The world today is haunted by the specter of terrorism,
which rationalizes itself based on a religious book. Coming from this context,
we may feel uneasy on finding that another religious book, the Bhagavad-gita,
has a battlefield setting. Further, when we find that, in the Gita (02.03),
Krishna disapproves of Arjuna’s pacifism and asks him to fight, our unease may
exacerbate to alarm.
To properly understand Krishna’s call, we need to see it in
its own context. The Mahabharata, the epic of which the Gita is a part,
describes elaborately the outrageous atrocities that the vicious Kauravas had
inflicted on the virtuous and peace-seeking Pandavas. Exhibiting remarkable
forbearance, the Pandavas had offered the Kauravas peace on the most
accommodating of terms. But the arrogant Kauravas had derisively rejected their
offer, thereby leaving them no option except to fight. The Pandavas fought not
just for their own right to serve as the martial guardians of society but also
for their citizens’ right to have a virtuous socio-political environment
conducive for all-round growth.
The Gita doesn’t endorse becoming a peacenik, wherein
passivity distorts noble pacifism into ignoble impotency. When dealing with
incorrigible offenders, it doesn’t naively rule out assertive action, including
violence. Aptly therefore, Krishna chides Arjuna by declaring his reluctance to
fight to be not ennobling, but degrading; not born of compassion, but born of
confusion; not progressive for society and spirituality, but regressive for
both. Indeed, the only right course of action for Arjuna was to fight.
The Pandavas’ thoughtful assertiveness against malevolent
power-grabbers differs entirely from terrorist attacks on the defenseless and
blameless. In fact, the mature consideration of one’s options that the Gita
demonstrates comprises a model for unsentimental spiritual cogitation. Such
cogitation is vital today for countering both the ignorance that breeds
terrorism and the impotence that feeds it.
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