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Universal soldiers



One of the most moving songs of Donovan Phillips Leitch is 'Universal Soldier' [link above]. Written in early 1960s, the song tries to tell us that we are all warmongers at heart, fighting for one ism or the other, one piece of land here or an antique god there, like the old feudal lords bossing over their vassals and peasants. 

He'a a Catholic, a Hindu, an Atheist, a Jain
A Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew
And he knows he shouldn't kill
And he knows he always will
Killing you for me my friend, and me for you

That's one of the stanzas. All of us have one cause or another to fight for irrespective of our religions or whatever holy phantoms. We in India today have been fighting for quite a while now for a god who was supposed to have lived in some prehistoric period. Now we have managed to retrieve his birthplace by usurping another god who had at some period in history turned a usurper himself. We're going to construct a glorious house for this particular god. Will our strife end with that? 

No, obviously. War is universal, eternal, inevitable. War is as absolute a human truth as love, gods, and lust. We can't live without it any more than we can without the air we breathe and the water we drink. 

The world is now fighting a war with a pandemic. That does not deter a country like China from behaving like the local pickpocket by stealing a few cents of land here and another few there. But China is not what it seems to be, we know. So we have got our Rafale fighter planes ready with the mantra of peace, Om, auspiciously smeared on them. 

Let us assume that one day we will bring the Chinese dragon to its ignominious doom especially since our leader is no less than an avatar of God Vishnu himself. Let us also assume that this "strong leader" will make our country one holy Ram Raj or something like that. Will we live happily ever after?

Who created the castes within the same religion just to elevate some people above the others? Who decided that the widows should burn alive on the funeral pyres of their husbands? Who decided that young girls should be dedicated to temples as Devadasis so that their sexual services will be made available free of charge to certain sections in the society? 

One can go on asking infinite questions of that sort. We don't need enemies from China and Pakistan to bring out the universal soldiers within ourselves. Even if a Real God comes and establishes a Divine Kingdom here, we will create our own isms [at least crony capitalism] to secure our own selfish interests. That's what universal soldierliness is about. 

As Donovan sings, the universal soldier - you and I - will decide who should live and who should die and for what cause, what god, what shit. 

It is better to become a universal writer like me, my friend. Fight with words and ideas. That does no harm. Except, maybe, raise a few silly hackles. But who knows, maybe in the long run, the universal writers can bring about a better world. Let's try. Come on, join me and start writing, start questioning the feudal lords and their isms. 

Comments

  1. Gita MadhuSeptember 11, 2020 at 1:51 PM

    Well said

    ReplyDelete
  2. GrasshopperliveinQldDecember 16, 2021 at 8:14 AM

    So true brother:) I found you by Googling - if BSM's song by Donavan was in Chinese anywhere [the lyrics]. Mebbe it's time to let women run a few countries & see if War is still top dog among the filthy-rich :(

    ReplyDelete

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