Most of us remember the Netflix series The Crown for some spicy segment(s) about Nehru. But, something else stood out for me. In one of the episodes, Winston Churchill says (paraphrasing) that to fight Hitler, he himself had to be a monster. Essentially, he implied that to fight a monster, you have to be one. Firstly, it’s historically incorrect. It was Stalin (another monster) who defeated Hitler.
Nonetheless, Churchill did turn into one. Don’t believe me? Ask the victims of an engineered famine in Bengal, India. Roughly 8 million were starved to death, so that british soldiers could have their food. Everyone shudders at Hitler’s horrendous holocaust(rightly so). But very less has been written about this genocide of Churchill.
So, is it true that to fight a monster, you need to be one? Let’s go through our own history.
Did Lord Rama turn into a monster, in order to defeat Raavana?
Did Lord Krishna ever turn into a demon to defeat the ones he did?
Chanakya did not turn into a demon to destroy Dhanananda?
Maharana Pratap did not turn into a demon to defeat Akbar’s armies. In fact, when presented with an opportunity to defeat Man Singh stealthily, he refused. Read a story about the same.
Did Chhatrapati Shivaji ever turn into a monster to defeat enemies like Afzal Khan and Aurangzeb? His conduct towards foes was exemplary. Here is our tribute to him.
Mahatma Gandhi never turned into a monster while fighting the aforementioned, overhyped Churchill.
Rebutting the Monster
Why is this rebuttal important? Because, in India the youth is susceptible to everything that comes from west. Everything from the GMT is taken at a face value. Time and again, we have shown that being a monster is a choice. For ages, we have seen that people in similar situations make diametrically opposite choices. Some of them stoop down to be a monster, others become monks. The choice belongs to an individual. This contrast is highlighted even in bollywood movies; surprisingly.
We will leave you with our article on how two characters across two movies (Sarfarosh and Agneepath), made different choices under similar circumstances.
P.C. Wikipedia
