Over 5,000 years ago, on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, two armies comprising tens of thousands of men were ready to begin a war. The Pandavs were led by Arjuna, a warrior whose archery skills were unbeatable. At the last minute, before the war was to commence, Arjuna put down his weapons and declared to Krishna his decision not to fight. He reasoned that the war would kill tens of thousands of people all for a kingdom. It took the whole of the Bhagavad Gita to convince Arjuna to fight.
Even after Krishna destroyed all his doubts, Arjuna asked to see Krishna in his form as a supreme God. In short, Arjuna wanted to avoid confrontation at any cost.
In 1191, Muhammad Ghouri from Afghanistan attacked the Hindu king Prithviraj Chouhan. He was defeated, but Prithviraj let him go free. Prithviraj was probably influenced in his decision by his Dharma of compassion, or in the hope that Ghouri would never attack again as his life was spared — a good example of avoiding confrontation.
Kurukshetra battlefield illustrationOrissaPOST
It is believed by many that Ghouri had attacked many more times and had been defeated but was allowed to go free. Regarded as one of the costliest mistakes of history, Mohammad Ghouri returned with a stronger and much larger army in 1192 CE. Prithviraj was defeated. Ghouri had Prithviraj's eyes gouged out and killed him mercilessly. Islam got a foothold in India after the defeat of Prithviraj, and most of Punjab, parts of Bihar, Bengal and parts of Gujarat fell under the rule of Ghouri.
Going back to the Mahabharata, Asvathama, who fought for the Kauravas, killed all the children of the Pandavas. When he was caught by the Pandavas, they decided to let him go because he was a Brahmin. In fact, Asvathama was Brahmin only by birth. By Karma, he was a Kshatriya. The same Asvathama at a later stage fired a powerful nuclear arrow towards the pregnant Uttara.
Once again, Lord Krishna had to appear and protect Uttara. Had Asvathama succeeded, he would have obliterated all the future Pandava dynasty. Here we see the urge of the Pandavas to go by the rules of Dharma and follow a moral code. Lord Krishna himself insisted to Arjuna that in some cases, the moral rules would need to be ignored.
The first Prime Minister of India, Pandit Nehru, believed that India did not need an army at all. He reasoned that India was a land of Ahimsa and so would not need to fight anyone. In 1962, China invaded India and has since occupied 38,000 km² of the Aksai Chin region in Kashmir, which is an extension of the Tibetan plateau. One can see here again a tendency to avoid any confrontation and naively believe the other party will play fair.
Battle of Walong: Indo-China war 1962The Kootneeti
In 1965, Pakistan launched Operation Gibraltar against India. It was designed to infiltrate soldiers into Jammu and Kashmir and cause an uprising. Under international pressure, the then PM Lal Bahadur Shastri went to Tashkent and signed a peace treaty with Pakistan. While there, he died mysteriously. The treaty called upon both sides not to interfere in each other's affairs. It was not worth the paper it was written on.
In 1971, another war broke out between India and Pakistan. India won the war, which resulted in the creation of Bangladesh. Even though India won the war, it failed to grasp any long-term gains. Indeed, Bangladesh was quick to ask the Indian army to leave once they had been liberated.
The same Bangladesh today has turned against India and is persecuting Hindus. Following the 1971 war, the then PM Indira Gandhi and Pakistan PM Bhutto signed the Shimla Agreement. Both nations committed to establish peaceful coexistence and mutual respect. Again, an agreement not worth the piece of paper it was written on. Indian forces had captured around 15,010 km² (5,795 sq mi) of land during the war but returned it after the Shimla Agreement as a gesture of goodwill.
In 1984, under Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, the Indian Army launched Operation Meghdoot, a military operation to seize control of the Siachen Glacier. This operation was a pre-emptive move as it was believed that Pakistan was also planning to take control of the glacier. In spite of the Pakistani attacks, India granted it MFN (Most Favoured Nation for trade purposes) status in 1996. However, Pakistan did not reciprocate. India withdrew its MFN status in February 2019 following the Pulwama attack.
Chanakya World of Wise
On 20 February 1999, PM Vajpayee visited Pakistan and signed the Lahore Declaration. It was hailed as a turning point in relations between the two countries. However, in a classic case of treachery, just a few months later between May and July, under the leadership of Chief of Army Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistan army occupied Indian territory in Kargil. Some Indian soldiers protecting the area had their eyes gouged out.
India successfully dislodged the Pakistani occupiers. In the conflict, 527 Indian soldiers were killed and 1,363 wounded. India's Jat Regiment managed to occupy a strategically important mountain peak on the Pakistani side of the LoC near Dras, Point 5070, and subsequently renamed it Balwan.
On 24 December 1999, Indian Airlines Flight 814, commonly known as IC 814, was hijacked by five members of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. A plan to send in commandos to neutralise the terrorists did not materialise. The then PM Vajpayee agreed to release three terrorists in exchange for the release of 160 passengers.
Of the terrorists released, Omar Sheikh went on to finance one of the hijackers of the 9/11 attacks and the kidnap and murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl. Maulana Masood Azhar formed Jaish-e-Mohammed, a United Nations-designated terrorist organisation. Maulana Masood was the mastermind behind the Parliament attacks in 2001, the 2016 attacks on the Indian Air Force base in Pathankot, and the killing of CRPF jawans in 2019 in Pulwama. He is responsible for hundreds of Indian deaths.
After the attack on Parliament, the then PM Vajpayee mobilised the army to attack Pakistan. Once again, due to international pressure, PM Vajpayee stopped the army which was eager to launch an invasion. LeT, the other terrorist organisation co-founded by Hafiz Saeed, is also responsible for many attacks on India.
Shimla AgreementAsia Times
The blasts in Delhi in October 2005 killed four people. On 11 July 2006, seven blasts ripped through trains in the evening rush hour in Mumbai. 189 people were killed and more than 800 were injured. The 26/11 Mumbai attacks in November 2008 claimed 166 lives. The terrorists held the whole country to ransom for three days.
India had to retaliate but PM Manmohan Singh and the Congress party decided against taking any action. One of the reasons given was that India would gain world sympathy — a classic case of avoiding confrontation at any cost.
In December 2015, PM Modi made an impromptu stop in Lahore as a gesture of goodwill. He met PM Nawaz Sharif. Unfortunately, in Pakistan, it is the army which runs the show, not political parties.
LeT also masterminded the Uri army base attack, killing 19 soldiers in September 2016. For the first time under the Prime Ministership of Modi, India took offensive action. On 29 September 2016, teams of Indian Army Para (Special Forces) crossed the Line of Control into Pakistani-administered Kashmir to attack targets up to a kilometre within territory held by Pakistan. Around 35 to 40 Pakistani soldiers were killed or injured.
Kargil War 1999UPSCprep.com
In 2010, a bomb blast in a crowded bakery in the city of Pune killed nine people and wounded 57. Through all this, ‘cultural’ exchanges were going on between the two countries. In December 2015, PM Modi made an impromptu visit to Lahore as a goodwill gesture and met PM Sharif. Unfortunately, in Pakistan, it is the military which calls the shots, not the governing parties.
After the Pulwama attack, PM Modi targeted the terrorists inside Pakistan with a missile attack. However, it seems to have had little impact on the terror groups. They carried out the dastardly act of killing 26 Hindus in Kashmir on 26 April 2025. PM Modi ordered attacks on nine terrorist hubs.
However, the mini conflict came to an abrupt end and both India and Pakistan declared a ceasefire. What assurances India received from Pakistan is not clear. Indeed, terrorists from Pakistan have already attempted two terror attacks but were neutralised by the Indian army. India could have demanded the release of Kulbushan Yadav, who has been incarcerated in Pakistan on spying charges for nine years.
Though India has always come out on top on the war front, on the negotiating table it seems to surrender all the gains with little in return. Pakistan-based terrorists have killed hundreds of Indian soldiers over the decades and got away with it.
India needs to revisit the great political master Chanakya and his treatise Arthashastra on war and peace.
Charles Minard's iconic flow map illustrating Napoleon's ill-fated invasion of Russia, highlighting the vast distances and severe lossesAge of Revolution
Vivid depiction of the Kurukshetra battlefield, showcasing Arjuna and Krishna in the chariot amidst the chaos of warAmazon 
Anurag Bajpayee's Gradiant: The water company tackling a global crisis
In a world increasingly defined by scarcity, one resource is emerging as the most quietly decisive factor in the future of industry, sustainability, and even geopolitics: water. Yet, while the headlines are dominated by energy transition and climate pledges, few companies working behind the scenes on water issues have attracted much public attention. One of them is Gradiant, a Boston-based firm that has, over the past decade, grown into a key player in the underappreciated but critical sector of industrial water treatment.
A Company Born from MIT, and from Urgency
Founded in 2013 by Anurag Bajpayee and Prakash Govindan, two researchers with strong ties to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Gradiant began as a scrappy start-up with a deceptively simple premise: make water work harder. At a time when discussions about climate change were centred almost exclusively on carbon emissions and renewable energy, the trio saw water scarcity looming in the background.
Their insight was that some of the world’s largest industries—semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, food and beverage—were facing acute water-related challenges long before the general public grasped the issue. “Without water, these industries don’t just slow down; they stop,” Bajpayee has often remarked. What Gradiant offered was not just a way to save water, but a way to rethink how it is used, recycled, and valued.
The Engineers Behind the Mission
Anurag Bajpayee, the company’s CEO, whose academic path took him to MIT, where he completed a PhD in Mechanical Engineering focused on water treatment technologies. It was there that he met Govindan, a fellow engineer and now Gradiant's co-founder and COO, whose expertise complemented his in fluid mechanics and process engineering.
Unlike many founders who drift towards the language of venture capital and corporate strategy, Anurag Bajpayee and his team remained grounded in the technical problem: how to make industrial water treatment more efficient, more affordable, and more sustainable. The company still bears the imprint of its founders’ engineering roots. Gradiant is less Silicon Valley startup and more MIT lab, albeit one that has quietly expanded across Asia, the Middle East, Europe and North America.
What Gradiant Actually Does
The company specializes in designing and building bespoke water treatment and reuse systems for industrial clients. Its technologies are aimed at enabling factories and plants to reclaim water that would otherwise be discarded as waste, reducing both the amount of water withdrawn from natural sources and the volume of contaminated water discharged.
At the heart of Gradiant’s portfolio are proprietary technologies such as Counter Flow Reverse Osmosis (CFRO), Carrier Gas Extraction (CGE) and Selective Ion Recovery (SIR), developed from the Gradiant founders’ early research at MIT. Unlike traditional methods like reverse osmosis, these systems are designed to handle highly contaminated or complex wastewater streams, enabling clients to extract clean water even from previously unusable sources.
But Gradiant does not sell “one-size-fits-all” machines. Each project is tailored to the customer’s unique needs. For a semiconductor plant in Singapore, this might mean achieving ultrapure water reuse levels of 98%; for a food and beverage factory in Texas, it might be about safely treating wastewater for discharge while minimising energy consumption. The company's approach—sometimes called "solutioneering" internally—is both its competitive advantage and its raison d'être.
Expansion Without the Usual Hype
Gradiant’s growth has been quietly impressive. From its first commercial project in the oil and gas sector, it has gone on to complete over 500 installations worldwide. The company has raised more than $400 million in funding from a mix of institutional investors and private equity firms, achieving so-called “unicorn” status, with a valuation reportedly over $1 billion.
Unlike many green tech firms, Gradiant’s expansion has not been accompanied by flashy marketing campaigns or grandiose statements. Instead, the company has preferred to build credibility client by client, particularly in Asia, where water-intensive industries and growing environmental pressures make its services indispensable. Anurag Bajpayee, never one to speak in superlatives, frames the company’s expansion as a “response to urgent need” rather than a triumph of business.
Inside Gradiant’s Operations
At its core, Gradiant is still an engineering-first company. Anurag Bajpayee and Govindan, both technically trained and heavily involved in the company’s operations, have instilled a culture where R&D is not just a department but the lifeblood of the business. The firm currently holds more than 250 patents globally, a testament to its ongoing commitment to innovation.
But Gradiant’s success is not just about technology. The company has differentiated itself by offering not just equipment but full-service solutions, including project design, construction, operations, and maintenance. This full-stack approach has been particularly attractive to clients in highly regulated industries, who need water management solutions that work seamlessly and reliably without requiring deep in-house expertise.
Gradiant’s clients include some of the world’s largest manufacturers, including Fortune 500 companies in sectors like microelectronics, pharmaceuticals, and energy. Some, like semiconductor producers, rely on Gradiant to help them meet stringent water reuse targets while maintaining ultra-clean production environments.
Navigating a Changing World
Gradiant operates at the intersection of several converging trends: climate change, regulatory pressure, and industrial decarbonisation. In many regions, water scarcity has become the limiting factor for industrial growth, sometimes more than energy availability or supply chain constraints.
While public attention often focuses on domestic water use, it is industries that consume the lion’s share of freshwater. Gradiant's pitch is straightforward: industries will have to do more with less, and Gradiant offers the tools to make that possible.
Anurag Bajpayee is keenly aware of the paradox that water, despite being vital, is often underpriced and undervalued, especially when compared to energy. “We don’t pay what it’s worth, only what it costs,” he told an audience at a recent conference. Yet, the landscape is shifting. Regulators, investors, and companies themselves are increasingly acknowledging water as both a business risk and a social responsibility.
What's Next for Gradiant?
Looking ahead, Gradiant appears poised to play a central role as industries adapt to water scarcity. Yet, Anurag Bajpayee remains cautious about the hype cycle. "The problem we’re working on isn’t going anywhere," he says. "It’s not a question of innovation alone, but of execution—of making sure these solutions actually reach the places that need them most."
In an era where water risk is increasingly material to business, Gradiant’s quiet, technically grounded approach may prove to be exactly what is needed.
(The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Eastern Eye. The publication does not endorse or take responsibility for the accuracy of any statements made by the author.)