Can Kurukshetra’s wisdom be applied to resolve modern geopolitical conflicts?

Kurukshetra geopolitics conflict: Indian scholars pitch Mahabharata ethics to end Gaza and Ukraine wars

Muhammad Asghar | GlobalBeat

New Delhi professors told diplomats that battlefield dialogues from the 3,000-year-old Sanskrit epic offer realistic guardrails for 21st-century ceasefire talks.

The pitch came during a closed briefing at the Indian Council for Cultural Relations on Tuesday where academics argued Krishna’s advice to Arjuna on proportionate force maps directly onto modern rules of engagement.

India’s external affairs ministry has quietly circulated a 12-page paper quoting the text’s insistence on protecting non-combatants and banning chemical weapons to UN missions in Geneva and New York, officials confirmed.

“The Mahabharata states you cannot kill a fleeing soldier or destroy water sources,” briefing co-chair Swasti Rao said, citing chapter and verse to envoys from 15 countries. “Those verses pre-date the Geneva Conventions by two millennia.”

Rao, an associate professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, said the council will fund pilot workshops in Jordan and Kenya this summer where military officers and rebel commanders will role-play Kurukshetra negotiations. Funding totals $400,000 for the first year, according to budget documents seen by GlobalBeat.

Diplomats emerged sceptical but curious. “We already have international law,” one European envoy told reporters on condition of anonymity. “Yet the carnage continues, so we listen.”

Background

The Mahabharata narrates an 18-day war between cousin dynasties on the Kurukshetra plain, north of modern Delhi. Before battle, the divine charioteer Krishna lectures warrior-prince Arjuna on dharma, a concept blending duty, morality, and cosmic order. The section, known as the Bhagavad Gita, is canon in Hindu households but rarely cited inside South Block policy circles.

India has historically cited non-alignment and Panchsheel peace principles, not religious texts, when mediating abroad. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is rebranding cultural diplomacy to offset perceptions of drift on Ukraine and Gaza, analysts said.

What’s Next

The council must secure foreign-ministry clearance by 30 June to dispatch scholars to Amman. If Jordanian generals sign on, India will seek UN Department of Peace Operations endorsement for curriculum trials with peacekeeping battalions before the General Assembly debate on protection of civilians in September.

Whether Sanskrit verses can temper drone strikes remains doubtful. Still, as Rao left the chamber she clutched a note from a Ukrainian diplomat requesting an English translation within the week. “Texts travel,” she said. “Wars move faster.”