Lord Krishna holds a soothing flute in one hand and the sharp Sudarshan Chakra in the other.
That contrast is worth pausing and pondering over.
After the brutal Battle of Kalinga, Ashoka won a title but not the experience of triumph. His victory was absolute, the enemy was crushed, but the cost was devastating.
Looking at the ruins and piled corpses, he cried out in grief, “If this is victory, what is defeat?”
In that instant, he thought understood the full cycle of life.
His life traced a dramatic arc: from the least-favoured son, dismissed as an unlikely heir, to ruler of a vast empire bearing the title of Samrat. Yet the aftermath of Kalinga left him repulsed by the very power he had wielded. Overwhelmed, he began to give it away. In shedding arms and ambition, the Kshatriya in him betrayed his other duty - to protect his people.
He must have missed the Lord's message to Arjuna.
In elevating conscience while lowering vigilance, he abdicated the principled responsibility of a Kshatriya: defence.
Consequences for that action were inevitable - that was the karmic law!
His armies followed his lead, and the shrinking of his realm became a reality. Over time, Akhand Bharat was truncated to what we have today - just Bharat.
The echoes of that decline still surface today in territorial disputes.
That is why our men in uniform stand vigilant along one of the longest hostile border in the world facing Pakistan, China, and Bangladesh.
Utopian fantasies that assume “if you don’t attack anyone, no one will attack you” are naive.
You may be a vegetarian, but the jungle is not.
Great epics may be dismissed by sceptics as myth, but they contain practical lessons.
Rama bore no personal hatred for Ravana; the Pandavas did not desire the ruin of the Kauravas. In both cases, the other side did not reciprocate that restraint.
Likewise, the Jains who shun even a potato peeler in devotion to ahimsa, yet revere defenders like Ghantakarna Mahavir who took up arms to protect the innocent - because nonviolence itself must be defended.
Which is why a pious Sikh carries a visible kirpan as a symbol of protective strength.
The Cold War stayed cold largely because mutual nuclear deterrence created a protective barrier.
Strength respects strength.
India’s civilization is among the oldest. Through the ages, people of this land have rarely initiated religiously motivated invasions, yet they have faced repeated malevolent proselytization and even been attacked by religious zealots.
Spread love. But there is wisdom in respecting the soldiers who protect you at the borders and the those organizations who protect you on the streets.
Hindutva has been distorted in public debate. At its core, it is not an ideology of exclusion but a sociocultural and political protective moat against tangible invasion.
There is also a civilizational truth many Indians share: regardless of personal faith, we belong to the subcontinent’s civilizational fabric. Stay alert, stay committed to protecting what matters.
Mature reasoning accepts that peace is often maintained at the edge of a sword.
Bolo: Main Bhi Chowkidar! 🇮🇳
