JIHAD BEFORE KAL YUG!

The statement may seem quite controversial. If in wonders, suppose the great warrior Arjun of Mahabharata walks out and is asked about the above statement, he would definitely deny on that. But one should know that it’s useless to look over a term if its definition is being followed.

Jihad is the effort to for an individual to purify himself from inside. It is to obtain self perfection for an individual which can be only attained if that individual always stands on right track, no matter how strong situations comes in his way. To sum them up, it simply means to protect ‘Dharma’ from ‘Adharma’. And to deal with it, it talks of every possible move, from a bit of peace to the storm of war against evils. But it never conveys anything about aggression over innocents. Not only this, it never directs Islam followers to engage war over evils as a first step. War has been preferred only as a response to the war over the suppressors of the truth or Islam’s beliefs. Thus, ‘Dharma’ has to be protected from ‘Adharma’ by any mean and at any cost.

Now if we revert back to our great epic ‘Mahabharata’, the same definition can be visualized. It’s no use to explain the fact that while Pandavas were on the truth side, injustice and cruel measures were supported by ‘Kauravas’. But even when there were clouds of war between them, it was Lord Krishna who promoted the idea of ignoring war as much as possible if the truth could withstand in terms of peace between them. And so he asked for five villages only from Kauravas.

But when the same Kauravas left no other way for Pandavas to protect truth and opened war against them, the same Lord Krishna provoked Arjun to stand up against the enemy and fight for the truth. He made him to realize his duty to fight for justice and to even go against his beloved ones. Thus, to be on truth and obtain self perfection, he had to break down emotional wall within his heart.

Even in Ramayana, in order to give justice to Sugreeve and to protect him from the cruel behavior of his brother Bali towards him, Lord Ram punished Bali by killing him in wrong manner. He had no problem of being identified as coward at that time just to support justice and obtain self purity.

Not only this, when Ravan who was suppose to be an idol of all evils at that time, kidnapped Seeta, even then the Lord Ram was ready to forgive Ravan till the last moment of war if he returns his wife back to him. So, like Lord Krishna, Lord Ram also tried to ignore war up to his best level but when he realized that the truth cannot be protected without engaging war over Ravan, he did that. Thus, through Mahabharata, Lord Krishna has taught us to stand up for justice and truth by any means and if necessary, there is no flaw for adopting war against evils hindering the truth and win it by hook or by crook.

Jihad is the same concept. In other words, it is just a term given to what all had been done by Pandavas or Lord Rama for the protection of the truth. I never say that Jihad has been followed in Hinduism nor I want to blame any Muslim for using it in wrong terms. I just want to clear out the real meaning of Jihad using Mahabharata and Ramayana example. It is to stand for the truth and also not to oppose evils, but the oppression made by those evils. War should only be treated as a response to the aggression made by those evils and should be driven when there is no other way left out. They should realize that whosoever is spreading terror at the cost of Jihad is actually fulfilling his own personal intentions and those who kill innocents under their commands are real evils of Jihad just like those in Ramayana and Mahabharata.