You are here: SriPedia - SriRangaSri - Archives - Mar 2003

SriRangaSri List Archive: Message 00076 Mar 2003

 
Mar 2003 Indexes ( Date | Thread | Author )
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]


Dear friends in Kuwait,

Now that the Scuds have stopped falling around us in the City, and
the battle has moved away northwards to Baghdad, I presume we can all
breathe a little easy. The risk of personal danger is much less now
than it was last week and I suppose we can now take a more objective,
less agitated view of what is happening around us.

At a personal level, I derive respite from anxiety over air-raid
sirens, or from fear of missile-attacks, by simply taking up either
the Ramayana or the Mahabharatha and randomly leafing through their
pages -- reading a passage here, a passage there, savouring one scene
here and one there, reciting one 'shlOka' here and another one from
elsewhere... I find this quite soothing on the nerves. It helps take
my mind away from dark thoughts and darker impressions of this
ongoing war that is threatening to last longer than originally
envisaged.

*******************************

One of the most heart-rending scenes we see these days on TV
newscasts are those of civilian misery both in the countryside and
cities of Iraq. The bombardment and barrage ordinary people there
seem to be undergoing must be sheer agony for them. I can't imagine
how terror-struck they must be. 

Basra is a city that is only an hour and half drive away from us here
in Kuwait. In that Iraqi city mortars and grenades are being tossed
around, even as I am writing this, from one street across another
between the two armies. Women and children, old persons and
handicapped, all must be watching -- at very, very close quarters I
suppose -- the savagery of battle and suffering every moment the risk
of death and dismemberment... It is all so terrible indeed.

It is in moments like these that one cannot help a bit of wishful
thinking. How wonderful it would be, I find myself thinking, if the
world could go back to the era of the 'itihAsA-s' when, if wars had
to be fought, armies were careful to fight it only on pre-designated
battle-fields or arenas -- far, far away from civilian populations
and habitation! The Great War of Mahabharatha was perhaps the
bloodiest ever fought in those times, but it was waged not in the
streets of Hastinapur but in Kurukshetra where there was not a single
instance of civilian casualty. Not one woman or child or old person
was harmed in that War! It was an engagement strictly between
soldiers, strictly man-to-man and strictly head-to head...

One wonders why the nations of the world today cannot agree to and
abide by a global convention to wage war only on pre-designated
battle-fields as in the olden days. Just as there is the Geneva
Convention that sets out certain strict rules of military engagement
for all the nations of world to abide by, why cannot the civilized
world of the 21st century sign up to a convention that bans Wars from
being fought on or around civilian locations? The civilian world,
ordinary citizenry, would then surely be saved the horror of war; and
the innocence of our children at least would then be preserved
against the mindless violence war brings in its wake. 

*******************************

Talking of TV newscasts, this War is not only being fought, if you
have noticed it, between military armies but also between the Western
electronic-media and the local or regional media. 

TV-satellite stations (like CNN/Fox/BBC) beam their versions of the
War and the local stations, in turn, broadcast their own versions of
it. Each one puts out its own perspectives and makes loud and brazen
claims on behalf of its own camp. These claims and counter-claims --
trumpeted around day after day through one "breaking-news" bulletin
after another -- often contradict one another and we, the poor
viewers, are left utterly baffled about the real course the War is
taking. This is what they say is the nature of modern warfare -- they
call it the "unleashing the forces of propaganda" and it is an
integral part of 21st century warfare and sometimes this
'propaganda-war' is far more deadly and vicious than the military
one. 

Propaganda in war has only one purpose: to unnerve the enemy, to sow
the seed of disintegration deep within the enemy camp and reap the
harvest of his utter confusion. 

*************************

In the Mahabharata War we see that the nearest they ever got to 
something like a 'propaganda war' was the blowing of battle conches. 


The sound of the conch was meant to not only signal the outbreak of
hostilities but also to strike terror and confusion within the enemy
ranks. The Bhagavath-Gita opens with an account of how various
warriors on both sides of the Pandava and Kaurava camps took out
their conches and blew them -- long and loud. 

Just as we see today the Western coalition-forces blowing their
propaganda 'conches' through CNN, Fox or BBC and, similarly, we see
the Arabic-channels 'blowing their own conches' through Al-jazira and
Abu-dhabi satellites, the Pandavas and Kauravas too had their own
propaganda devices. 

The Gita tells us that right at the very beginning of the Kurukshetra
War, Duryodhana momentarily lost his nerve and in order to revive his
sagging spirits Bhishma 'pitAmaha' did exactly what any
propaganda-machinery would do today -- he blew his trumpet! 
Bhishma took his battle conch and blew it to generate a terrible din
that reverberated all across Kurukshetra announcing to all the world
the resolve of the Kauravas to fight!

No sooner had Bhishma fired the first 'propaganda' salvo in the War,
Krishna and Arjuna too lost no time in returning it with their own
propaganda offensive. Krishna took out his famous conch, the
Panchajanya and blew it with all His might...

And then all hell broke loose in Kurukshetra with more warriors
taking out their respective conches and unleashing their own
'propaganda-channels' of offense!

Yudhishtara took out his 'Anantavijaya' and blew it. Nakula blew his
'Sugosha'. Sahadeva blew his 'Manipurusha'...

Then followed Sikhandi and Drishatadhyumna; and following their heels
was Virata and Satyaki and Drupada....

It went on and on ... the blowing of the conches... until the whole
of Kurukshetra became engulfed in the terrible and tumultuous
cacophony of 'war propaganda' that struck terror and confusion in the
hearts of both Kaurava and Pandava soldier alike. 

No one at that moment really understood what was happening, nor what
was about to happen... nor what unspeakable tragedy and pain the
great War still held in store for them...

We seem to live in times today that perhaps mirror what Kurukshetra
too might have been in that distant past.

Regards,

dAsan,
Sudarshan









__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Platinum - Watch CBS' NCAA March Madness, live on your desktop!
http://platinum.yahoo.com




[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index ] [Thread Index ] [Author Index ]
Home Page
http://www.ibiblio.org/sripedia
srirangasri-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
To subscribe to the list