There is an incident from childhood that is still fresh in my mind. I must have been around five years old. A Sardar boy from the neighbourhood hit me and I went home crying. Since it was an oft-repeated incident, my father took me over to their house and reported the matter to the boy’s father. The elder Sardar’s reaction still brings on a smile. He called his son over and asked me in a very affectionate way if he was the boy that hit me. I nodded in the affirmative. ‘‘Beta,’’ he said without as much as raising his voice,‘‘you give him two thappads now’’. My father was flabbergasted by this Solomonic judgment! He tried explaining most uncomfortably I bet!, to the gentleman that he did not want his daughter to beat up the boy. But the uncle ignored my father and told me in all seriousness, ‘‘Beta, remember, don’t let anyone get away with a wrongdoing. Give it back twice as hard and they’ll leave you in peace for ever.’’

The words have come back to me many times in my adult life. Especially when I have had my young children come home crying from play. Or when the class bully trips up a child and the matter gets reported to me as a teacher. But I have never had the conviction of the Sardar to advocate the policy of hitting back. I have invariably said the ‘right’ things like how, in passing over the revenge, one becomes superior to the enemy. And that vengeance is the poor delight of little minds and it is always wise to have nothing to do with bad elements. I have just stopped short of advising the show of the other cheek to the offender! I have found this belief tallies with that of all ‘civilised’ and ‘confrontation-abhorring’ people. We all practice the same plan of in-action!

But evil of colossal proportions makes one look at the concept of revenge from a totally different platform. After September 11, I recalled the words of the wise Sardar. I began to see that he did make a very valid point. It occurred to me also that the ratification of the response could be found in the Gita. Wherein, the Lord says ‘‘Fortunate are the Kshatriyas, who are called upon to fight in a battle that comes unsought’’. He goes on to warn that ‘‘He that refuses to engage in a righteous warfare shall incur sin’’. I had no hesitation in casting my vote for the war in Afghanistan. Time tones down all reactions. Six months later, I am not so sure of the ‘‘fitting’’ response. All the more now, when the ‘teach-them-a-lesson-they-won’t-forget’ brand of violence is gaining support, both within and outside our borders. Deep down I feel fear. History is replete with examples of the punished waiting for their chance to retaliate. And the cycle could begin all over with this ‘cause’ always being cited as the reason for settling scores. Can such a war once commenced, ever end?

But if it were so, would the Lord himself have backed one side against the other at Kurukshetra?

I returned to the treatise to study and clear my doubt. And I realise that He does not back an all-out offensive, without putting in the checks and balances. In a war backed by God, the ‘good’ side has only the limited right to action in the destruction of the evil. It has no right to reap the benefits from such an action. Further on, the Lord elaborates on the basic human quality that He expects in the person, who stakes the claim as the eliminator of evil. ‘‘He who judges of pleasure or pain everywhere, by the same standard as he applies to himself, that yogi, O Arjuna, is regarded as the highest and that person is dear to me’’.

God bless! But who?