In May, 1652, the prodigious English poet John Milton, shortly after turning completely blind, penned “Peace hath her victories No less renowned than war.” In the wee hours of 23rd June, 2025, the maverick American President Donald John Trump in a bolt from the blue exuberantly announced a cease-fire between Israel and Iran — “Israel & Iran came to me, almost simultaneously, and said, “PEACE!” I knew the time was NOW.” On 24th June, 2025, Trump told NBC News, “I think the ceasefire is unlimited. It’s going to go forever,” effusively prophesying that Israel and Iran will never “be shooting at each other again”. This was followed by Trump’s “f-bomb” on live TV on 24th June, 2025 on the eve of his departure to The Hague to attend the NATO Summit. The “Sinews of Peace” have indeed triumphed in the Middle East and the world can now heave a sigh of relief like a whiff of fresh air!
On 10th May, 2025, a battered, whimpering Pakistan, reeling under the fiercely devastating impact of “Op-eration Sindoor” (launched by India in retaliation to the horrific, dastardly terrorist attack in picturesque Pahalgam on 22nd April, 2025 that stuffed out the lives of 26 innocent tourists!), literally came crawling on its knees to India to smoke the peace pipe and negotiate a ceasefire. India under the valiant stewardship of Modi readily agreed to a ceasefire that brought the curtain down on the 4 day military conflict between the two embattled nations. And doves of peace flew over subcontinent to the hushed amazement of the entire peace loving world, including Trumph!
The cause of world peace has always been extremely dear to my heart. On 27th September, 2019, our most distinguished Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a compelling speech on the occasion of the 74th ses-sion of the UN General Assembly, asserted, “We belong to a country, that has given the world, not war, but Buddha’s message of peace…One Hundred and Twenty Five years ago, the Great Spiritual Guru, Swami Vivekananda, gave this message to the world during the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago. The message was, “Harmony and Peace. And NOT Dissension”. Today, the message from the world’s largest democracy, for the International community is still the same: “Harmony and Peace.” On 16th September, 2022, whilst the Russian Ukraine war was in full swing, Modi, without mincing words, told the Russian President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin on the side-lines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, that the era of war was over! On 23rd June, 2023, Modi in an impassioned address to a joint session of the US Congress reiterated, “This is not an era of war. But, it is one of dialogue and diplomacy. And, we all must do what we can to stop the bloodshed and human suffering.”
Our first Prime Minister Pt Jawaharlal Nehru’s was a tireless champion of peace. In his famous Tryst with Destiny speech delivered at the stroke of midnight hour on 15th August, 1947, Nehru said, “Peace is said to be indivisible, so is freedom, so is prosperity now, and also is disaster in this one world that can no longer be split into isolated fragments.” On 3rd October,1960, Nehru told the UN General Assembly without mincing words, “In order to achieve peace we have to develop a climate of peace and tolerance and to avoid speech and action which tend to increase fear and hatred...That was the lesson which our great leader Gandhi taught us.” On 8th May, 1937, with omi-nous war clouds looming large overhead, Mahatma Gandhi articulated his timeless philosophy of peace in the Harijan weekly newspaper published by him, “There is no way to peace; peace is the way.” In a most illuminating letter to the well known American magazine Cosmopolitan, published from New York, Gandhi crystalised his philosophy of peace, “Not to believe in the possibility of permanent peace is to disbelieve in the Godliness of human nature…Peace is unattained by part performance of conditions, even as a chemical combination is impossible without complete fulfillment of the conditions of attainment thereof. If the recognised leaders of mankind who have control over the engines of destruction were wholly to renounce their use, with full knowledge of its implications, permanent peace can be obtained.”
On 10th June,1963, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the indefatigable friend of India, outlined his now famous strategy for peace in the following words, “There is no single, simple key to this peace-no grand or magic formula to be adopted by one or two powers. Genuine peace must be the prod-uct of many nations, the sum of many acts..For peace is a process-a way of solving prob-lems…So let us persevere. Peace need not be impracticable, and war need not be inevitable. By defining our goal more clearly, by making it seem more manageable and less remote, we can help all peoples to see it, to draw hope from it, and to move irresistibly toward it.” Another prodi-gious American Dr.Martin Luther King, who was a staunch disciple of Gandhi, in his Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech on 10th December,1964 said, “I still believe that one day mankind will bow be-fore the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and non-violent re-demptive goodwill will proclaim the rule of the land. ‘And the lion and the lamb shall lie down together and every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid.’ I still believe that we shall overcome.”
I now turn irresistibly to Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore, our redoubtable national poet and Nobel laureate, whom Nehru once aptly described as “the great humanist of India.” Throughout his entire life, Tagore strongly believed that until the big and powerful nations, aided by their superiority and vast technological advancement, ceased their desire for territorial expansion and control over the smaller nations, world peace could never be achieved. According to the poet, peace could be achieved only when diverse races and nations were free to evolve into their distinct characteristics, whilst all would be attached to the stem of humanity through the bondage of love. During the catastrophic First World War, Tagore went even be-yond the shores of India to campaign for peace and to show to a war torn world the alternative path of individual liberation and an acquiring of self-esteem through creativity, love, beauty and harmony with na-ture, and a spiritual aspiration. His concern for the existence of humanity was expressed in the lectures he delivered during that period. “While the whole world is at war,” The London Nation wrote in an editorial in April,1921, “it is some comfort to hear even one voice, however still and small, persistently murmuring of peace. Amid the turmoil and shouting, one may still catch the quiet words of an Indian pleading the cause of understanding, friendliness and forbearance, as though they, and not devastating conflicts, were the most natural things in the world.”
The venerable apostle of peace and Nobel laureate Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu (popularly known as “Mother Teresa” and worshipped in the Catholic Church as Saint Teresa of Calcutta, who lived, worked and died in Kolkata) began her Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech on 11th September,1979 with the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi. I am highly emboldened to conclude with the first portion of that very prayer:
“Lord, make a channel of Thy peace
that, where there is hatred, I may bring love;
that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness;
that, where there is discord, I may bring harmony;
that, where there is error, I may bring truth;
that, where there is doubt, I may bring faith;
that, where there is despair, I may bring hope;
that, where there are shadows, I may bring light;
that, where there is sadness, I may bring joy.”