A jawan is posted in Kargil, where
the battle is on. He faces a dilemma.If he proceeds to Kargil, he may
end up paying the highest price - his life - thus leaving his young wife
and children destitute. If he refuses to go, he may face humiliation
and possibly a jail sentence for desertion or dereliction of duty. Still
it is a rational choice as the price he has to pay for desertion is
negligible when compared to losing one's life and leaving one's family
destitute. Yes, he proceeds to the battlefront, like all other jawans.
One wonders if any jawan even considers the situation as a dilemma. He
simply does what he considers is his duty, his karma.
This leaves me with some random question, What is my karma?
This leaves me with some random question, What is my karma?
I
am not a jawan in Indian army. I don't have to face any enemy bullets.
But what if in a situation of riots and the police has asked everyone
not to come out of home and there is an important meeting or
presentation lined up. What should I be doing? What is my karma then?
Should I follow the jawans footpath or should I stay at home? I guess
everyone reading this will ask me to do the later one.
So
why don't people around the world see an attack (war or terrorist) as a
prisoner's dilemma? I assume that is a terrorist defect, the jawan will
surely defect, hence saving both their life and in turn of other
civilians. But the big question is, if jawan defects (not guarding the
border), will the terrorist defect? I guess, he won't. Which mean, even
the terrorist does not see such attacks as a prisoner's dilemma. He does
what he thinks is his karma. And that leaves this world a very unhappy
place.
(First paragraph reference from Games Indian Play by V. Raghunathan. Chapter Game Theory and the Gita)
