Can India Lead the World To Universal Peace?
CAN INDIA LEAD THE WORLD TOWARDS UNIVERSAL PEACE?
IT IS death's feast. It builds nothing but tombs. It wreaks havoc everywhere. It leaves behind a long trail of misery, misfortune, starvation and sickness. Mothers lose their beloved children, wives are widowed, and many children just cannot say ¡°Papa anymore. This is war.
DO I want it? Do you want it? Does anyone ever want it? To me, the answer is an emphatic ¡°NO. But can we really avoid it? I am afraid not. But why? I believe war and death have one common feature.
DEATH, we all know, is certain ¨C as certain as the rising of the sun in the east. We cannot escape death ¨C at best, we can only delay it, to an extent.
BY the same token, I believe we ‘cannot' eliminate war forever and wipe it from the face of the earth. As long as human beings exist, there will be greed ¨C greed for power, greed for land, and greed for wealth. And as long as such greed exists, the potential for war will remain high.
IF war and conflict cannot be eliminated, the next best thing we can do is to lower the possibility of its occurrence. And God forbid, when it occurs, we should at least learn to manage it. After all, peace comes not from the absence of conflict in life, but from our ability to cope with it.
HOW do we minimize conflict? Who should take the lead? Should India lead the world towards universal peace? Why not any other country? ¨C or for that matter, why not the U.N.? The world body was set up ‘just' for that purpose, wasn't it?
UNFORTUNATELY, today, this reputed body's arms are being twisted by the rich and powerful nations. The UN's efforts to alleviate the sufferings of people in this region are hampered by some of these nations, whose behavior is sometimes worse than that of mercenaries.
IF the UN is helpless, who should take charge? If one looks around the world for suitable candidates, India, in my humble opinion, stands head and shoulders above the rest. Why do I think so? After all, India is neither rich nor powerful (as the world believes). I believe she scores over others because of her moral strength and authority. This strength has been amply demonstrated, generation after
generation.
WE start with Gautama the Buddha, the apostle of peace. We then move to the man who won freedom for the country, not by force, but, as everyone now knows, by non-violence. The world still wonders whether such a person can ever exist. After Gandhi, we look at the leader in whose honour the Children's Day is celebrated, not only in India but also wherever Indians live, Jawaharlal Nehru, the man who presented the principle of ¡°Panchsheel to the world.
AND then we move to his daughter, Indira Gandhi, who despite the fact that we were ‘winning', declared ceasefire during the 1971 war ¨C the sign of a true stateswoman. From Indira, we move to her son, Rajiv. When asked for help by our neighbor Sri Lanka, to contain militancy, Rajiv sent soldiers—not with orders to kill, but with instructions to keep peace. The troops were aptly named IPKF, the Indian Peace Keeping Force.
THE tradition continues right up to the present Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh. Given our size, we can quite easily be the ¡°Big Bully in the region. But we would have nothing of the sort. His doctrine is that, as a Big Brother, we should be willing to give more and take less. We should emulate Lord Rama, the great warrior king in this regard.
WITH such leaders as these, when it comes to moral strength and authority, it is hardly surprising that India leaves the rest of the world far behind. It is not moral strength alone, the environment in which we have been brought up has also taught invaluable lessons to us in coping with conflict. We still have a joint family system where day-to-day conflicts are inevitable. We are such a diverse nation in terms of language, culture, religion, and caste, that conflicts are bound to occur now and then, and with that, also comes the moral strength to cope with them. From childhood we have thus learned to live and deal patiently with conflicts.
BY NOW, I am sure it is crystal clear to one and all that should the need arise, India with her very high moral strength and authority, and with her innate ability to manage and cope with conflicts, is best placed, to play a positive role.
I HOPE, sincerely hope, and pray, that her role and contribution will lead us to a world filled with peace¡ to a world free from war and conflict... to a world in which the word ¡°Papa is not erased from a child's dictionary.
IT IS death's feast. It builds nothing but tombs. It wreaks havoc everywhere. It leaves behind a long trail of misery, misfortune, starvation and sickness. Mothers lose their beloved children, wives are widowed, and many children just cannot say ¡°Papa anymore. This is war.
DO I want it? Do you want it? Does anyone ever want it? To me, the answer is an emphatic ¡°NO. But can we really avoid it? I am afraid not. But why? I believe war and death have one common feature.
DEATH, we all know, is certain ¨C as certain as the rising of the sun in the east. We cannot escape death ¨C at best, we can only delay it, to an extent.
BY the same token, I believe we ‘cannot' eliminate war forever and wipe it from the face of the earth. As long as human beings exist, there will be greed ¨C greed for power, greed for land, and greed for wealth. And as long as such greed exists, the potential for war will remain high.
IF war and conflict cannot be eliminated, the next best thing we can do is to lower the possibility of its occurrence. And God forbid, when it occurs, we should at least learn to manage it. After all, peace comes not from the absence of conflict in life, but from our ability to cope with it.
HOW do we minimize conflict? Who should take the lead? Should India lead the world towards universal peace? Why not any other country? ¨C or for that matter, why not the U.N.? The world body was set up ‘just' for that purpose, wasn't it?
UNFORTUNATELY, today, this reputed body's arms are being twisted by the rich and powerful nations. The UN's efforts to alleviate the sufferings of people in this region are hampered by some of these nations, whose behavior is sometimes worse than that of mercenaries.
IF the UN is helpless, who should take charge? If one looks around the world for suitable candidates, India, in my humble opinion, stands head and shoulders above the rest. Why do I think so? After all, India is neither rich nor powerful (as the world believes). I believe she scores over others because of her moral strength and authority. This strength has been amply demonstrated, generation after
WE start with Gautama the Buddha, the apostle of peace. We then move to the man who won freedom for the country, not by force, but, as everyone now knows, by non-violence. The world still wonders whether such a person can ever exist. After Gandhi, we look at the leader in whose honour the Children's Day is celebrated, not only in India but also wherever Indians live, Jawaharlal Nehru, the man who presented the principle of ¡°Panchsheel to the world.
AND then we move to his daughter, Indira Gandhi, who despite the fact that we were ‘winning', declared ceasefire during the 1971 war ¨C the sign of a true stateswoman. From Indira, we move to her son, Rajiv. When asked for help by our neighbor Sri Lanka, to contain militancy, Rajiv sent soldiers—not with orders to kill, but with instructions to keep peace. The troops were aptly named IPKF, the Indian Peace Keeping Force.
THE tradition continues right up to the present Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh. Given our size, we can quite easily be the ¡°Big Bully in the region. But we would have nothing of the sort. His doctrine is that, as a Big Brother, we should be willing to give more and take less. We should emulate Lord Rama, the great warrior king in this regard.
WITH such leaders as these, when it comes to moral strength and authority, it is hardly surprising that India leaves the rest of the world far behind. It is not moral strength alone, the environment in which we have been brought up has also taught invaluable lessons to us in coping with conflict. We still have a joint family system where day-to-day conflicts are inevitable. We are such a diverse nation in terms of language, culture, religion, and caste, that conflicts are bound to occur now and then, and with that, also comes the moral strength to cope with them. From childhood we have thus learned to live and deal patiently with conflicts.
BY NOW, I am sure it is crystal clear to one and all that should the need arise, India with her very high moral strength and authority, and with her innate ability to manage and cope with conflicts, is best placed, to play a positive role.
I HOPE, sincerely hope, and pray, that her role and contribution will lead us to a world filled with peace¡ to a world free from war and conflict... to a world in which the word ¡°Papa is not erased from a child's dictionary.
Tags & Keywords : India's role in the world. Need of the hour, Peace
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