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Oppiliappan List Archive: Message 00043 Nov 2003

 
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Dear friends,

Last evening a good friend and neighbour dropped in
for after-'iftar' tea and snacks with me. Since it is
the holy month of Ramadan here in Kuwait, when devout
Muslims observe day-long ritual fasting, all places of
business shut down after 2 or 3 PM. Non-Muslim
office-goers like my friend and myself hence have much
of the afternoons in which to do as we please.  My
good neigbour, who otherwise leads a pretty hectic
life as a corporate executive, obviously found the
opportunity to spend what he likes to call "quality
time" with me. He was merely flattering me, of course,
but he did seem really happy to saunter into my house
for a leisurely chat.

When my neigbour walked in I was engrossed in "The
Lectures on the Ramayana" by Rt.Hon'ble Srinivasa
Sastri. This is one book I have never tired of reading
and re-reading all my life and out here in the Gulf
kingdom of Kuwait, this book has kept me good,
valuable company during many Ramadan afternoons. 

I was in the middle of a gripping passage of Valmiki's
"yuddha-kAnda" when, quite by amazing coincidence, my
friend walked in, sat down beside me in the sofa, and
opened the conversation with latest news from
neighbouring Iraq. Fifteen American soldiers had been
killed when the helicopter they'd been travelling in
had been downed by guerilla elements in Baghdad.

For over 6 months now in Kuwait we have all been
following the "low intensity warfare" still raging in
Iraq, but this latest event is a real step-up in
hostilities between the Iraqi people and the occupying
American forces there.  

My friend took out the day's newspaper he'd brought
with him and read out aloud a news-item to me:

"FORT CARSON, Colo., Nov. 3 ? Sgt. Ernest Bucklew was
a 5-foot-3-inch coal miner's son who got laid off from
a vitamin factory, then joined the Army. For a time,
he loved it. On Sunday, Sergeant Bucklew was on his
way home from Iraq after a death in the family. Then,
in a flash, he was gone, too.

Sergeant Bucklew was one of the 16 soldiers killed
when a missile tore a troop transport helicopter out
of the sky. He was 33 years old, a father of two, a
supply clerk for the Third Armored Cavalry based here
and headed home for the funeral of his mother, who
died suddenly on Friday. The news was almost too much
to bear for a family already heartbroken and for a
base that seems to be paying a steep price for the
occupation in Iraq. Though not a single soldier from
Fort Carson was killed during the invasion of Iraq,
more than 20 have died since President Bush declared
an end to major combat hostilities on May 1. Four Fort
Carson soldiers were killed in Sunday's helicopter
crash alone." 

                **********

"How sad, how sad!" bemoaned my friend, "Imagine a
young soldier leaving the battle-front to attend his
mother's funeral, little knowing he was following upon
her heels in death!"

It was a tragic story, no doubt, and I wasn't
surprised that my good friend, the good soul he is,
was rather moved by it. War is indeed terrible human
drama and Death sometimes makes its appearance on
stage in the cruelest costumes?

                **********

After a few silent moments of reflection upon this
latest piece of grim news from Baghdad, my friend
perceived the book in my hands. He turned to me and
exclaimed: "Oh, I can see you're reading the Ramayana!
The "yuddha-kAnda"! How appropriate for the times we
live in!"

"Yes, sir", I replied, "The Ramayana is good company
to keep in the desultory hours of Ramadan afternoons".
And by way of returning the compliment he'd paid me
earlier, I courteously added, "The Ramayana and your
good self, Sir, in that order, more or less, I would
say".  

"Thank you, my friend", said my neighbour rather
pleased that I should speak of the Ramayana and him in
the same breath. "But tell me", he continued making
himself comfortable on my sofa, "from the standpoint
of our great 'Ramayana', what should we make of all
that's happening in Iraq today? All this guerilla war,
death of so many young soldiers, innocent civilians,
UN workers, Red Cross workers? All this bloodshed,
mayhem and tragedy, day after day, across the Kuwaiti
border? How unfortunate."
 
My friend's question immediately triggered a chain of
sombre thoughts in both of us and we found ourselves
descending together into a rather pensive mood. And
soon enough, it became the main subject of our
rambling but good neighbourly chat the rest of that
cool, breezy evening.

Here is a gist of our joint musings on the Ramayana
inspired by one quiet afternoon in Kuwait during  the
Muslim month of holy Ramadan circa 2003...  
                                                      
              ************* 

** The Ramayana is not a work of religious scripture
alone. It can serve as a very useful manual of
military ethics and political strategy too. The story
of Rama, the Warrior Prince, is primarily a story
about the military class --- viz. the "kshatriyas" of
ancient times. Rama was often called "raNa-veera",
"raghuveera", "raNa-pungava", "raNa-priya"?. These
names all have a military ring chiefly meant to attest
to Rama's military prowess, his love of the martial
life and the honourable traditions of the battlefield.
 Even setting aside all purely religious or
theological themes abounding in it, the Ramayana would
be a rich source of military wisdom and political
insight for a military general or strategist of even
the modern times.

** The "yuddha-kAnda" of Valmiki's Ramayana carries a
simple but invaluable lesson for military victors: 
"Once the battle has been won, do not delay, on any
account, your withdrawal from the field." 

No sooner had the battle of Lanka ended than Rama
de-mobilized his forces and pulled out completely from
the scene. He did not lose a single moment. If Rama
had wanted otherwise, he could indeed easily have
annexed Lanka to the IkshvAku kingdom. Ayodhya's
hegemony could easily have been extended to Lanka if
only Rama had chosen to appoint Vibheeshana as mere
Regent rather than anoint him as  Emperor of Lanka.
"Ram-rAjya" -- or 'Pax Ramana', we might say -- could
then have been extended across virtually the whole of
India, from Kosala to Lanka.

** Rama's mission in Lanka never expressly strayed
beyond the one and sole principal one: To rescue Sita.
Other goals such as (i) the "disarmament of the evil
regime" of Ravana or (ii) "effecting a regime-change"
by replacing Ravana with Vibheeshana or (iii)
"delivering the people of Lanka from the clutches of
evil and into an era of peace and prosperity" etc.
etc. were all incidental to him and never part of
Rama's main agenda. 

Rama thus showed us how military means can secure only
military ends, and never political goals. A confusion
of one with the other always ends in disaster (such as
the one we see today in Iraq).

** We see Rama truly excelling as a military general
in the diligent and uncompromising way he went about
gathering incontrovertible military intelligence
before waging actual war. He did not rush into
military offensive based on intelligence that probably
could be even least suspected of being poor,
inaccurate or less than 100% reliable. (Contrast this
with the quality of intelligence on Iraq and Saddam
Hussain that we now learn the CIA had been feeding to
the President of the USA just prior to the war). 

The first report (FIR- first intelligence report) Rama
got about the abduction of Sita by Ravana was from the
dying-statement of the old bird, Jatayu. The statement
made by a dying person is considered to be absolute
truth even in a modern court of law. The identity of
Ravana as the guilty villain was thus proved beyond a
shadow of doubt or question on the strength of
Jatayu's statement alone. No one would have faulted
Rama if he had immediately decided, then and there, to
march upon Lanka and launch a pre-emptive strike
against Ravana -- say, a "brahma-astra" strike that
might have quickly "decapitated" Lanka and also have
had the desired effect of "shock and awe" upon the
whole watching world. No one could have blamed Rama
for an unwarranted and excessively aggressive attack.
(The poet Valmiki might perhaps have even penned a few
more excellent stanzas in the Ramayana hailing Rama's
valour -- his "parAkramam" or "raNa-veeratvam" -- in
unleashing such a blazing blitzkrieg! We might add
here also that, purely in terms of moral
outrageousness, the abduction of Sita and the 9/11
incident of New York 2001 are close equivalents and
hence, under proper circumstances, would certainly
both deserve a smashing blow). And such an attack
would not have been impossible to accomplish too for
the Ayodhya Brothers since they'd pulled off a similar
feat (in the "arAnya-kAnda") against Khara, the
rakshasa-chieftain of DandakAranya, and 14000 of his
combatants!

Tempting as we imagine it might have been thus for
Rama to attack Ravana immediately, we see how
self-restrained and careful he was in military
calculations. The process by which (in the
"kishkida-kAnda"), Rama was able to build a "coalition
of the willing" against Ravana, was infuriatingly slow
and often frustratingly painstaking. The alliance with
Sugriva, so crucial for military success, was not
fashioned in a day; it took its own grindingly sweet
time to form but then Rama was never impatient. In the
meanwhile, we see how Rama gathered more and more
valuable intelligence required for the quick and clean
military success that was to follow. Much information
about Ravana and Lanka was gathered from all possible
intelligence sources -- from the bears and monkeys of
Kishkinda, from rivers and streams like the Godavari,
from Vali, from Sugriva, from other agents like Angada
and Jambavan --- Rama spared no effort in obtaining
even the minutest details about the land and landscape
of Lanka. 

Even after gathering so much intelligence, we see that
the top-notch military general in Rama remained
dissatisfied. The information Sugriva and others had
furnished him was no doubt invaluable but it was still
less than 100% confirmation. Rama hesitated to attack.
It was only after Hanuman had been dispatched to Lanka
on a secret reconnaissance mission and had returned
with 100% confirmation that Sita was alive and also
that ground-realities inside Lanka were ripe for
attack, that Rama finally made up his mind about the
timing of declaring war. 

All this shows what a careful and calculating military
strategist Rama was --- he was loath to be rushing and
blundering into a massive military engagement without
having first examined every little detail of every
possible aspect of it... and being fully satisfied
about it all. 

(If President Bush had been a student of the Ramayana,
he might have profited greatly from studying the
character of its hero! And if he had also learnt any
lessons from the effort, who knows, he might even have
spotted the poor quality of intelligence his National
Security and other advisers on Iraq were feeding him!)

** After the War had been won, Rama was wise enough to
leave Lanka to the 'rAkshAsa-s'. In the name of some
grand, highfalutin purpose -- such as
"nation-building" or "bringing freedom and
civilization to a nation that had been terrorized by a
tyrant" such as Ravana, for example -- Rama did not
try and seek to impose benevolent "rAm-rAjya" on the
native subjects of a 'rAkshasa' kingdom. Each to his
own ways and destiny, was Rama's principle in the
politics of nationhood. There was great wisdom in what
Rama did for he showed us clearly that while military
generals can make war they can never make nations. 

** Rama's foresight and grasp of politics also were
astute. Knowing fully well that the political
repercussions of military invasion are usually very
messy, he astutely chose to settle questions of
statecraft first before embarking upon military
campaign. (Not the other way around as we see is
happening now in Iraq). Rama made sure to first
install Vibheeshana as the successor to Ravana even
before the latter was actually ousted out of power and
even long before the single shot was fired in the
decisive battle for Lanka. 

By symbolically crowning Vibheeshana then as
Emperor-in-waiting of Lanka, Rama took the politically
sagacious and brilliantly conceived step of
pre-empting any vacuum or struggle developing in the
power-corridors of Lanka in the wake of Ravana's
elimination. All of Lanka knew exactly who would be
taking over the reins of power once their present
ruler was gone. It became settled fact and people
accepted it as 'fait accompli'. We must not forget
here that neighbouring states such as those belonging
to Sugriva and others too might have secretly eyed
Lankan territory, if they had wanted to, as easy
picking in the spoils of War. They would have seen it
as rightful recompense due to them for all the trouble
they went to for the sake of Rama in the War. But
Rama's action in putting Vibheeshana firmly in the
saddle of power, even before the war-bugles began to
blow shows, nipped all such possible manipulations and
calculations in the bud. What a master indeed Rama was
in the delicate art of political and 'regime-change'
management!

** All in all, we can say that the Ramayana and the
story of Rama is a valuable document of military
history too, besides being a work of scripture and
religious philosophy. It is a wonderful treatise on
martial theory, on the conduct of military campaigns,
the strategy of military engagements, on how to plan
and how to execute an invasion, and finally, on how to
create the right political circumstances that lead to
and may follow a major war of invasion.  

                 ***********

Who amongst us can dare say that our ancient
scriptures like the "itihAsA-s" or "purANa-s" are
irrelevant for our present times?

Happy Ramadan, Happy Ramayana reading!

Thanks and regards,

dAsan,
Sudarshan

________________________________________________________________________
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