The Defeated Hero
We
lose — and we grow angry. We win — and we rejoice, breaking into laughter.
Whether in war, in sport, or in love, no one ever wishes to embrace defeat. To
win — by any means, at any cost — that alone seems to be salvation. Is there
not a saying, There is nothing unfair in war and love? The greater part
of humanity across the globe has accepted that competition is the highest form
of democracy. Whatever be the culture of the world, whatever be its history, it
is ultimately Western man’s cult of hero-worship that reigns supreme. We, the
darker and dusky people of the East, have humbly inherited their philosophy. Veni,
vidi, vici — come, see, conquer. We have adorned our honeycombs for the
victor to plunder. Survival of the fittest. In society, the defeated has no
worth. Only the worthy competitor deserves the license to live. Thankfully! For
had Alexander, Tamerlane, or Hitler not fallen at last, this world would have
been a nightmare unfit to imagine. The conqueror has glory. The vanquished has
none. This is one of the unwritten laws of the universe.
If we sift through the heritage and philosophy of India, however, another truth will emerge. Our culture, unlike the West, often honors the defeated more than the victorious. Gautama Buddha, Vivekananda, Gandhi — these men refused to grant exalted praise to the triumphant. Where Western philosophy is built upon optimism and joy, Indian thought is steeped in pessimism and the cult of sorrow. Look at the difference in the very mode of journeying. In Western countries, passengers in a car sit facing the direction of movement. But in our land, in the old bullock-cart or the humble tonga, travelers sit facing the opposite direction of travel. Does this not mean that, true to Indian philosophy, we are historically turned away from the future, clinging instead to the past? Are we by nature reluctant to embrace what is to come?
Buddha too, with the majestic calm of a prophet, proclaimed the gospel of despair. He declared that human life is nothing but suffering. Salvation lies only in deliverance from this chain — and such deliverance, such moksha, can be attained only by renouncing the world, by stepping away from every form of contest. Mahavira went even further. Not only man, but not even the smallest of creatures should be hurt, even by accident. And Gandhi, perceiving this eternal truth, proclaimed: I will invite you to strike, and I will endure your blow lying down. Defeat me, he said. For in our tradition, to be defeated is our cherished desire.
And yet, why is it that as the children of this land of prophets, we today desire only victory? Have we forgotten our own philosophy? Or were these immortal teachers mere peddlers of falsehood? Our glory, surely, is in defeat. We were vanquished by Alexander, crushed by the Huns and Scythians, beaten by Tamerlane, humbled by Mahmud, subdued by Babur, enslaved by the British. History after history, page after page — only defeat. And yet, curiously, there is no abiding bitterness in us. We have accepted every defeat with effortless grace. Then why is it, when a beloved betrays, we throw acid in her face in vengeance? Why do we disgrace our neighbors at the slightest opportunity? Why do we drag one another down like crabs in a basket, disqualifying the worthy with trickery, determined to win at any cost?
Gandhi once said — not competition, but cooperation is the way. No matter how much flesh dangles before me, I remain a vegetarian. The hunger to be victor is but the endless crank of a creaking wheel — as Sukumar Ray so playfully showed us. Yet that hunger seeps into us daily, through the channels, right into our bedrooms. Could it be the British left us this disease — this fever of consumerism? Vivekananda strove to reform Hindu society, and failed. Maulana Azad tried with all his might to spread modern education among Muslims, and failed. Siraj-ud-Daulah fell in war, Netaji Subhas too. And Gandhi himself was defeated by religion — by the Khilafat movement. It was he who sowed the seeds of religious division. No wonder he lacked the strength to prevent the partition of the land. We did not produce a Bismarck, a Garibaldi, or a Lincoln. Defeat is written like graffiti on the walls of Indian history. Nearly all our national heroes are vanquished ones. Maratha Shivaji fell before the Mughals. Puru, Prithviraj Chauhan, all defeated. Emperor Ashoka renounced the thirst for conquest altogether. Chalukya Pulakeshin — defeated. The Rani of Jhansi, Laxmibai — defeated. Nana Saheb, Titu Mir — defeated. The Azad Hind Fauj — defeated, beneath the might of the British Empire. Even our Gandhiji — he too presided over a colossal defeat. The vast Indian army he sent to fight for the British in World War II was hurled into the front lines by Churchill, and Indians perished like grain in the storm. Even in victory — there was only India’s defeat. Imagine! We laid down our lives for a tyrant’s empire, fighting both for the Allies and for the Axis. Is there in the whole history of mankind a more grotesque spectacle?
India’s independence too was not snatched by the might of arms. We did not wrest it in battle. Rather, it was negotiated across round tables. Independence was a promissory note, paid by Churchill in exchange for Indian blood spilt on foreign battlefields. And that freedom came only with the great wound of partition. Not by victory did India win her freedom, but by sacrifice, by mutilation. The land torn into three. One part plunged into religious inhumanity, another into ceaseless strife, and our great share — into political and social hypocrisy. Small wonder that people cried out, Yeh azadi jhooti hai! — even fifty years after Independence.
In Indian philosophy, human life is made minuscule before the presence of God. Personal gain is nothing — truth alone is the supreme aim of life. This is the lesson we receive in our scriptures. Yet it is precisely this truthfulness we have lost, and India today is riddled with corruption. A bizarre khichdi of Western consumerism and Eastern mysticism has become our inheritance. Not by weapons or commerce, but by a war of ideas and of culture have we been conquered — and modern India is proof of that. Even our national attire we have forgotten.
He who loses — still has the chance to win tomorrow. But he who has won — finds no victory left to seek. To understand the agony of India, one must learn through defeat, again and again. One must bow down, again and again. This is the law. A hundred thousand apply for jobs, ten will succeed. Through the fair sieve of competition, ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety are branded defeated. Are not the defeated, then, the true majority? Is not the identity of India itself shaped by defeat? The slap falls on one cheek — and we offer the other. The Naxalites once arose to defy this law, but they achieved little, save for the untimely deaths of a few educated youths. For to break this law would be to taint our sacred tradition! Despair, sorrow, suffering — these are our eternal inheritance. Anger, hatred, shame — they are of no use. These, we are told, are our cultural emblems. The gaunt ascetic, clad in only a loincloth, leaning on a frail staff — is this not the perfect symbol of Indian philosophy?
Rabindranath himself wrote of Gandhi:
"He walked from village to village, land to land. Upon his body only the meager cloth that suffices to preserve the poor Indian’s modesty. Do not forget — his attire was supremely apt, supremely native, supremely symbolic. In his hand, the long and slender staff, and that staff too bore a resemblance to him. Just as the staff, parched of sap, had become rigid and austere, so had he, by renouncing all pleasures, joys, and indulgences, become rigid and austere. That austerity harmed none, yet endured every harm unflinchingly.”
Two giants of the twentieth century — Gandhi and Tagore. Though India is filled with suffering, she has never been barren of great souls. Even amidst the daily humiliations, the beatings, the defeats, we sing of them with pride, in our impoverished lives.
And so what, in the end, is the truth? We do not truly destroy anyone, but neither do we truly enthrone anyone as victorious. What magnanimity in the Indian spirit! We understand the pain of the defeated. But does the victor ever feel the sting of the vanquished? We have never asked.
And now, behold twenty-first century India — the India of the Mumbai blasts, of minority appeasement, of Bollywood dreams, of cricket mania, of the Kargil war, of social injustices, of corruption and scandals, of political violence, of rotting politicians, of dynastic politics, of acid-flung love, of cable television, of personality cults. Has this India swerved from her own dharma? She stands helpless.
Defeat. Is it only defeat that can teach us? That can make us great? India, again and again, must pass the test of life by failing it. Birth to marriage to death — the cycle unbroken. Is life’s sole longing here but moksha? Not to live with head held high, to eat well, to rest in peace, to live as the joyful victor — no. Here, the defeated are the heroes. The soul? The conqueror has no honor here. And those prophets of defeat — they are our pride.
Thus, two paths lie open before us. Either we continue to embrace this obscene heritage of defeat, worshipping great men and their mutual back-patting. Or we cast these prophets of surrender into the dustbin of history, drown this shame of defeat, drown this cult of non-violence, and build a new India — an India where the common man, not only the great men, receives reverence. An India where the burden of philosophy no longer crushes the hapless masses. India waits for that dawn.
If we sift through the heritage and philosophy of India, however, another truth will emerge. Our culture, unlike the West, often honors the defeated more than the victorious. Gautama Buddha, Vivekananda, Gandhi — these men refused to grant exalted praise to the triumphant. Where Western philosophy is built upon optimism and joy, Indian thought is steeped in pessimism and the cult of sorrow. Look at the difference in the very mode of journeying. In Western countries, passengers in a car sit facing the direction of movement. But in our land, in the old bullock-cart or the humble tonga, travelers sit facing the opposite direction of travel. Does this not mean that, true to Indian philosophy, we are historically turned away from the future, clinging instead to the past? Are we by nature reluctant to embrace what is to come?
Buddha too, with the majestic calm of a prophet, proclaimed the gospel of despair. He declared that human life is nothing but suffering. Salvation lies only in deliverance from this chain — and such deliverance, such moksha, can be attained only by renouncing the world, by stepping away from every form of contest. Mahavira went even further. Not only man, but not even the smallest of creatures should be hurt, even by accident. And Gandhi, perceiving this eternal truth, proclaimed: I will invite you to strike, and I will endure your blow lying down. Defeat me, he said. For in our tradition, to be defeated is our cherished desire.
And yet, why is it that as the children of this land of prophets, we today desire only victory? Have we forgotten our own philosophy? Or were these immortal teachers mere peddlers of falsehood? Our glory, surely, is in defeat. We were vanquished by Alexander, crushed by the Huns and Scythians, beaten by Tamerlane, humbled by Mahmud, subdued by Babur, enslaved by the British. History after history, page after page — only defeat. And yet, curiously, there is no abiding bitterness in us. We have accepted every defeat with effortless grace. Then why is it, when a beloved betrays, we throw acid in her face in vengeance? Why do we disgrace our neighbors at the slightest opportunity? Why do we drag one another down like crabs in a basket, disqualifying the worthy with trickery, determined to win at any cost?
Gandhi once said — not competition, but cooperation is the way. No matter how much flesh dangles before me, I remain a vegetarian. The hunger to be victor is but the endless crank of a creaking wheel — as Sukumar Ray so playfully showed us. Yet that hunger seeps into us daily, through the channels, right into our bedrooms. Could it be the British left us this disease — this fever of consumerism? Vivekananda strove to reform Hindu society, and failed. Maulana Azad tried with all his might to spread modern education among Muslims, and failed. Siraj-ud-Daulah fell in war, Netaji Subhas too. And Gandhi himself was defeated by religion — by the Khilafat movement. It was he who sowed the seeds of religious division. No wonder he lacked the strength to prevent the partition of the land. We did not produce a Bismarck, a Garibaldi, or a Lincoln. Defeat is written like graffiti on the walls of Indian history. Nearly all our national heroes are vanquished ones. Maratha Shivaji fell before the Mughals. Puru, Prithviraj Chauhan, all defeated. Emperor Ashoka renounced the thirst for conquest altogether. Chalukya Pulakeshin — defeated. The Rani of Jhansi, Laxmibai — defeated. Nana Saheb, Titu Mir — defeated. The Azad Hind Fauj — defeated, beneath the might of the British Empire. Even our Gandhiji — he too presided over a colossal defeat. The vast Indian army he sent to fight for the British in World War II was hurled into the front lines by Churchill, and Indians perished like grain in the storm. Even in victory — there was only India’s defeat. Imagine! We laid down our lives for a tyrant’s empire, fighting both for the Allies and for the Axis. Is there in the whole history of mankind a more grotesque spectacle?
India’s independence too was not snatched by the might of arms. We did not wrest it in battle. Rather, it was negotiated across round tables. Independence was a promissory note, paid by Churchill in exchange for Indian blood spilt on foreign battlefields. And that freedom came only with the great wound of partition. Not by victory did India win her freedom, but by sacrifice, by mutilation. The land torn into three. One part plunged into religious inhumanity, another into ceaseless strife, and our great share — into political and social hypocrisy. Small wonder that people cried out, Yeh azadi jhooti hai! — even fifty years after Independence.
In Indian philosophy, human life is made minuscule before the presence of God. Personal gain is nothing — truth alone is the supreme aim of life. This is the lesson we receive in our scriptures. Yet it is precisely this truthfulness we have lost, and India today is riddled with corruption. A bizarre khichdi of Western consumerism and Eastern mysticism has become our inheritance. Not by weapons or commerce, but by a war of ideas and of culture have we been conquered — and modern India is proof of that. Even our national attire we have forgotten.
He who loses — still has the chance to win tomorrow. But he who has won — finds no victory left to seek. To understand the agony of India, one must learn through defeat, again and again. One must bow down, again and again. This is the law. A hundred thousand apply for jobs, ten will succeed. Through the fair sieve of competition, ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety are branded defeated. Are not the defeated, then, the true majority? Is not the identity of India itself shaped by defeat? The slap falls on one cheek — and we offer the other. The Naxalites once arose to defy this law, but they achieved little, save for the untimely deaths of a few educated youths. For to break this law would be to taint our sacred tradition! Despair, sorrow, suffering — these are our eternal inheritance. Anger, hatred, shame — they are of no use. These, we are told, are our cultural emblems. The gaunt ascetic, clad in only a loincloth, leaning on a frail staff — is this not the perfect symbol of Indian philosophy?
Rabindranath himself wrote of Gandhi:
"He walked from village to village, land to land. Upon his body only the meager cloth that suffices to preserve the poor Indian’s modesty. Do not forget — his attire was supremely apt, supremely native, supremely symbolic. In his hand, the long and slender staff, and that staff too bore a resemblance to him. Just as the staff, parched of sap, had become rigid and austere, so had he, by renouncing all pleasures, joys, and indulgences, become rigid and austere. That austerity harmed none, yet endured every harm unflinchingly.”
Two giants of the twentieth century — Gandhi and Tagore. Though India is filled with suffering, she has never been barren of great souls. Even amidst the daily humiliations, the beatings, the defeats, we sing of them with pride, in our impoverished lives.
And so what, in the end, is the truth? We do not truly destroy anyone, but neither do we truly enthrone anyone as victorious. What magnanimity in the Indian spirit! We understand the pain of the defeated. But does the victor ever feel the sting of the vanquished? We have never asked.
And now, behold twenty-first century India — the India of the Mumbai blasts, of minority appeasement, of Bollywood dreams, of cricket mania, of the Kargil war, of social injustices, of corruption and scandals, of political violence, of rotting politicians, of dynastic politics, of acid-flung love, of cable television, of personality cults. Has this India swerved from her own dharma? She stands helpless.
Defeat. Is it only defeat that can teach us? That can make us great? India, again and again, must pass the test of life by failing it. Birth to marriage to death — the cycle unbroken. Is life’s sole longing here but moksha? Not to live with head held high, to eat well, to rest in peace, to live as the joyful victor — no. Here, the defeated are the heroes. The soul? The conqueror has no honor here. And those prophets of defeat — they are our pride.
Thus, two paths lie open before us. Either we continue to embrace this obscene heritage of defeat, worshipping great men and their mutual back-patting. Or we cast these prophets of surrender into the dustbin of history, drown this shame of defeat, drown this cult of non-violence, and build a new India — an India where the common man, not only the great men, receives reverence. An India where the burden of philosophy no longer crushes the hapless masses. India waits for that dawn.
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