followed Krishna’s advice. If they didn’t do that, Hitler would have won. There is good reason to believe that the element of excessive pacifism came to India via Buddhist and Jain philosophies. While correctly attacking Brahmin orthodoxy and caste arrogance, both religions of peace inculcated excessive pacifism. Buddhism teaches us the right way to conduct ourselves to liberate ourselves from suffering. But when an inward focus leads us to ignore outward threats — and the conclusion that we ought to do nothing about aggression — destruction is the only result. Hear Ambedkar on this: “There can be no doubt that the fall of Buddhism in India was due to the invasions of the Mussalmans….Islam destroyed Buddhism not only in India but wherever it went.” But for the corrective applied by Krishna’s advice in the Gita, Buddhist and Jain pacifism would have laid the rest of India open to complete domination. However, there is little doubt that Arjuna’s doubts never really left us. India’s recent history is replete with instances where we have taken Arjuna’s cop-out and come to regret it. Soon after independence, we ignored all intelligence that Pakistan was planning to take Kashmir by force. It was only after the invasion by irregulars that we sent in the army and got the Dogra ruler to sign the instrument of accession. In the process, we lost half the state. With Pakistan — who are our kith and kin the same way the Kauravas were to the Pandavas – we have repeatedly turned a blind eye to their aggressive intent and ill-will and paid the price. After the 1965 war, we gave back all that we won at Tashkent. After the 1971 Bangladesh war, Indira Gandhi returned 90,000 prisoners of war without even a written agreement that Pakistan will give up its stand on Kashmir. In 1999, Vajpayee took the Lahore bus in pursuit of peace even when the body language of Pakistan’s army was all wrong. We now know that Gen Pervez Musharraf was preparing for Kargil even when Nawaz Sharif was talking peace with Vajpayee. The same thing happened with China during Nehru’s time. Ignoring Sardar Patel’s dire warnings on Chinese intent in Tibet, he bartered away Tibet’s freedom for an empty peace. After Tibet was swallowed, Nehru again chose to ignore Chinese war planning and led us to defeat in 1962. Well before all this happened, Nehru – in what must rate as a prime act of stupidity - declined the US offer of a permanent seat in the UN Security Council on the plea that Taiwan’s seat should be taken up by its rightful owner, the People’s Republic of China. Now, China will do everything to prevent us from getting that seat. Even now, the government of Manmohan Singh is busy trying to buy peace with Pakistan on the presumption that as the big brother, we have to make all the sacrifices. We gave Pakistan Most Favoured Nation treatment decades before the latter even agreed to look at the suggestion. We allowed Pakistan to insert a reference to our alleged interference in Baluchistan at the Sharm-el-Shaikh summit, and we have all but given up our demand for action against the culprits of 26/11. Not only that, we are now treating Pakistan as an equivalent victim of terrorism – an equivalence it does not deserve. The evidence is clear. We are children of Arjuna’s doubts, of Amartya Sen’s self-defeating pacifism. We have not really imbibed the lessons of the Gita because we have banned it in our hearts.