Nehru's Buddha; Modi's, Too

Ashoka desired to be the chakravarti, the supreme conqueror, and he was determined to add the kingdom of Kalinga, a powerful maritime state, to his empire.

- Lalit Mansingh

He invaded Kalinga and fulfilled his geopolitical ambitions. But, witnessing the brutality and human suffering, he underwent a deep spiritual transformation and converted to Buddhism.

Through his evangelical efforts, Ashoka transformed Buddhism from a local faith into an international religion. Although his focus was on Sri Lanka, he sent religious emissaries to ancient Greece, Egypt and southeast Asia, then known as Suvarna Bhumi. In the centuries after Ashoka, Buddhism spread further east to China, Korea and Japan.

Buddhism has remained a powerful cultural force. The Indo-Pacific is today the geopolitical centre-of-gravity; the dominant powers of the region being the Buddhist nations—China, Japan, Korea and almost half of ASEAN.

Can India reclaim the Buddhist legacy after eight centuries of neglect? Can it deploy Buddhism for projecting its soft power? Has any leader attempted to do so?

Jawaharlal Nehru was secular to the core, but was drawn to Buddhism. He kept an image of the Buddha next to his bed. It was he who suggested the addition of the Buddhist dharma-chakra to the national flag, as also the lions of the Ashokan pillars as the state emblem.

The Pancha Sheela is a Buddhist concept, but Nehru adapted it as a model code of conduct among nations. Even the policy of nonalignment was a reflection of the Middle Path advocated by the Buddha.

In his vision of geopolitics, Nehru seemed to sacrifice Tibet, because it came in the way of a larger objective—an equal partnership with China. The rest of the story is known.