This world has witnessed many wars right from the days of the Ramayana and Mahabharata. The Ramayana was a story of victory over the evil elements in society. Though the story was on a war over the abductions of a pretty woman, Sita, who was considered divine, because of her extraordinary, noble virtues like patience, love, faithfulness to her husband and loving care for her relatives, the Ramayana is full of morals that are eternally valid. Lakshmana’s devotion to his brother Rama and Bharatha’s devotion to his brother, Dasaratha’s rule over his kingdom strictly following highly scared ethical rules, his loving care for his subjects explain how a human being should live according to the age-old norms of morality, how a kingdom should be ruled. The story of the Mahabharata war was fought between the Pandavas and the Kauravas over a dispute arising about the possession of kingdom.
Enmity, hate, anger have been the cause of many, many wars. King Ashoka turned a peace-lover after seeing the large-scale destruction caused by Kalinga war. He embraced Buddhism, the religion of non violence and began a life of service to society.
Many, many wars have been fought between Chola king and Pandya king, between a Pandya king and a Chera king and the woeful, large scale destruction of properties and people cannot be adequately described in words.
These wars took place long, long ago and we know of these wars only from the pages of history, from inscriptions.
These wars took place long, long ago and we know of these wars only from the pages of history, from inscriptions. There were wars fought with arrows, the soldiers riding on elephants, camels and horses. It has been poetically described in our epics how an arrow spewing out fire would be met with arrow pouring water. The magic of certain powerful incantations had a role in the Indian war of yesteryear.
The world has been the scene of devastating wars of colossal carriage resulting out of the most destructive battles between one nation and another just because a powerful nation unable to brook a small nations intransigence to its dictates wants a wreck vengeance on the weak, small nation. Enmity, anger and hate between two nations victimize innocent, poor, famished people who are utterly shocked suddenly by the unexpected destruction of their small property and the death of their close, beloved relatives who may be breadwinners. What wastage of crores of rupees or millions of dollars or millions of pounds! What a horrifying number of deaths unheard of in history! Calamities like floods, earthquakes of vast magnitude, like the one which caused unimaginable devastation in Gujrat, like tsunami which caused massively high waves in the ocean which with a deadly vengeance inundated the shore and washed off innocent people walking on the beach or just watching the beautiful, blue sea and wars, long drawn wars caused untold damage to humanity. In a natural calamity in the twinkle of an eye there is destruction, heavier and heavier destruction. The estimates increase and increase the death toll and in a war the destruction of properties and human lives following a natural calamity. Wars and natural calamities are the causes of destruction of vast properties and people.
The U.S.- Vietnam war, the Indo-China war, the Kargil war of recent memory, the two World Wars and so on point out the fact that war is always fought either for land and natural resources or for the sake of asserting the supremacy of a nation. In peace nations grow and prosper and in times of war nations perish. The powerful nations should resolve their disputes through peaceful negotiations and not through wars. The confrontations between India and Pakistan over many years are the cause of permanent tension on the borders of both countries and the sudden escalation of tension and outbreak of a war claim thousands of lives. The insurgent enter on the Indo-Pakistan border area and shoot many indiscriminately. These barbaric incidents of shootings should end soon.
The world has been a hotbed of wars. Soon, very soon, let us hope that the world will become a paradise of peace.
