Kaushik Roy - Hinduism and the Ethics of Warfare in South Asia : From Antiquity to the Present

Kaushik Roy

Jadavpur University, KolkataPeace Research Institute, Oslo

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

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Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107017368

On an extremely cold day with heavy snowfall in January 2006, as I was wandering through the bunker-like labyrinths of the Peace Research Institute in Oslo and searching for the smoking room, I accidentally met Professor Gregory Reichberg. While chatting, he told me that he was interested in the interconnections between religious ethics and the conduct of warfare. Then he asked me if I had ever thought of the interconnections between one of the worlds oldest religions (Hinduism) and the conduct of war. I showed my interest and said that I was willing to research it. And then Reichberg said, well then, you are in the project. I am extremely grateful to him not only for introducing the idea of the interrelationship between religion and warfare but also for sustaining me financially and morally for about five years while I was engaged in writing this monograph. While I was writing the monograph, my friend and mentor at PRIO, Professor Scott Gates, always made me conscious of what Hinduism has to say about unconventional (intra-state) warfare. This volume builds upon the two essays I published in the Journal of Military Ethics (2007) and in a volume published by the United Nations Press (2009), and also on the 30,000-word piece on Hinduism and warfare I wrote for an anthology as part of Reichbergs project. I am also fortunate to have met Dr. Beatrice Rehl in Cyprus and then in Oslo; she kindly agreed to consider the volume for publication by Cambridge University Press. Thanks to the two unknown referees and my friend Torkel Brekke for their criticism and input. My special thanks to my wife, Suhrita, who accepted my continuous mindless chattering about the acharyas views on yuddha and vigraha during the last five years. As a final take, if this volume satisfies none of its readers but provokes them to think about the complex interstices between Hinduism and warfare, my work is done.

2012,

Kolkata

Bharatiya Janata Party, i.e., the right-wing Hindu party of independent India

Counter-insurgency

Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty

East India Company

The Essential Writings of Jawaharlal Nehru , ed. by S. Gopal and Uma Iyengar, 2 vols. (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003)

The Essential Writings of Mahatma Gandhi , ed. by Raghavan Iyer (1993; reprint, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2007)

Human intelligence, e.g., spies, undercover agents

Indian Economic and Social History Review

Indian National Army or the Azad Hind Fauj

Indian National Congress

India Office Records, British Library, London

Indian Peace Keeping Force deployed in Sri Lanka in the 1980s

Journal of Military Ethics

Journal of Military History

Journal of Strategic Studies

Line of Control, i.e., the boundary between India and Pakistan, especially in the disputed region of Kashmir

Liberation Tigers of Tami Ealam (homeland)

Modern Asian Studies

Manava Dharmasastra

Microfilm Collection

Ministry of Defence Government of India Annual Report

National Archives of India, New Delhi

Non-Proliferation Treaty

Prisoner of war

Signal Intelligence, e.g., the use of satellites

Brahmin advisor, teacher

Doctrine of non-violence, the opposite of himsa

Centres in the countryside where Hindu military recruits were trained in various physical exercises, especially in wrestling

Civil bureaucrat

Deserters from the enemys army; at times also a state in the mandala that harbours enmity towards the vijigishu

Uncertain, full of chance probability; result dependent on a random roll of dice

An iron rod with a curved point at the top; it was used by the mahout to pierce the brain of an elephant when the latter became uncontrollable due to injuries sustained on the battlefield

Literal meaning: wealth; broadly, the term refers to anything connected to the material well-being of the people