Boundless Agony

By: M. R. Lalu
Addressing a joint session of the US Congress via a video link, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy requested the lawmakers to help his country fight the Russian aggression. Asking for an enforcement of a no-fly zone and supplies of weapons, he probably made the world know about the last attempt of retaliation his country was planning to make. Surrounded by the Russian force, Ukraine’s capital Kyiv at any time from now would come to its knees. This war has almost crushed the tiny nation with no scope of return in its recent future. What can a war be defined as? Maybe there are many definitions that we can quote from. But no definition is genuinely capable to justify the destruction and calamity a war can inflict. War, in many ways, is an attempt to draw justice lines between the winner and the loser. World history without the history of wars does not make it complete and realistic. As Putin’s Russia pounced on Ukraine spitting fire from the skies, a toothless Biden looked on with the magic wand of sanctions in his hands and the rest of the world reacted with little cough and sneeze and some countries like India chose to take a diplomatic nap. This is the present situation.
Whatever, wars hold the potentiality to not only bring catastrophe in the blink of an eye, but their shackling effects remain for long. In the case of Russia and Ukraine, both will be susceptible to the effect of a ‘shake after the fall’ and the subsequent horror of silence. What next? Is it the end of human history? Probably not. Every war is capable of bringing a halt to human progress but definitely it takes a new turn, a new beginning. Just before the invasion began did the world take a sigh of relief from the deadly pandemic. People across the globe witnessed massive shortages of resources, disruptions and price inflation pushing millions to die an unholy death without being able to receive even the last rites as per their religious norms. Countless unidentified dead bodies thrown into pits with an unceremonious burial being awarded to them, with no remorse of any kind, except one thing which was universal and common for everyone and that was death. Without being discriminative on the rich and the poor, it gained an acceptance of identity realizing that it was the only phenomenon that everybody was equally eligible to come across.
Now the world is once again paying for the ruthlessness that it is drowned in, with the essence of humanity probably shrinking to the level of an outmoded perception. With the war barely showing any sign to settle, energy prices are sure to skyrocket. Common man around the world is once again deemed to pay a heavy price for his innocence and the unpardonable silence on the wrath that the war is all about. The most disruptive question is, between the pandemic and the war, which one is going to ruin the world substantially, though a large part of the world does not directly come under the fire of Putin’s missiles. Shelled, fired and destroyed to the last brick, the land of Ukraine will lie screaming and yelling at the world with an excruciating shudder, raising the most significant question ever, as why the powerful international conglomerations to protect human rights and ensure safety, failed to gain peace for it. The Russian troops are targeting its hospitals, schools, and residential areas with millions of innocent Ukrainians crying for international aid and a safe evacuation. More alarming is the requirement of food and medicine and other essential commodities without which human life is at a standstill.
Zelenskyy’s symbolic repudiation has accelerated the damage that his country is suffering.  A puppet government is what the Russian invasion’s immediate achievement is predicted as going to be. For the rebuilding of Ukraine and its massive infrastructure requirement, the invader would also have to find more resources than what he may actually have in his country’s exchequer. This is going to cause severe economic imbalance in Russia too. Every war with its catastrophic destruction would make the world take charge of the massive exodus that it triggers. Unfortunately, the mental agony of the families that got separated and whose dreams terribly squeezed under the wreckage would go for years. And to the soldiers, who took part in the war and managed to pull through, would undergo huge mental and physical health issues disrupting the congeniality of their families. It is not only the direct victim who suffers the negatives of the war, but the one who pugnaciously invaded also would undergo the same situation. To put words into perspective, for Putin, his blitzkrieg is a corrective step that he is taking on an unruly brother who seemed to have had a provocative derailment. And the war is an action in the direction of the liberation of a tiny nation from its Eurocentric impulsion.  One thing is sure, Ukraine is at the brink of an egregious collapse. It seems to have been overenthusiastic to grab an access to NATO for which it is paying a heavy price shedding blood and tears. Though the Ukrainian president, an antithesis to Putin, promised to withdraw his country’s plan, Russia is committed to continue its authoritarian hostility.    Failing to stretch an open and adequate defense aid to Ukraine, the west and the western press has chiseled a hero out of Zelenskyy, who dared to stand face to face against the Russian tyranny. Ukraine’s dilemma is, it is deeply geographically befuddled between its gigantic neighbor and the European conglomeration.
With my intense pursuit of the latest development on war, what literally surprised me was a Ukrainian soldierwith weapons in his hands, was reciting a verse from the Bhagavad Gita to a media person from India. The verse was Lord Krishna’s words to a rattled Arjuna at the warfront of Kurukshetra trying to raise him from the mental decline that he had fallen into. Krishna said “O Son of Kunti, either you will be killed on the battlefield and attain the heavenly planets, or you will conquer and enjoy the earthly kingdom. Therefore, get up and fight with determination.”  The soldier found this verse the best and accurate for him to rely on, as he stands up against the acrimony of the invader with a readiness to embrace death or win a war for his country. The spirit to kill and die fighting the “peacekeeping duties” of Mr. Putin, is the highest mission that the Ukrainians are involved in. The world is still clueless on the turn that the war is potential to take and probably unprepared to face its nasty effects beyond borders. Every war is a reminder to the people, a lesson, that the dream for a new paradise never comes from turning their living space a hell. Now let us eagerly wait for what our gigantic neighbor, the dragon, has in its mind. Is Taiwan an easy catch for the dragon or is it India it can easily meddle with? 
(The writer is a Freelance Journalist/Social Worker)