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The Ashoka syndrome;
A retired Army officer observed some interesting facts about India which corelates the above punchline.
In India, it’s never about ideology. It is only about civilisation. And to put it on a record, this is why PM Modi focus a massive smear campaign from a powerful lobby. But all this didn’t start in 2014. In fact, it started long ago. We have to go back centuries to understand this. India wasn’t born in 1947, because unlike many other countries, we got independence not created afresh, so it was a precursor of the fact that the incidents which led to independence before and after 1947 are equally important.
The most underrated incident in our history being the Kalinga War of 256BC, which was not only a life-changing event for Ashoka the Great, the famous Mauryan ruler, but also changed India for centuries to come. The emperor became pacifist whatever his own ideology; it is very easy to confuse reluctance to wage war with a defensive mindset. For years to come, the Indian civilisation became utterly defensive and not only this, the succeeding Indian dynasties would avoid expansionism and their ability to perceive and preempt also went down. From here, often the incident compromise and forgiveness became the keywords of our civilisation.
The Ashoka syndrome would soon become the Prithviraj syndrome. Indians have been valiant warriors, but the issue is that of excessive magnanimity. Prithviraj Chauhan defeated Muhammad Ghori in the 11th century but let him go… Later, Ghori defeated Prithviraj and blinded him. In the course of this thread, you will realise how we could get betrayed like Prithviraj Chauhan another 10 centuries later. But this unnecessary magnanimity allowed Islamic conquest of India. This, of course, led to centuries of plunder.
After the Kalinga War, we never achieved a system that would match up to the aggression against the Indian civilisation. This unnecessarily defensive regime would give way to Islamic conquest. Which ultimately paved the way to the British Raj.Needles to mention, the social thinkers and commoners also became timid about their own civilisation. Britishers made us to believe that we were misogynist and archaic. Some of our most celebrated social thinkers relentlessly promoted British education as panacea. Everything is about civilisation. Every successive regime showed anyone who tried to stand up for civilisation pride.
British era gave way to the Nirvana era. India’s political leadership again ordained that India would adopt a strategic restraint.
China entered our territory… so India’s first pandit PM said, “Not a blade of grass grows in those barren mountains” and let it for go.
Of course, no one in the intellectual lobby protested. Nehru was doing what they wanted him to do. Be magnanimous to the extent of being self harming. Nehru was only continuing what started with the Kalinga War. Then came Indira. She suffered the Prithviraj syndrome…. Won the 1971 war, but gave way to exploits in Shimla Agreement, famous quote from Vajpayee on this “We won in the fields but lost on the table”. Pakistan turned on other Ghori, ISI up with a doctrine bleed India through a thousand cute. This doesn’t end here.
Vajpayee faced the wrath of the ecosystem for many reasons. The only thing they don’t criticise him for not crossing the LoC during the 1999 Kargil War This is against a manifestation of extreme generosity.. Pakistan would cross the LoC but India wouldn’t. The parliament attack happened, we didn’t retaliate. Operation prakram never materialised into anything. Few years later, 26/11 happened, but then India’s PM, Dr. Manmohan Singh, chose strategic restraint. No one in the powerful lobby criticized him. As long as you don’t go beyond the Lakshman Rekha that has been drawn by centuries of timidity, no one will rebuke you.
But then came PM Modi on stage.. Pakistan attacked in Uri, so the brave hearts of India caused damage to the Terror launchpads across the LoC. With the Balakot airstrikes, he still went several steps further. Of course he is hated right, left and center, how dare he be, violating the century old plan to show India as a weak state?. After several centuries, India is a pretty tempting threat. We had stopped pre-empting in 265BC, how come we could pre-empting now. Modified India is in a different mood, make no nonsense with her. She will retaliate once and for good.
Modi-hate is not about ideology it’s about civilisation!!!
If Modi gets success in transforming our mindset for the other Modis to follow the suit will be the best political dogma for the nation to build, because Modi will not be sufficient to clear the rot accumulated through centuries under design and practice.People active participation and self believe to become AtmaNirbhar is paramount here.
Author:
Niladri Sarkar, a Champion of Pharma value chain management, a grassroot to board room adorable team player for decades in the Pharma MNCs. Now managing his own business of pharma distribution in central India. He is based at Raipur in Chhattisgarh at present heartland of Nature, Satpura Hills, Chota Nagpur Plateau and MAA Narmada alongside of Holi Amarkantak, the spiritual center for Yogis for centuries. Which gave him an unique composition of character like a fighter outside and a composed Yogi inside. Despite of his busy schedule, he loves to click travel photography and note down the events of moments for a deep analytical articulation. He is the batch mate of our Chief Editor and penned this article for IBG NEWS as a tribute to the old buddy.
