Kuwait Diary 25th March'03: War and the 'itihAsa'

[Guest guest]

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.

 

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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.

 

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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.

 

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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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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