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Perspective
The Twine of
Conciliation and Confrontation
by
Pramod Khilery
 Oxford English dictionary
defines confrontation as a hostile or argumentative situation between
opposing parties while conciliation is to stop being angry and
discontented and start gaining esteem or goodwill. Ethically, the trait
of confrontation had always been at the receiving end of the accepted
wisdom. People possessing the overt confrontational disposition however
much qualified to the positions of influence were always dismissed as
non deserving. Of rulers, to be called great they had to assuage the
degree of confrontation and if possible make themselves a great combo of
conciliation and confrontation. The sages and seers deemed confrontation
as nothing short of a vice to be avoided as much as possible. The
strictures allow confrontation only as an aberration in case the cause
happens to be greater than means and when every effort at conciliation
had failed.
The wholly outlook that any
form of confrontation does manifest doesn�t wear the immaculate white
clothes radiating the tranquility and equanimity, two traits that form
the bedrock for a formidable personality of a human being irrespective
of the level of the society he happens to be working at. Confrontation
comes with the price of being stained with the colors capable of
absolving them of their effect on the eyes but absolutely effete in the
face of its trunk spasmodically visiting remains of its lost limbs and
heads. Such is the infamy of this trait that we often forget to separate
the chaff of anguish, outrage and even as positive a trait as
determination from the kneaded dough of confrontation. While puckering
of brows is the superfluous expression of a frustration, provocation or
hurt what goes on inside the head to deal with the adversity may have
the chances of being plausible if core of thought is positive even if
prima facie carapace appears to be ugly. This is not to discount the
beauty of conciliation but to say that confrontation, no matter whether
lurked behind the manly macho-ness of valor, remains a cadaverous trait
if not looked at from the pious eyes of conciliation.
The arrays of conflicts either in the form of burning quandaries or
coercion stemmed from the empiricism of the world that our mind has to
confront has the potential to distort our compos mentis. In these
situations it is not the plain degree of confrontation with which we
face the circumstances but the satining conciliatory fabric in which the
core of the spirit of confrontation has been placed. It is only when
confrontation alone sashays about, naked, malodorous and looking ugly
that ambiance runs the risk of not only loosing its salubriousness but
also catching diseases. In a sense conciliation is all about solving the
conflict in best possible way while confrontation seeks to remove the
conflict itself. It may sound a little ambiguous but there lies a great
difference between solution and removal. While solution tries to set
things in an order on the soil of conflict to make it look beautiful and
become fertile removal removes the entire land and leaves behind a void.
Empirical senses state that not everything can be nipped from the bud
and in these cases it is the spirit of conciliation that comes handy.
There have been innumerable instances when it was confrontation more
than conciliation that presided over the zeitgeist and decided the next
stopover for the wayfarer of the history. These were the times when
conciliation was just not the option or was passed over owing either to
the limited wisdom of those who helmed or ethical, moral, economical or
military disparity amongst sundry kingdoms. This twine of confrontation
and conciliation has since time immemorial always sided with strong and
weak respectively rather than right and wrong with few exceptions. What
does this allude to? The wind of confrontation and conciliation had
always been acquiescent to the flow of the times of history. While at
outside the nature of confrontation does appear to be truculent and
challenge imposing it is the intoxication of power running through a
weak mind that endows confrontation with the dreaded ways and regretful
results. This aspect of the confrontation takes on a more dangerous
meaning when confrontation becomes a battleground for displaying
disgusting valor and even martyrdom or in other words when swank
demeanor eclipses the swanny side. In Central Asia the four legendary
figures of great conquerors Sikander (Alexander), Sultan Mehmud, Chengiz
Khan and Timur were more driven by their desire to prove their mettle of
being the greatest of all in their respective times more or less by
exhibiting their military might than a rather weak willed wish just to
be accepted amongst all. It was the confrontation that they first turned
to and then a faint conciliation bathed in the color of confrontation.
About AC 1000 Mehmud Ghazni, a Turk and a Central Asian warrior, began
his raids into India. Bloody and ruthless as they were, on every
occasion he took back a vast quantity of treasure. Such was the blind
dominance of the confrontation over conciliation that contemporary
scholar Alberuni wrote, �the Hindus became like the atoms of the dust
scattered in all directions and like a tale of old in the mouths of
people. Their scattered remains cherish of course the most inveterate
aversion towards all Muslims� and yet his confrontational disposition
did not win him a large swathe of India. Punjab and Sindh were the only
provinces he could annex. He could achieve only that much what
confrontation could have helped him achieve. His raids couldn�t perturb
the essence of India. Though in his last years he did try conciliatory
methods to win over people it did not leave any impact behind. What
confrontation did not achieve for Mehmud Ghazni, conciliation though
cloaked in sporadic and shrewd confrontation did for Alauddin Khilji who
himself married a Hindu lady and so did his son and this new found
tactic of conciliation constricted in the reach and degree streamed
through most of the rulers since till Aurangzeb for whom bigotry-spawned
confrontation was the only Dharma. In one way he could easily be called
a Taliban in Mughal garb. Nadir Shah, for the cruelty he displayed in
massacring Indians could be the next.
The art of sly and Machiavellian conciliation and blunt confrontation
was taken to new heights by British. Till now it was confrontation that
had given way to conciliation to further the political ambitions of
invaders. British turned it upside down and set their first foot on
Indian soil in the garb of diplomacy. It seemed nothing but an innocent
proposal when Sir Thomas, an ambassador of James 1 of England, presented
himself at Jehangir�s court in 1615 and sought permission to set up
factories in Surat. Despite Noorjehan being a little fishy about the
proposal Sir Thomas went home having accomplished the job. That was the
beginning in so cordial a manner of a relationship what was to become
some 150 years after, the only reason that would begin the process of
dethroning Jehangir�s descendents, first virtually later literally. This
cycle of conciliation and confrontation got repeated again when circa
1780 through 1830 there was a short wave of intermingling and
interracial marriages with even some British officers taking to Mughal
way of living and proselytizing. This partly conciliatory phase had
begun to decline by 1830 but it was mutiny that not only did put an end
to this but also send British to a brutal confrontational path that
resulted in genocide, hangings, executions and wiping away of entire top
rank of Mughal elite. This was to start a confrontation that culminated
in the biggest ever exodus, stained with the blood of the macabre
confrontation, recorded history has ever seen.
The illusion that had Hitler in its tight grip about Germans being the
superior Aryan race amongst all and Jews being the cause of every evil
had the ills of pure confrontation say the avarice of absolute power as
its seed that blossomed into a fruit the sourness of which led to the
alkalinity of the whole world. It was a blatant and naked desire to
bring the world under the umbrella of Germany of course through
confrontation that left Berlin in medieval state and the whole world in
a military strife. If Hitler had won the Second World War the
confrontational fangs would have dined on the spirit of conciliation for
a considerable amount of time if not for even a century.
Can Gandhi�s non cooperation movement against British rule in India be
called a movement swaddled with confrontation? Of course it was the
confrontation that formed the crux of the movement. But it was a
confrontation of brainstormed adamancy and obduracy refusing to accept
what was unjust not seeking to inflict wounds on the body of unjust.
This is where revolutionaries and pacifists came to drift apart. One
believed in the use of force i.e. direct confrontation to scar or end
their way into the unjust foreign rule while another wanted unjust
foreign rule to identify and recognize the ultimate truth and kowtow
before it. So does that make us say that revolutionaries were utterly
wrong in shedding blood, others and their own?
No, not every confrontation smacks of only the visible belligerence that
emanates out of it. There is no dearth of instances in the history and
mythology when confrontation had been met with countervailing
confrontation with mixed results.
Both sacred epics Ramayana and Mahabharata are replete of incidents when
it was violence not just parleys that decided the stand offs and further
course of the situation. Whereas Lord Rama himself led an army of pious
simians to inflict a defeat on erudite but on the wrong side of the
divide Ravana it was Lord Krishna who gave the sermon that formulated
the sacred Bhagwad-Gita to Arjuna to blow the cobwebs reigning Arjuna�s
mind and soul away at seeing his own kinsmen before him in the battle
ground. Both cases use the path of physical confrontation to serve
sacred purposes though only after having made sure that all paths of
conciliation were closed water tight. This boils us down to bitter but
verily fact that confrontation had never been wholly ominous and utterly
bad choice to opt for if the factor of confrontation when pitted against
the guilt factor of a normal human being capable of having substantial
control over his senses capitulates.
As things stand today, the terror organizations are mushrooming across
the world though predominantly in south west Asia. In the wake of this
fact, the question of confrontation and conciliation has once again
swiveled its neck and demands a debate if not absolute answer. The world
can�t afford to get inured to the dead bodies and scattered limbs and
will have to take the terror head on. But how: militarily,
diplomatically or using both? When America had had to swallow this
bitter pill for the first time on September 11, 2001, rattled, it
decided to look at the world from a Manichean point of view. The id�e
fixe that governed the response of the then President George W. Bush
sought to divide the world in to two, with US and against US. Bush
returned vehement confrontation in return for rancorous confrontation.
Soon Taliban was driven out of Kabul and US backed Hamid Karzai led
democratic government took over. No matter what we say of Bush�s
policies it must be credited to his pugilist disposition that not even a
single American did lose his life to the menace of foreign terrorism on
its soil since 2001. Having said that the sight of a martinettish
America carving a bellicose image for itself also raises many hackles.
What could have been the battle against terrorists turned into battle
between Islam and Christianity. Given the dismal literacy rates and
poverty figures in most Muslim nations, terrorists did not let any
opportunity to exploit America�s dictums to their advantages slip by
their fingers. America, the beacon of hope for the generations in
developing countries became a gooseberry in the eyes of not only human
right activists but even common people, more specifically in Muslim
countries. Still worse was yet to come.
In 2003 Bush took a decision that was to become his Achilles� heel. It
was the invasion of Iraq on the flimsy pretext of finding weapons of
mass destruction which were never to be found. The then US secretary of
state Colin Powell went public announcing his embarrassment over the
controversial decision. Not only did situation in Iraq get worsen it
also made Bush hugely unpopular in his own country. And it won�t be an
exaggeration if I say that current president Barack Obama, of many waves
blowing in his favor rode this anti Iraq invasion wave with �lan.
Economic meltdown towards the end of Bush�s presidency proved only to be
the coup de grace. George Bush went into the annals of American history
with lowest popularity ratings and a signature sheet marked with a
foreign pair of shoes. But this too slant and acerbic farewell though
not wholly unjustified had a tinge of miscalculation given the fact no
President at least in the recent history had had to confront such
acicular dilemmas.
Today India stands as the only the second country after Iraq to have
lost maximum number of its citizens to terror related incidents.
Likewise Indian response too vacillates between being confrontational
and conciliatory. The 26/11 attacks in Mumbai only upped the ante and
send India to an almost confrontational mode which later settled down in
the mould of passive confrontation that it still wears. We can take
respite in the fact that this confrontation did not snowball into a war
but it was only because of restrain that India gave account of. But how
far this display of restrain will help India in deterring further such
attacks on its soil by foreign terrorists remains to be seen. Though the
process to bring perpetrators of Mumbai carnage is still on only time
will tell what kind of denouement will this process see. The bolshie
attitude of Pakistan in admitting truth only shadows the possibilities
of letting conciliation have its chance. Seeing that Pakistan is now
walking into the folds of Taliban and its President Asif Ali Zardari
fears that Pakistan might be taken over by Taliban it becomes incumbent
upon the world powers to stop looking at the menace of terrorism from a
single narrow point of view. We can only hope for Mr. Zardari to go
wrong.
Now there is another angle to the concept of conciliation which Pakistan
showed to the world in sewing a peace deal between Tehrik Nifaz
Shariat-e-Mohammedi (TNSM), an organization fighting to introduce the
Islamic system of justice and NWFP government in the Swat valley in the
name of buying peace. Most liberals believe that this deal threatens to
buttress the menace of terrorism than other way round. Here we have
either cowardice or complicity or total capitulation fenced behind the
measure to bring peace. Associating such a deal to the spirit of
conciliation will be an insult to the wisdom of greater way of achieving
ends. Once 40th President of United States of America Ronald Reagan has
said, � We cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the
bomb by committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion human
beings now in slavery behind the Iron Curtain, Give up your dreams of
freedom because to save our own skin, we are willing to make a deal with
your slave-masters.�
Very recently President Obama, in a conversation with New York Times
aboard the presidential aircraft Air Force One has given hint for US to
be in a conciliatory mode wiz a wiz the war on terror. I suspect that
former President Bill Clinton�s apprehensions about Afghanistan having
the potential to become a new Vietnam must have weighed heavily on
Obama�s mind. According to Obama US is going nowhere in Afghanistan and
the strategy needs an overhauling. One aspect of this overhauling
revolves around cleaving Taliban into two i.e. separating the outliers
or those with a nationalistic cause at heart from those whose vision
doesn�t extend beyond religion and dogmas. Then it is not the only
absolute use of military power but a combination of military to ramp up
later and diplomatic tactics to bring the former to table that will pave
the way for a successful culmination. Obama�s new strategy to deal with
Afghanistan has not sprouted out of any frustration or an urge to chart
out a different path from that of his predecessor�s. This strategy with
bouts of conciliation saw some success in Iraq under the able leadership
of the best man Obama has. General Petraeus too is of the view that
killing one�s way out of insurgency is almost impossible. So now, is the
conciliation only the best way forward?
If we take into account what drives the Taliban terrorists in
Afghanistan to insanities, we face a black wall of utter passivism
leaving not much bailiwick for the possibility of any hole. The piffle
drives like shutting down girl�s schools, lashing or even killing people
in full view of public for outlandish reasons, blowing up of Sufi
shrines, banning music, espousing absurd practices in the name of
religion like making sporting beard for men mandatory have often enjoyed
support of every single group that forms Taliban. So how Obama and his
General will distinguish hardcore extremists from moderate or even semi
moderate extremists is something that remains a conundrum. Willy-nilly
even some groups come to negotiation table for how long would that work
deeming Taliban is bound neither by treaties nor by ethics is again a
difficult question to answer. No doubt President Obama has his heart and
mouth in their places but whether his conciliatory visage in the face of
a grave civil problem would embolden the Taliban or pay dividends is
something lurked in the womb of the future. But the magic of
conciliation is too sacred and powerful to leave us without hopes.
World has a long history of sending the virtues of conciliation into the
kraal of confrontation often towards the end of the possible solution of
a conflict and other way round. Shimla agreement in 1971 between India
and Pakistan was an official conciliatory ending to a confrontational
beginning though Pakistan had to part ways with its eastern part. But it
did not let the spirit of conciliation blossom. Conversely the
conciliation colors of Lahore agreement in 1999 between these very two
nations led to confrontational denouement in the form of Kargil war.
The spirit of true conciliation has often been trampled by the selfish
and narrow provincial human beings over the course of the history.
Confrontation may be a necessity at times but it is the conciliation
that remains a prudent and moral choice since time immemorial. Gandhi ji,
the grandest embodiment of determination did see the virtues of
conciliation as a way to further sharpen and bolster his great
determination of which the desire to see his country free was only one
constituent. He died to the bullets of confrontation but it is the
conciliation propounded by him that shepherds the course of our nation.
Confrontation alone is not only insane but also helpless and weak. It is
the conciliation which is powerful enough to have the positive spirit of
confrontation, taking the things head on and a pious equanimity as the
kernel to its kernel as well as shell.
March 15, 2009
Image under license with Gettyimages.com
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