Dear Editor,
Look at what the ruler of Taxila on the right bank of the Jhelum (the town installed by Takash, son of Raja Bharat) argued with Alexander of Macedonia on the battlefield in 327 BCE. Alexander was aggressive to the extent that he changed the name of the Jhelum (Vitasta) to Hydaspes. Our wise prince advised him to refrain from war as ‘to what purpose should we make war upon one another, if the design of your coming to these parts be not to rob us of our water and our necessary food, which are the only things that wise men are indispensably obliged to fight for’. Will our vote-bank based rulers take some lesson of wisdom from ‘Taxila Naresh’?
B Thakar Singh,
Via-e-mail