I, Confucius, return to Earth on my birthday, September 29th. In my day, birthdays meant a scroll, a candle, maybe a polite bow. Now I am greeted by hashtags, breaking news tickers, and anchors shouting louder than street hawkers with megaphones glued to their throats. The nation, I learn, is celebrating the anniversary of something called a surgical strike. Apparently, it is peace delivered across the border with the aid of explosives. A birthday present wrapped in camouflage.
But I remember this land. On this very date in 1924, I watched a man in round spectacles launch a very different product. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi stood before the world and introduced Satyagraha. The world, with its love for euphemisms, called it “passive resistance.” A dignified name for what was really the most glorious campaign of passive-aggressive behavior ever staged. Imagine defeating an empire by refusing dinner. Imagine making generals sweat with silence. Gandhi perfected the art of saying, “I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed,” on a civilizational scale.
And it worked. His army was barefoot, his uniform was homespun, his arsenal was embarrassment. One man with goat’s milk and a spinning wheel unsettled a global empire armed with cannons. Red-coated officers woke up every morning to discover their empire shrinking, not from gunfire but from awkwardness.
Fast forward to 2016. The same land applauds not silence but noise, not patience but precision strikes. Uri Surgical Strike™ is rolled out like a blockbuster movie. Special effects include explosions. The tagline might as well be, “Why wait for peace when you can bomb for it?” The audience claps, the anchors scream, the politicians puff up like overfed pigeons. I squint and wonder: so this, too, is peace? Only with better pyrotechnics?
The irony amuses me. In 1924, war without weapons was genius. In 2016, peace with weapons is genius. Genius, it seems, is elastic. It stretches to cover whatever you want to justify, provided you have a flag big enough to drape it in.
If Gandhi had a branding manager, the press release would have read: “We proudly unveil Satyagraha, the war that fights without fighting. Features include hunger strikes, boycotts, and salt marches. Warning: may cause severe embarrassment to empires and mild confusion to future historians.” If today’s leaders had a branding manager, theirs might say: “Introducing Surgical Strike, peace delivered at supersonic speed. Benefits include instant applause, trending hashtags, and footage with patriotic background music. Warning: side effects may include international statements and angry neighbors.”
And here I am, Confucius, philosopher turned jester, watching two completely contradictory products launched on the same date, both advertised as patriotism. Gandhi slow-cooked his struggle like porridge simmering on the hearth. The surgical strike is microwave-ready, piping hot in seconds. Both claim to feed the nation’s soul. Both, oddly, are adored.
The people, however, seem to have selective memory. They remember the bang of 2016, but forget the silence of 1924. They celebrate explosions, but ignore how awkward silence once unseated an empire. In my philosophy we spoke of yin and yang, harmony of opposites. Here I see opposites, yes, but harmony is missing. Fasting and bombing are both applauded, sometimes in the same speech, as if contradiction itself were a national virtue.
It is a peculiar logic: hit without hitting, and you are a saint. Hit with hitting, and you are a hero. Refuse to hit at all, and you are irrelevant.
So what does September 29th teach us? That history is not a book of wisdom but a catalogue of contradictions. A man once fought without weapons and was hailed as a prophet. A nation now fights with weapons and is hailed as a peacemaker. Both are celebrated, both are packaged as progress, and philosophy — my trade — is invited only to nod sagely afterward and sweep up the debris.
So I, Confucius, blow out my birthday candle and laugh. Humanity remains consistent in one thing: its talent for paradox. And so let me end with the only truth fit for this day:
Peace is a weapon. War is a message. Philosophy, as usual, just cleans up the mess.
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