Time for a Reset?

For centuries and millennia, Indians have reveled in the thought that they are pacifists. So much so, that Hindus are today apologetic. We find it difficult to openly say that we are Hindus or staunch ones at that. We find it difficult to say that we are the only religion in the world that is truly secular and pluralist. If we were not staunch, we would not have endured the onslaught for centuries. So, why have we become such pacifists and apologetic?

Historians decided to show Emperor Ashoka as a pacifist. Latest interpretations of the edicts clearly show that Ashoka was a Buddhist years before the Kalinga War. So, he was not a pacifist and conversion to Buddhism didn’t do any such thing in him. However, he was shown as a pacifist and that seems to have caught on. And we have seen how Prithviraj Chauhan spared Mohammad Ghori who came back to defeat and blind him. We then have the much touted non-violent movement that got us Independence. Many know, but will not accept, the fact that Independence came because the British realized that they could not plunder anything more from India. Further, there was an increasing feeling in the Indian army that they will not attack their own people and also the pressure mounted on the British by Bose and his Indian National Army. We continued to be pacifist.

Then, we had the fantastic examples of the Nehru Government ceding land to China and calling it land where even a blade of grass will not grow, the Indira Gandhi Government walking in to Pakistan (East and West) and then giving it all back, the Vajpayee Government thrashing Pakistan at Kargil but not going further. We had kept quiet after the Parliament attack, the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai and the countless attacks in Jammu and Kashmir. We somehow started reveling in this doctrine of not retaliating even though we were wronged. We refused to push for our rights.

When Modi came, he went in to the Pakistan territory and walloped them in their homes. The hammering that Pakistan got after Uri will never be forgotten by them. The abrogation of Article 370. The assertion of Hindu Principles. All these are completely in conflict with what we have been since Ashoka. And Ashoka ruled India between 268 BCE and 232 BCE. So, we have had this attitude since 2000+ years. This is the reason why many Indians are struggling to come to terms with asserting their rights. Assertion of their rights is dubbed as being arrogant. This is the reason why Israel is taking a beating in the media and, closer home, all those dubbed as Nationalists. But, everyone ends up voting quietly for the BJP despite not coming out and speaking about it openly in the media.

It is time to get out of being pacifist and apologetic. It is time to come out of the closet. The building of the Ram Temple at Ayodhya is, in my opinion, the gathering of the momentum for a reset. It is only the beginning. There is a need for a complete reset.