Chakravyuha (Moving spiral formation) carved on the Hoysaleshwara temple wall, Halebidu, Karnataka
Vyuha is generally identified as a formation for battle. This is something most of us learn from our reading of Amar Chitra Katha comics as kids. We all know that the Chakravyuha was deadly from the Kurukshetra war. We have also heard the names of several other vyuha from the same war, Vajra vyuha, Shakata vyuha, Makara vyuha, Krauncha vyuha, Suchi vyuha, Sarvatobhadra vyuha and many others. What we do not know is the specific advantages and disadvantages of each of these and when they are supposed to be used. Was it at the discretion of the senapati, or raja or were other criteria considered? Like geography, the weather, number and quality of troops and equipment at hand? We do not have, or at least I have not heard of any military manual describing these aspects.
What I find mind boggling is how were these vyuha or formations achieved? How much training of troops is needed to get them into that specific formation? How long does it take? What high levels of discipline is needed to hold these vyuha? And can all troops form all vyuha or was there any specialization? For example, the most popular Chakra vyuha was supposed to be a continuously moving spiral. How was the positioning of the troops decided? And who coordinated the movement? How was communication achieved if a vyuha was fraying at some point or if reinforcements were needed at some point in the vyuha? When was the decision made to abandon a given vyuha and how was that communicated? What were the criteria to decide if the vyuha was ready and if it was successful? Was there some analysis post the use of a vyuha to see if could be improved? There are no ready answers to any of these questions that I know of.
Ardha Chandra Vyuha (Half moon formation) on the left and Makara Vyuha (Crocodile formation) on the right
Now, there is this concept of Taijutsu that many Japanese Martial Arts use. The different art forms might use different terms for it, but the concept is the same. In modern day parlance, it is translated for simplicity as body movement or prosaically “art of the body”. Tai meaning body and Justsu meaning “Art of”. But I have been told by my teachers that originally Tai meant a unit of troops and all their equipment like armour, weapons, rations and also their horses or beasts of burden if they had any. So, Taijutsu was meant in the past to mean “Art of a Unit” where a unit is a body of troops. I have heard it said that a Tai was generally meant to be a squad of soldiers, a squad being a smaller unit than a platoon. So Taijutsu was all about working as a team with all that they had access to. One can assume that since there was a specific term for this, it was meant for teams to work together efficiently and effectively.
In the modern day when we train traditional martial arts, we do not really use those concepts for professional fighting, but for various other purposes ranging from entertainment to personal development and everything in-between. Hence, when Taijutsu is used in a modern day martial arts class (teaching Japanese martial arts), it means move your body as one (not a unit of troops moving as one, but your body as one). That means, your core moves and your limbs, neck and head move with it, there are no twists and limb movements that are unnecessary (or stand-alone). This is taught to help keep one’s balance, so as to be more effective in any movement that is carried out, be it with or without weapons (traditional weapons in the context of a class). An example of this would be a punch where only the hand moves and the hips are not lowered or the legs are not in the correct position. This punch would be far less effective compared to one executed with correct movement of the legs and hips which make the punch a lot more devastating.
We also know that there are several martial art forms around the world and they were all used effectively at a given time and place. The fact that they were effective generally means that the practitioners of the art form were trained it its use. This means having some form of Taijutsu, irrespective of the term used for the same. And each of these were designed to give the practitioners of the art form an advantage in the purpose for the use of the art (be it in a narrow palace corridor, in a wooded area, on a boat, as a bodyguard, with large field weapons etc).
With this introduction, we can finally move ahead with what I was thinking. 😊
Each school or art form or ryuha has specific tenets relating to Taijutsu. For example, the Takagi Yoshin Ryu, which we were training when these thoughts came to mind, has among its tenets, the following principles.
Stacking the opponent’s hips
Using leverage against the opponent’s joints
Moving in a direction perpendicular to the opponent’s direction
Moving forward and not backward while facing an opponent
Also, from what I have learnt, the Takagi Yoshin Ryu was developed as a school mainly used by bodyguard. Hence, they disarmed and immobilized opponents as against killing them. Perhaps this was to gather information later or to not spill blood in the presence of one’s lord or any other reason. To disarm and immobilize opponents, the tenets mentioned above were built into their Taijutsu.
From my experience with the training of Takagi Yoshin Ryu, it is designed to use the structure of uke’s body and hence a really skilled and experienced practitioner of this Ryu can fight an opponent without the active use of eyesight. This Ryu is a Jutaijutsu and hence fighting happens in close quarters and thus, one can feel the tensions and hence intentions of the uke and counter the same by reading the uke’s joints and body movement. The right distances to achieve a strike or lock are also determined by this feeling. So, over time, the feeling and flow of the Uke (opponent) becomes the driving force for a practitioner and not just the tenets. The tenets lead to the feeling and vice versa in a virtuous cycle. Now, let us expand the same concept to a Vyuha. Was an experienced Senapati (Commander-in-chief of the army) or Raja (King) able to read an enemy’s battle tactics and his own troops requirements the same way one is supposed to read an opponent in Takagi Yoshin Ryu? This is not easy and requires a lot of training time to express successfully in one-on-one combat. So, how much skill, ability, training and natural affinity for the feeling of a battle and battlefield should a practitioner of Taijutsu at the level of a large body of troops need?! This is a question and a matter of awe at the same time. What kind of training and experience would the development of such abilities involve? Where does one begin (as it clearly happened a lot in the past and still happens today)? How did the evolution of information gathering, and technology influence this practice and its evolution? These are questions I do not have answers to, just points to ponder about.
Padmavyuha (Lotus formation), Shakatavyuha (Cart formation) and Suchivyuha (Needle formation) – 3 merged into one, top image
Notes:
The above comic book images are from my personally owned books.
The images of the vyuha are representative only, they are not to be considered exact.
Remember that part of the Ramayana where Rama has to shoot Vali from hiding, while the latter duels Sugreeva? This sequence brings so many thoughts, what an incredible archer Rama should have been, to be able to shoot one of the duelists, while the duelists did not position themselves in any predictable manner! Or was Sugreeva moving in a specific manner in the duel so as to allow Rama a clear shot at Vali while ensuring he is out of the way of the arrow; how difficult must this have been, while fighting for one’s life and also knowing you could be shot by an arrow intended for your opponent.
A few months ago*, we were applying the feeling and concepts of the Takagi Yoshin Ryu with the Sanshin no Kata and Kunai Waza feeling. This was then added to the Japanese poem about a lack of dualities and how to keep the heart in the place of nothingness to start on the path to wisdom. This was the first time we had heard the poem in its entirety and that too in an artwork created by Nagato Sensei. We had until now only heard the first of the four lines of the poem, “Kyojaku jugo arubekarazu”.
During this training, I observed my teacher Shiva actively let go of all body tension and cause severe problems to the attacker (Uke). He was constantly dropping out of any uke nagashi or movement he made, and this caused serious impediments to the ability and will of the Uke to keep up the attack, and this was clearly visible in a Jutaijutsu like situation. This observation and learning are what prompted the train of thought I am expressing in this article.
So, back to the Ramayana. It is known (I mean from other stories in the Hindu scriptures) that Vali was a warrior of unparalleled strength and skill. He was invincible one on one, there is no doubt there at all. Vali defeated Ravana in single combat so effortlessly, it was not even a fight, just a humiliation for Ravana. And Ravana was as fearsome a warrior as one can imagine. Also, Vali had a boon which rendered his opponent at 50% of his or her fighting ability, and the remaining 50% got added to Vali’s own fighting ability. So, an opponent, the moment he or she chose to become Vali’s opponent was diminished while facing an opponent vastly superior to what one might have been prepared to face.
An aside here, a whole article can be considered to discuss how an opponent’s ability reduces by 50%, from a martial arts perspective, at least from a Bujinkan perspective as I see it.
It is also known that Sugreeva could not take on Vali in a war, where armies would be involved. Sugreeva was a fugitive in Vali’s kingdom and had a band of followers, not an army. Further, he would not have gone to war even if he could, for he did not want a civil war. He only wanted his wife back (held captive as a wife by Vali) and Vali eliminated for the person he had become post the Dundhubi episode. So, it was always going to be single combat between Sugreeva and Vali. Vali himself was never going to shrink away from a duel, such was his justified confidence in his own ability. So, he would not use his troops to cheat and eliminate or capture Sugreeva without defeating him in the duel.
Sugreeva also knew he could not defeat Vali in single combat (Dwand or Dwandwa yuddha). This situation set up the need to eliminate Vali by stealth. We also know that Rama was extraordinary as a warrior. And superlative as an archer. Of course, Vali was a fantastic archer as well, but the duel between him and Sugreeva did not involve bows and arrows. Also, Rama was also really strong, as seen from the ease with which he moved Dundhubi’s skeleton. His strength is also demonstrated when his one arrow felled seven coconut trees. His archery skill is also shown earlier in the Ramayana where he is the best at not only hitting the target but also with the speed of reloading, shooting and restringing his bow.
So, Rama is the perfect choice for taking the shot while the duel takes place. There is also an additional complexity in the situation. Vali and Sugreeva, being brothers, resemble each other very closely. In the first duel between Vali and Sugreeva, Rama cannot decide who to shoot due to this resemblance. Sugreeva has to flee for his life, abandoning the duel. Vali seems to have been satisfied with his victory and his brother’s humiliation and not expanded efforts to eliminate his brother and his band in a great way after this first duel.
With all this as background, let us look at the second duel. This time Sugreeva wore a garland to allow Rama to distinguish him from his brother. Also, I have not heard of, read of or seen any specify strategy planned ahead of the duel that would allow Rama to shoot Vali with minimal risk to Sugreeva. I also do not know if the duel was nudged by Sugreeva by his movements to maneuver Vali to a position where he would be a target while reducing risk to himself.
I also do not know what Vali’s state of mind was or his method of fighting in the second duel. With that said, imagine how incredible this shot that Rama took was. He had only one shot. Clearly the duel was far enough away that he could not distinguish Sugreeva without the garland. The shot had to ensure it hit its target in the midst of a dynamic duel. A fight between two accomplished warriors (Sugreeva was a great warrior, inferior only to Rama, Vali, Ravana and the other superlatives) sees the two always in motion. Neither stands still even if not in contact, to achieve an advantageous position or posture. In this dynamic situation, ensuring that an arrow hits its target before he moves while also being sure that that the arrow does not hit the other person, who might occupy the same position where the target was just a moment ago is scary to even think about!
If the duel was with spears or some other long weapon, the situation might have been easier for Rama because a pole weapon puts a lot of space between the duelists, more than sufficient for an archer as good as Rama. Bur from what I know, the duel was with either gadas (maces) or an unarmed fight (grappling and striking). The gada is not a long weapon and does not put the opponents at a distance that is safe for one from an archer, not to mention unarmed combat, which puts far smaller space between the two.
So, Rama had to not just take a shot, but understand Vali in this specific duel! How difficult is that! If Vali was being nonchalant and letting Sugreeva do the work and fall into strikes or locks, he would have to predict Vali’s nonchalance! If Vali was angry at a second duel in a short span of time and against an opponent who ran away the last time, would he be aggressive and go for the kill and thus ensure a short duel? If this was true, Rama had to be sure to predict Vali’s next attack to take the shot at the right time, considering any delay might spell doom for Sugreeva. And he had to do this with only one reference fight to go by! However much Rama had heard of Vali’s fighting, he had seen him fight only once! So, getting the right shot by going with the flow of a fight he was not involved in; can anyone imagine that! And in a life-or-death situation for his friend; Rama would be considered divine for this ability alone, let alone all his other qualities as a human being! Yes, I am aware of all the exclamation marks in this paragraph, this is how awesome the situation was.
Now let us look at this situation from Sugreeva’s perspective. We do not know if there was a plan beyond Rama killing Vali while he dueled Sugreeva. Sugreeva has received a hiding and barely got away with his life in the first duel. So, what levels of faith mush he have had in Rama to try the same thing again! Imagine this, he was wearing a garland to distinguish himself from Vali. But we do not know what the garland was made of. If it was any regular garland, how much effort would he have to expend to ensure it was not ripped off his neck? And worse still, the garland gave extra holding space for Vali, who was already the superior fighter. Would this be a fatal disadvantage?
Next, how did Sugreeva feel about Rama taking a shot at Vali? How nervous would even a great warrior feel knowing that the slightest error from Rama might end up killing him and not his opponent? Would this knowledge affect his fighting style? And would this change result in Vali realizing something was wrong? And if that had to be overcome, would any change he made to his fighting movement result in a fatal error? Again, this was the second time he was putting himself in harm’s way in a short span of time. If he had a plan and this was also known to Rama, would that even come to pass? What changes in Vali’s state of mind and fighting style would render their plan useless or would that be an advantage?
We can see a lot of questions come up in the mind of any martial artist as we see above. Given all this, both Sugreeva and Rama would have had to go with the flow of the duel and implicitly trust each other’s ability. “NO PRESSURE” in all caps does begin to express the extraordinary danger that Sugreeva was in and hence the expectation from Rama. Did Sugreeva have any sacrificial moves to render Vali open to Rama’s shot? We do not know. But we do know that the plan succeeded. Sugreeva survived, Rama’s shot was successful and fatal for Vali. This achievement in itself calls for reverence not just in Rama, but in Sugreeva’s judgement of people’s abilities and his own skill as a warrior (he had Hanuman in his band after all, that should have been a dead giveaway 😊). Also, as a martial artist, it kind of encompasses the meaning of the “Kyojaku jugo…” poem. Both Rama and Sugreeva had to let go of so many necessities for a PLAN to succeed and trust to just an objective (Vali’s death) and a path (there will be a duel and a shot in stealth at Vali). There could have been no option for any detailing, just a lot of faith in each other and the need to achieve the objective. How incredibly cool is that?
*This article was written back in the beginning of June 2022, before I had started a blog.
Shekhar Gupta (currently the Editor-in-Chief at “The Print”), a very experienced and eminent (according to most) journalist of India has a theory regarding the lifecycle of violence due to insurgencies. He calls it the “Bell Curve theory”. This theory of his is a part of the inspiration behind this article.
Of course, as the title suggests, this write-up is also inspired by the term “Saino Tamashii Utsuwa”. This was the “Theme of the year” in the Bujinkan system of martial arts, for the year 2009. Saino Tamashii Utsuwa translates as “Expand (or add on to – Tamashii) the vessel (Utsuwa – referring to the capacity of the vessel) of your abilities (Saino)”. In simpler terms it means expand your abilities or skill sets. Considering the Bujinkan is mainly a system of martial arts, this meant, improve your skills or fine-tune your skills, or increase your skill set. It also could mean improve your ability to withstand or endure anything (this could relate to the soul which might represent endurance, patience and other abilities that cannot be objectively measured, but subjectively assessed).
The “Bell curve” Mr.Gupta uses as part of his theory is the normal bell curve used in statistics. He observes, based on his several years of reporting on various insurgencies in India in its different parts that the violence due to these insurgencies follows a Bell Curve. These insurgencies include the ones in the North-East – in Nagaland, Tripura, Mizoram and Assam, in the North – in Punjab and Kashmir and in the South, Centre and East of the country – in the Naxal affected states.
He observes that all these insurgencies start small, when they are not yet a matter of concern for the State (central and state governments). They then grow larger and more violent and eventually a peak of their violence is reached corresponding to the peak of the Bell curve. This is when the State has recognized the threat and trouble of the insurgency but the response to it has not yet reached the peak of its efficiency and effectiveness.
The next stage is when the response of the State, with its military, paramilitary, police, intelligence agencies, media narrative, revenue enforcement and logistics deprivation through all of the above, becomes overwhelming for the insurgents to handle. This forms the falling part of the bell curve, corresponding to the reduction and tapering of the violence. It also corresponds to the State and insurgents beginning a dialogue which eventually results in the end of the bell curve, when violence ends, and a political process begins with a permanent solution taking hold over time.
Sensei Hatsumi Masaaki, Soke of the Bujinkan system of martial arts (he has since handed over the 9 schools of martial arts that comprised the Bujinkan to different and new Sokes) had a system where he would announce a theme for every year. This indicated what the focus of training would be for the next year. This was a practice from around 1993 all the way till around 2016. After 2016, the generic focus has been “Muto Dori” until the pandemic disrupted normalcy.
Some of the themes were tangible and external, like a weapon (Bo, Yari, Naginata etc.) or a style of fighting (taihen jutsu, koppo jutsu, kosshi jutsu etc). But sometimes the theme was more abstract, a concept more than a physical aspect (Saino Tamashii Utsuwa, Rokkon Shoujo, Kihon Happo etc). The theme for the year 2009 was “Saino Tamashii Utsuwa” (sometimes also called “Saino Konki”).
The expectation for the year based on the theme was that the practitioners of Bujinkan improve their skills, in scale and scope. For example, if someone was good with the sword and not the spear, he or she was expected to improve with the spear while fine-tuning their skills with the sword and also to not let it diminish while the other skill is being enhanced. It was also expected that everyone also brush-up on to what they already knew but had lost partially over time. In other words, if the practitioner of Bujinkan is a vessel and that vessel is full to a point with certain skills, they were expected to not only add to the vessel, but also ensure that the size of the vessel increases and is added to, at the same time.
There is an obvious and simplistic observation to be made here. The bell curve looks like a mountain, but when it is turned around, it looks like a vessel. And any vessel is representative of potential or opportunity, as represented by the space in a vessel which can be filled.
This vessel that is represented by the “Utsuwa” in the theme, is also representative of the ability of the Indian State to always increase and improve its own capacity, in its soul and its abilities to deal with challenges of any nature as the State grows, ages and gains collective experience and wisdom. The challenges can be anything; economic, social, political, military or climatic. But here we look at this concept with reference to the insurgencies that Mr. Gupta refers to in his theory.
One should watch the videos on the YouTube channel of “The Print”, where Mr. Gupta explains the bell curve theory. He does a wonderful job of elucidating the same very eloquently. I will try and capture the key points from the theory here.
The early part of the bell curve is one where the State is not reacting to the insurgency as it does not seem much of a problem. But the problem and violence grow in brutality and in the number of incidences of violence. Eventually it reaches a peak when it seems that there will be no end to the increase in the violence. When things are at this peak, the State has already started responding, but while successful in many instances, it does not seem to be successful in reducing the instances of violence or mitigating the cause of the insurgency. This is true in all the following examples of insurgency against the Indian State.
The militancy in Punjab started in the early 1980s and was unabated all through that decade and it peaked in the years of 1991 and 1992. But it waned to being insignificant in the years after 1993. The militancy in the erstwhile J&K state started in 1989 and was unabated through the early 1990s. After this, the violence has diminished greatly. While it still exists today, it is a single burning home (a tragedy nonetheless) compared to the conflagration of the early 1990s.
The insurgencies in the Northeast started in late 1940s and are not yet completely over. But each state in the region had separate peaks and mitigation of the violence. Each state in the region also dealt with the local issues differently and at different periods of time. The insurgency in Mizoram peaked in the 60s and 70s and ended in the 80s. The same in Tripura ended in the 2000s. The insurgency in Assam was at its peak in the late 1990s and early 2000s and has abated to a large extent since. The insurgency in Nagaland has timelines similar that in Assam.
The greatest internal security threat as described by Dr. Manmohan Singh, the activities of Naxals, is also still going on, but is much diminished from the last decade. Though extremely brutal acts still do occur against CRPF personnel, these are reducing in number. The scale of the Naxal problem is vastly greater than the other insurgencies. It encompasses several states. In the words of Mr. Modi, Naxal activities extend from Tirupati (in Andhra Pradesh) to Pashupati (the Pashupatinath temple in Nepal). But the number of districts affected by Naxal activities has reduced significantly in the 2010s.
Mr. Gupta explains that all of these have followed the bell curve and are at various stages on the downward trend currently. The reasons for this are many. Mr. Gupta explains a few of the reasons and some are evident from various media reports over the last few decades, which show the strategies deployed by the Indian State.
In many insurgencies, the Army was deployed initially to deal with the surging violence. The army itself was not trained to deal with insurgents as against conventional enemies. The Army itself had to learn the skills to deal with the problems and also put in place procedures and mechanisms to deal with the problem in different geographies of the country. This also meant they had to start schools in different parts of the country to train troops to deal with the different types of scenarios, in some cases learning from and sharing knowledge with Armed Forces of other countries. Overtime, State Police forces learned specialized skills to deal with the different types of insurgencies and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) also gained a lot of the skills to free up the Army for their more conventional roles.
All of this was backed by learning, building and putting in place structures and resources for continuously improving Intelligence Agencies which led to reducing casualties in the armed response units and reducing collateral damage in any operation. This also led to a greater understanding of what steps could be taken to mitigate the causes of the militancy and also open channels of communication with the insurgents.
With this started a virtuous cycle. The Indian State started with better transport and communication infrastructure which not only helped the armed units but also started off development opportunities in the areas affected by insurgencies. It helped affected communities, specifically tribals (adivasis), interact more with their fellow citizens. It brought better primary education to areas previously left behind. And this led to a greater understanding of the causes of the militancy and a fine tuning of the strategy to counter the same.
With better infrastructure, education and out-reach came the opportunity for more commercial development in underdeveloped areas, especially in the case of Naxal areas, where mining was always a huge opportunity. With development came the challenges of equitable distribution of the benefits, which is still a work in progress, but definitely forward progress.
Another area of the fight (skill set if you will) that the Indian State had to learn and fine tune all the time was the narrative battle and the response to it on many fronts (now there is a stream of economics called “Narrative Economics”!). The State had to firstly counter the narrative of grievances that the insurgency was peddling in almost all examples. This was to break the support the militant received from the locals, who would only do that if they saw examples of development and bought into the path of progress promised by the State. Also, the State had to convince its other citizens, who lived far away from the insurgency affected areas and were not affected by violence, that they were firstly not the villains of the story and that they were taking the right steps as the situation warranted.
An aside – Could the entire arena of narrative combat be akin to the concept of “Kyojitsu Tenkan Ho” that we train in the Bujinkan?
Once the State had better prepared armed units, intelligence gathering, infrastructure and narrative combat skills, it could choke the logistics of the militants, mainly because the support of locals in the supply chain diminished.
With all the above additions to a State’s abilities, the insurgency was now on the receiving end. This opened the door to creating amnesty and rehabilitation opportunities for militants that would surrender, give up arms and revert to the mainstream of the nation’s citizenry. Once the option of giving up arms without consequences was opened, the virtuous cycle gathered pace and led to greater interaction with inhabitants of the insurgency affected areas, and gave greater momentum to back channel communications which became full-fledged talks to end the insurgency. *This is like allowing an Uke the option of ukemi and disengagement from the fight.
Now that bringing people back from militancy has been mentioned, Mr. Gupta makes a very interesting observation. Apparently, the Indian state avoids killing the top leadership of an insurgency. It does eliminate lower level operatives when necessary, but does not go after the top leadership, because they are the ones who can be negotiated with and convinced to join mainstream politics. This method has apparently resulted in insurgent leaders in the North East, J&K and Punjab joining electoral politics and becoming ministers or even chief ministers in rare cases. Once this happens, the insurgency ends and political processes can take over. When a political process takes over, leaders are held responsible for development. This apparently leads to a populace getting addicted to peace, so long as there is a “peace dividend”.
The “peace dividend” refers to development that improves the quality of life and increases prosperity for a populace over time. This requires actions of the State that are not specific to countering an insurgency, but activities that are of great benefit to all the people in the country as a whole.
This includes activities where schemes of the State are delivered with not much leakage of benefits, and to the sections of a population that need them most. And if there is specific development like mining in an area with Naxal influence, the benefit from the mining should be visible and reach the locals of the area specifically. Of course, if this sounds like a welfare state, then the State needs continuous and large economic growth to have the resources to distribute. This should go hand in hand with protection of local cultures and the inhabitants should not be inundated with a migrant population, to alleviate fears of a way of life being threatened. This is true whether it is the North East, Punjab or J&K, for all parts of the country have a lot of pride in their respective ways of life.
These general development activities bring to mind two other concepts from the Martial Arts. One is “Rokkon Shoujo”, which means “clear laughter is the greatest reward”. This essentially means the focus should be on happiness, and the focus of a State’s activities should focus on the happiness of a populace. So, this is not specific to counter insurgency, but to general development as a whole.
The second is “Kaitatsu Gairoku”. This means “doing things indirectly”. It refers to a feint in the martial arts that could lead to creating an opening against an opponent. So, The State focuses on economic development, and its equitable distribution and this weakens insurgencies by its very nature. This is weakening an insurgency by focusing on something else. This is a classic example of defeating an insurgency with indirect actions.
Of course, Rokkon Shojo and Kaitatsu Gairoku are deeper concepts that need to be explored with separate articles with more clear examples. Nevertheless, these actions of the State go on to show that a State not only adds to its learning and experience with specific aspects relating to dealing with a violent insurgency, but also incorporates concepts that affect the solution to the violence without direct measures. This is similar to learning a concept in the martial arts as against a technique and applying it with any other weapon or technique.
In conclusion, each of the above points, is an ability learnt by a government, expanded upon with the past experience and knowledge (of previous administrations), by successive governments. To simplify, the Indian State can be considered the budoka and each of the strategies applied against an insurgency represents an increase in its Utsuwa of responses. The soft and hard strategies are the Saino, both of which are always being increased (tamashii).
Of course, all the learnings and techniques of the Indian State is not to imply that these are the only ones out there. Several countries have faced and either defeated or mitigated armed insurgencies of varying scales in the last century. These insurgencies were of both right and left wing extremists, a small number of examples of this are the Red Brigades in Italy, the Red Army Faction (Bader Meinhof Group) in West Germany, the OAS in France and the Provincial IRA in the UK. But the scale and number of violent insurgencies faced by the Indian State is vastly greater, as is its resolve (more space in the Utsuwa) to never give in, take all hits it has to (in lives, in the media, narratives, economy growth etc.) but always survive and emerge stronger – a much larger and accommodating vessel. Just living in this country, and knowing this history is a great walk through the concept of “Saino Tamashii Utsuwa” and motivation enough to practice the same, at least in the dojo.
*As mentioned in the article “Ahimsa and the Martial Arts – Part 3”
Indian Independence & the Revolutionary Movement – The Gift of Ukemi
Artwork by Shushma N
In the previous two write-ups in this series I have opined that Ahimsa is about not letting the opponent realize that he/she/they are being countered and making them retreat or just give up the fight/aggression that was initiated by the opponents’ side. I also opined that this concept can be applied not only to a one on one fight, but also to a large scale conflict spread across a vast geography (the example used was the Indian Freedom Struggle).
In this part of this series, the last one for now, I shall express a few of the remaining thoughts I have had over time with regard to Ahimsa in the martial arts and how the same is also evident ( at least to me) in the struggle for Indian independence from the British Raj. Of course, I need to reiterate here, the application of martial arts concepts is from my own perspective and with the benefit of hindsight.
When we train in the Bujinkan, after a considerable amount of training, we begin to realize that a lot of the times we support the opponent. This is very true in the Nage Waza or “throwing” related movements. “Support the opponent” here means that the opponent is not only being held up by the tensions in one’s (defender’s) own body, but also by being able to sense where the threat to him or herself is likely to come from based on the same. Here, “tensions in one’s own body” refers to the strength all of us use in defending against or resisting the attack of an opponent. Specifically, with relation to the Nage Waza and related concepts (maybe movements), when an opponent is being thrown, he or she can stop him or herself from falling by sensing (feeling) the resistance from the person executing the throw and latching onto the person based on that feedback. This is why we are taught that in the Nage Waza, we need to learn to “let the opponent fall” and how that should be enabled by gravity, not individual strength.
Once we understand (or at least say/accept) that a lot of throwing of opponents happens by letting the opponent fall, we need to learn what position and space we need to occupy in relation to a specific attack from an opponent. A specific set of movements might be needed to occupy the space and posture in relation to an attacker to take his or her balance and make them fall. This is the whole purpose of Nage Waza training.
Now, when seen from the perspective of an attacker, when he or she is falling, he or she will fall in a manner that will be least painful and causes least bodily harm due to the same. This is what we call Ukemi or “receiving the ground”. In common parlance, an attacker executes a break-fall or a roll while falling to come out of the fall unhurt or at least with minimal injury.
Consider a situation where an attacker either cannot perform a good ukemi or has only the option of an ukemi that will result in significant physical injury (or worse). This situation delays the attacker (Uke) from performing an ukemi to retreat from the attack he or she initiated. Often enough, in the absence of a good fall-back option like a break-fall or roll, the attacker will fight harder and try to force a tension in the defender’s body to latch on to, thus mitigating or nullifying the need for an ukemi. Therefore, the defender (Tori), by disallowing an ukemi for the attacker, might extend the fight by not allowing the Uke to retreat with an ukemi.
An aside – It can also be argued that the Tori becomes Uke in such a situation (denial of ukemi), especially if the Tori has to resort to use of physical strength that reverses the gained advantage with the earlier movement. Of course, very skilled practitioners can deny an ukemi and also prevent a fightback from the uke (this is a deserving discussion for different time). Here, at least in a practice scenario, the tori physically stops uke from falling, thus gaining the gratitude of the uke for the life-saving move. This “saving the uke” is an act of benevolence and also results in the ending of the current attack.
With this introduction in the background, I would like to recall a sentence I had read in a newspaper op-ed back when Operation Parakram was going on. This was the massive military build-up that India had used to retaliate against the attack on the Indian parliament back in December 2001. I do not recall the newspaper name, but I think it was The Hindu. The sentence said that one of the things that the Indian Government and the Military leadership was cognizant of was that they did not want to push the then Pakistani Dictatorship to think they did not have any wriggle room in the discussions with India. This feeling along with a belief that a massive invasion was imminent would push them to the wall. And the knowledge that Pakistan would not be able to win a conventional war against India along with no faith in negotiations would drive them towards the nuclear option in the war. This was something that India did not want, for it would adversely affect India and also not result in the scaling down of terrorism which was the objective of the military mobilization in the first place. In hindsight, India succeeded, to a limited extent, in getting Pakistan to act on terrorism emanating from its soil and there was no war. Op Parakram was called “gun-boat diplomacy” as well by some, for this reason.
But the key here is that the option of negotiation was the ukemi that the attacker could use to disengage and end the fight. The lack of this option would have resulted in a military conflict with unforeseeable consequences which need not have been favourable to either the attacker or defender.
I have used the above example because it perfectly encapsulates the use of diplomacy with military capabilities to achieve a strategic or geopolitical objective, with minimal or no use of the kinetic military option. And all this in a short time frame of less than a year.
If we can look back towards the Indian Freedom Struggle with the above example and the use of ukemi in mind, some wonderful revelations are likely. This is especially true if we consider the work of a lot of new historians who are beginning to opine that Indian Independence from the British Raj was not just due to the Ahimsa (supposedly “non-violent”) and movement of the Indian National Congress (INC), but also due to the work of the armed Revolutionary Movement, the pinnacle of which was the Indian National Army (INA) under Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose.
It is well documented, and these days, pretty widely mentioned, that Clement Atlee, the PM of Britain when India won independence, stated that Gandhiji and the movement led by him (I suppose we could say the movement spearheaded by the INC?) was of very little relevance in the final British decision to leave India and acquiesce to Indian Independence. This statement is supposed to have been made when he was on a visit to India in 1956, when he was staying at the residence of the then Chief Justice of Bengal. Further, Clement Atlee is supposed to have credited the British decision to leave India to the spark lit by Netaji and the rebellion in the then Royal Indian Armed Forces (the greatest of which was the rebellion by the Royal Indian Navy in 1946).
So, Indian Independence was a consequence of the well-known Freedom Struggle and also loss of control of the armed forces in India. The rebellion in the armed forces after the end of the Second World War itself was triggered by the trials in the Red Fort of the prisoners of the INA. The INA being a product of the armed revolutionary movement, it is clear that the objective of this movement was always to turn the British Indian Army against the British. With the Army being staffed mostly by Indians with British leadership, the loss of control of the army was always going to be the end of the British Raj.
This idea of throwing the British out by subversion of the British Indian Army had been the same since the First War of Independence in 1857, which also occurred due to troops of the then East India Company (EIC) rebelling against the Company. After the failure in 1857, the idea was revived in the early 20th century with many events working towards the same goal, during the First World War which were not successful. Eventually, the same idea came to fruition after the Second World War. In the interim when the idea of subverting the army was on the back burner post the failed Mutiny of 1857, the INC was born in 1885 and initiated the parallel struggle for freedom through a political process, which is the better known “non-violent” movement.
For greater details about the revolutionary movement, I strongly suggest looking for and watching the talks given by Mr. Sanjeev Sanyal*. There are several of those on YouTube, all very interesting. This is one of my own main sources of knowledge about these aspects. There are others out there as well sharing the happenings of these times in differing ways**.
So, the armed revolutionary movement was instrumental in taking away the Indian Armed forces from the British, while Gandhiji and the INC were responsible for breaking the British moral high ground and belief in their own responsibility to civilize India after a Western model.
I have mentioned my thoughts on the use of the Ahimsa movement in using British moral superiority against themselves in a previous article***. In that article I have also mentioned that the Ahimsa movement provided a safety valve and a face saving exit out of India, for the British. This is exactly like keeping negotiations on during Op Parakram. In other words, the Ahimsa movement was the Ukemi allowance to the Nage Waza of the armed revolutionary movement.
The British were financially weak after the Second World War and the training and knowledge of weaponry they had imparted to Indian troops during the same had mitigated their technological superiority. And thus, with the loss of the Indian Armed Forces, their last tool to hold the country they had occupied over the last two centuries was taken away from them. This was them being subjected to an absolute bad-ass Nage Waza, a literal being “thrown out”!
This left them with taking the Ukemi option provided by the INC, for a face saving retreat, thus ending the struggle India had not asked for. The British were forced to negotiate earnestly with the INC about complete Independence and not just spare concessions like they had in the earlier decades. This allowed them to survive the “fall” due to the “Nage” of the revolutionary movement. They could hold on to the face saving belief in being civilized by acquiescing to the call for Indian Independence and over time sweep from the mind the fact of being “thrown” out.
So, the twin use of the revolutionary movement and the political movement of the INC were the Nage Waza and “allowed” Ukemi that showed the British the path of retreat, and nullified the aggression that led to the Freedom Struggle in India****.
Notes:
*Mr. Sanyal is the Principal Economic Advisor to the Govt. of India and a member of the PM’s Economic Advisory Council. He is also a wonderful historian who has written multiple books.
**One very recent book called “True to Their Salt” by Ravindra Rathee comes to mind. I have not read this book, only watched an interview with the author, about the book.
***Ahimsa and the Martial Arts – Part 2
****Does this have a parallel in the IRA / Sinn Fein tandem movement? Perhaps this is something to look at, for if true, would be a second use of the same Nage – Ukemi combination against the same colonizer.
Ahimsa & Indian Independence – Through the Eyes of Budo
I have opined in the previous part of this series, that Ahimsa is a martial arts concept where “one does not trouble the opponent”. It is a way of saying do not use force against an opponent. This is especially true if the opponent is stronger than oneself. Here strength includes access to greater resources, technical superiority, greater numbers or just greater physical strength and skill.
An extension of not using strength against a stronger opponent is generally using the opponent’s strength and skill against her or him. This generally means if an opponent is taller and larger, and thus generally stronger, one does not resist his or her strength and instead tries to maneuver to a position from where the opponent’s balance can be taken or a vulnerable opening accessed.
The same is true when one is fighting with non-projectile weapons, whether they are cut, thrust or bludgeon oriented. Here, the skill, speed, reach and favoured attack are points to consider as against strength. If the opponent uses a longer weapon, one tries to get in close to negate the reach and if the opponent favours a cut over a thrust, one tries to get to an angle where the cut becomes ineffective (or less effective at least). But if the opponent favours a thrust, one tries to get him/her to over reach or over commit or get out of line of the thrust, and thus try to get them off balance or leave an opening in the act of recovering one’s balance.
Could this way of dealing with opponents explain how Ahimsa works brilliantly as a weapon? Consider the Indian freedom struggle, the British Raj is the opponent. This opponent enjoys superiority in resource availability, economic prowess and technology. So, the opponent is “stronger” or “superior”. There was one other superiority that the Raj believed it enjoyed – moral or civilizational superiority. How does one use the opponent’s strength against itself?
Here the Raj’s knowledge of its civilizational superiority is the opening to its vulnerability. The Raj’s belief in its superiority in this sphere was so complete that it believed that it had a “duty” to civilize the Indian colony as evidenced by Kipling’s poem, “The White Man’s Burden”, among many other things.
Artwork by Shushma N
All martial manoeuvres, whether with a weapon or unarmed, require a specific type of movement. Similarly, nurturing a belief in civilizational superiority requires behaviours that reinforce this belief and thus makes them similar to any martial maneuver. Once a specificity is identified, a counter can be identified or devised. And this counter was Ahimsa, to break the belief in civilizational superiority, mainly by breaking any possibility to believe in moral superiority.
Ahimsa hinged on breaking specific rules, like not paying taxes or gathering in large numbers and disrupting some simple activity like flow of traffic on roads. It might just be gathering in large numbers and showing that some activity of the Raj is wrong. Thus, the first move is actually not Ahimsa in that one causes at least a minor inconvenience (though not trouble the opponent much). This triggered the Raj into a violent reaction to disrupt the gathering. But interestingly, the violence in the reaction is what is seen as the attack, not the provocation of the gathering!
So, the gathering following Ahimsa puts the opponent, the Raj, in a quandary. Do not react and let people around the world believe that it did not care about the points being aired by the gathering and seem insensitive and thus dictatorial, or disrupt the gathering quickly with violence believing that its civilizational superiority meant the grievances aired by the crowd was inherently wrong. Over time, this violence, when repeated often enough, will trigger the same observation that the Raj is uncaring and dictatorial as all they do is resort to violence! Thus, without realizing it, the very belief in civilization superiority leads to behaviour that breaks the same belief. The strength has now become the weakness!
This is the strength of Ahimsa! The Raj was not really troubled at all. It came and occupied a land, a sacred geography, a thriving civilization, and imposed itself on it. And this mistake was shown to it by gathering in numbers that did not trouble the Raj in any way, specifically not with violence, and thus not strength or any other parameter where the Raj held superiority. The gathering just occupied a space, and it turned out to the right space, for the Raj, despite overwhelming superiority, succumbed to a weakness created by itself.
An additional observation I think is true, is that the Indian National Congress (INC) and its Ahimsa based movements acted as a safety valve and an out for the Raj in the face of growing armed resistance over the course of the Second World War (WW2) and the subsequent mutiny in the Royal Indian armed forces. This armed resistance had never stopped since almost the beginning of the 20th century.
Consider this; the British Army faced a mutiny by the Royal Indian Navy in 1946. There were similar, but smaller mutinies by the other wings of the armed forces as well. The Indian wing of the Royal Armed Forces was larger than the same from Britain itself. Additionally, the Indian forces, being trained by the British themselves, were as capable militarily and technologically as the British troops themselves. So, the larger number and home ground advantage now mattered more than in the previous century. Also, the British Raj and the Empire in general was now severely weakened economically as well. It could no longer call on resources to hold on to the Indian colony like it managed until the first couple of decades of the 20th century. Thus, British superiority in military, technological and economic terms was also no longer present or was severely degraded to the point where it did not matter anymore.
(This is actually also a martial arts concept where one matches the opponent so closely that over time the opponent does not realize where he/she is being controlled by the one he/she was attacking. This is achieved by not troubling the opponent and following his/her movements so closely as to actually learn in the moment and use it against the opponent. This then translates to Ahimsa even in armed struggle! Perhaps this concept deserves a write up of its own for deeper exploration.)
Now that their superiority no longer existed, their belief in civilizational superiority allowed the Raj a graceful exit, a face-saving if ever there was one. The Raj negotiated an exit from India by dealing with the INC and Ahimsa practitioners, thus making it appear that they were only giving in to the popular call of the people of the country. This though, never fooled anyone, only allowing the Raj alone to retain its belief in civilizational superiority. Reiterating again, this belief in civilizational superiority was the weakness exploited to make them leave in the first place! Their strength was broken without them realizing that it was broken! This is the epitome of martial arts’ abilities. To make the opponent lose without realizing that he/she has lost and achieving the objective by making the opponent retreat by their own volition, not by an act of the defender.
Artwork by Shushma N
Thus, Ahimsa was indeed a weapon of extraordinary abilities; a true Weapon of Mass Destruction (WMD)! It brought a global empire to its knees. It exploited the time and space with great precision (the world wars, railway technology, print media, global opinion, public opinion).
The sheer genius of this great WMD is the ability of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi to bring in a critical mass of people in India to join in the Ahimsa movement against the Raj, making them just be in the right place at the right time to cause the Raj to react and thus damage itself a little more, until it could do nothing more than retreat. This is nothing short of an invulnerable Vyuha from the Hindu epics where the opponent gets trapped hopelessly with no hope of victory or even survival. It is exactly the same as getting into a position to expose an opponent’s vulnerability. It is almost a textbook example of using an opponent’s strength against him/herself.
Just imagine a martial arts concept designed to be demonstrated in a one on one duel being executed on a scale of the Indian population, which was around 350 million or so at the time of Indian Independence. The scale boggles the mind no end!
Add to this the fact that one man (at least in popular conception) could make a number as large as 350 million believe in one concept! Is this not social engineering on the grandest of scales? And this was done 70 odd years before social media, which brought the concept of social engineering to the fore.
In conclusion, Gandhiji, who is considered to the epitome of Ahimsa was perhaps an extraordinary martial artist! Of course, this is a statement made with the benefit of hindsight and perhaps Gandhiji did not ever consider himself a martial artist, but the notion is nevertheless worth considering. He fought and defeated the most powerful enemy ever, an evil empire that believed it was the greatest good ever. He facilitated the defeat of the empire by using the strength of empire against itself. He made the first move, but all that mattered was the empire’s counter, which, for all practical purposes became the first move that led to a devastating counter that was never sensed. The first move was a trap so effective and smart that no one ever realized that it was a martial manoeuvre at all!
Mundane Budo 