Dharmayudh

I had come across this post a few days ago and this attracted my attention once more when someone sent it again to me yesterday. It reads:

It beautifully captures the essence of the impact of modern technology on our lives. The post assumed an added significance for me as I added the following line to it:

When cancer was just a sun sign and not a life threatening ailment. This immediately touched the chords of the heart of my family that’s undergoing trauma as my brother-in-law is currently undergoing treatment for metastatic lymphoma.

However, the post is not being written to share personal agony with the readers but to highlight how the technology is converting real tigers into paper tigers or more appropriately “Twitter tigers”. While India and Pakistan are currently undergoing a renewed round of animosity following the abrogation of Articles 370 and 35(a) by India and the borders are very tense with the two forces regularly exchanging fires and causing casualties on each other’s camps, on Twitter it’s a full fledged war! Doctored video posts, extremely vulgar language, discourtesy to each other’s heroes and icons – it’s all happening on Twitter. It seems that war is a game that children play and nuclear warfare should be used to obliterate the enemy. It was all along said that the war mongering between India and Pakistan was more of a political matter and that the citizenry of the two countries had much of the love for each other- including each other’s arts and artists! But whosoever said that technology has brought the mankind closer couldn’t have been more wrong if the current mood on the Twitter is an indication! It’s causing an unbridgeable chasm between the people of two neighbours. Whether political debates on tv news channels or conversations on social media, especially Twitter, it seems the days of constructive, reasoned, logical and intelligent interactions are permanently over and while armies may not fight today or tomorrow, war on tv and Twitter is already a full fledged battle!

India, being a super power and believer in the philosophy of Dharmayudh, fighting only the war based on principles, need not take cognisance of this frustration filled reaction of a few rabid fanatics. Let us continue to spread the message of peace and love that comes so naturally to us being the land of Rama, Krishna, Mahavir, Buddha, Sufi saints and Mother Teresa. If war is imposed on us, we have enough might to win any Dharmayudh.