L
ike many other Indians, I turn to the ancient epics totry and understand a difficult situation. Faced with civil war inside thecountry -- and after the scale of the Nayagarh incident and the government'sresponse, we can only call it that, rather than a mere 'law and order problem'-- what better place to turn to than the debates around that immortal war, theMahabharata?. A war fought not just within a kingdom, but between members of thesame family. How fortunate or perhaps unfortunate we are, in Irawati Karve'swords, that we can "read today a story called Jaya, which was sung threethousand years ago and discover (our)selves in it."The Gita is sometimes understood as an exegesis for a just war, but as a numberof scholars and interpreters have argued, if there is anything the Mahabharatateaches us, it is the futility of war. The Pandavas attained a kingdom that hadbeen totally devastated. As the philosopher Bimal Matilal pointed out in his Epicsand Ethics, Krishna's advice to Arjuna in the Gita is not to be taken as ajustification for war, but an ad hoc resolution of a moral dilemma. Once Arjunahad gone this far, it would have been pointless for him to turn back. In otherwords, it is not in the moment of the encounter that the soldier or insurgentcan afford to develop moral qualms about fighting. The time for thinking comeslater -- as in the regret that has driven some Naga reservists to suicide fortheir role in the savagery of Salwa Judum -- or much before, when actions arebeing planned.
And it is the very existence of a moral dilemma -- or rather several of them --that elevates the Mahabharata to the status it has. It promises no salvation,showing sternly and uncompromisingly that each person is responsible for makingtheir own decisions, and bearing the tragic consequences that follow. In Indiatoday, the Maoists' decision to take to arms cannot be abstractly blamed on'structural violence', nor, on the other hand, can the government escape itsresponsibility for killing its own citizens through some vague notion of thehigher interest of the state. Every citizen killed -- whether a policeman blownup in a landmine or a civilian killed by the police in the midst of a combingoperation -- must be accounted for. Every death is mourned by someone, whetherguerrilla or soldier or village woman.
Yet, in calling for peace and the possibility of a negotiated settlement betweenthe Maoists and the government, the motive is not simply pacificism. Instead, asMatilal argues, "it is a proposal to talk about politics rather thanethics, about principles of prudence rather than principles of morals",about alternatives, rather than inevitability. Both the Maoists and thegovernment have other alternatives, and the fact that they chose not to exercisethem must be seen for the flawed choices that they are.
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he Maoists claim, in their response to an open letter bythe Independent Citizens Initiative (EPW, January 6 2007) that they were drivento fight since there is not a single instance where the rights of the adivasiswere ensured through non-violent and open means. This is a misreading ofhistory. The great adivasi rebellions of the past were open, if not non-violent,and involved the mass of people acting in their villages, upon their ownunderstanding, and not a vanguardist party.