Pen is mightier or Sword?

“The pen is mightier than sword”. Everyone grew up learning this. But is it though? Let me redraft the sentence for you, “The pen is often mightier than sword”. Does this mean I am justifying violence? Yes. Does this mean Gandhi was wrong? No. Is this a paradox? No. Let me explain.

When the oppression of a people is sponsored by the Pen, the Sword is mightier for them. Unlike Swords, Pen cannot be countered with Pen. What will you do when someone, in power, by the decree of a Pen, takes away your home? What can you write? What possible words can you write to get your home back. Even the Mahatma gave a slogan of “Do or Die” in the endgame. Use of Sword needs to be extremely qualified. 

The amount of Money in a man’s pocket makes his Pen mightier. The Spirit in him adorns his Sword. When a man has nothing to offer beyond his own survival instinct, Swords come out. There is a very clear distinction which politics conveniently doesn’t make is between the Oppressed and the Terrorists. They are not different people, they are the same but in different stages of their spirits. Politicians conveniently like the Oppressed, because the Oppressed still believe that Pen is mightier than Sword. They are gullible and desperate for remedies. They will do anything to get a piece of bread in return. But there’s an inflection point. The point where the bread is not sufficient. That’s the point they become Terrorists. And they unleash on their perceived Oppressors. That’s when they become Terrorists. I don’t know if I am justifying terrorism, but I am definitely justifying the fact that sometimes Sword needs to be mightier than the Pen.

Take examples, when Kashmir acceded to India, the Pen decided for the people, but the people felt oppressed. They took up arms. First against their oppressors, then against their own sects, then it became their identity. But wasn’t the Pen too presumptuous? The King’s pen had more might than his subject’s voice. I am not justifying the terrorists actions against the local Kashmir population or the Army protecting them, but I am raising a question, What justified the Army to be in Kashmir for the past 73 years, in the first place?

Take another, UN unilaterally decided, by the power of the Pen bestowed upon them by famous Swords of the time, to carve up a land, which did not belong to them, among two separate people. One people didn’t even have any Spirit left to pick up a Sword, they took whatever they got. The other people felt Oppressed, they picked up arms. Its not about the Jews rights to live or Muslims right to self preservation, its about the UN’s rights to even think they can do something like this in the first place.

Take another from your own life, if you had savings and your company fired you, you parted amicably. When you didn’t have savings, you probably turned violent. Either immediately on HR, or on someone in your family, or with yourself. When you could afford a Pen, Pens battled, when you couldn’t, the Swords came out. 

There’s a pattern emerging in this dance of Pens and Swords. Swords bring Money, Money brings Power, Power lies in the Pen, Pen clashes against the Sword. And then Spirit of the Sword decides who gets the Money. Its a loop. Its the life cycle of Power. This is the core of human civilisation.