“AUGUST KRANTHI DIN” – 9 August 1942

9 August is a very important date in the history of the world. On this day, many significant things have happened. Two events are outstanding, which showcase the human heart, its resilience to fight injustice, and also its depravity masked as goodness. The resilience of our hearts is a reflection, even though a poor shadow of what was originally intended of us, as people created by God; and depravity is a glaring and glowing indication of the fallen human state, as people ruled by the prince of darkness.

August 9 is a historic date in the Indian independence movement, marked by the launch of the Quit India Movement in 1942 – also known as August Kranti Din – August Revolution Day. This single event turned the tide of non-violent resistance of Indians against the colonising British Empire, inspired and spearheaded by Mahatma Gandhi.

William Wallace is a hero to the Scots and to the world, because he fought for the Scottish independence from the enslaving rule of the English kings in the First War of Scottish Independence at the Battle of Stirling Bridge in September 1297. Yet, the very same Scots worked for the goals of British Empire, helping it rule over the colonised lands, including India. 
– “Following the 1707 Act of Union, Scots played a disproportionate and influential role in British India as administrators, soldiers, merchants, engineers, and missionaries. Famously described by Sir Walter Scott as a “corn chest for Scotland,” India offered lucrative career opportunities for younger sons of Scottish gentry and professionals.” – Gemini AI

The second incident of concern and our meditation is the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Imperial Japan on 9 August 1945. This is how the Christian History Institute records this incident.
– 9 August 1945 – “The United States drops an atomic bomb on Urakami (Nagasaki), killing many Christians. One who survived was Fujie. She found her cousin Sojiro so burned she could only guess who he was from the shape of his lips. “Ah, Fujie,” he [Sojiro] said. “Take me to the church…I want to confess to the father. I want the sacrament.” After helping him to the priest, she went back to search for her mother but discovered that the elderly woman, who had spent much of her time in prayer, had been vaporized.”

The records that were hidden over these 80 years are tumbling out like the proverbial skeletons from the cupboard. Here are some of them.
– “Over the following 12 months, some 290,000 people died. Eighty years on, these appalling tragedies demonstrate how nations that begin conflicts as champions of the rules of war can, without intending to do so, end up justifying the mass killing of innocent civilians.” – Dennis Glover – Sydney Morning Herald
– “it was decided [USA] to burn Japan’s highly flammable wooden cities to the ground by dropping thousands of tons of incendiary bombs – essentially huge canisters of napalm. One by one, 60 of Japan’s largely undefended cities were torched. The worst raid, in Tokyo on March 8, 1945, saw between 80,000 and 104,500 people burn to death. Across the country, 267,000 people [ordinary civilians] were killed in the firebombing campaign.” – Dennis Glover – Sydney Morning Herald
– “Redefining civilian targets as military ones, it was emphasised to the public [in the West and the world] that every targeted Japanese city had an army, air force or naval base nearby, and that backstreets were full of small-scale industrial workshops. By this sloppy and dishonest process, streets densely packed with non-combatant civilians were transformed into legitimate aiming points whose destruction was crucial for winning the war.” – Dennis Glover – Sydney Morning Herald
– “Historian Richard Overy argues in his new book, Rain of Ruin: Tokyo, Hiroshima and the Surrender of Japan, that *political and military leaders [of the West] in 1945 understood full well that the indiscriminate bombing of Japanese cities was morally unjustifiable and politically unsustainable, so developed a work-around through a determined and consistent public relations campaign.” – Richard Overy – Sydney Morning Herald

What was the reason cited and propagated for all this carnage? 
– “The U.S. bombed Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, to force Japan’s unconditional surrender and end World War II without a costly land invasion.”
This was not the complete picture. Many unbiased historians see that Japan was completely destroyed by 1945, and it did not need an atomic bomb to defeat it, just some patience and tact in negotiating a surrender.

The pattern for subjugating and decimating the enemy is not new to the world. It is the result of our fall and the subsequent surrender of human soul to the Devil. Only the LORD Jesus Christ can break our yoke of slavery to the Devil, and set us truly free.
– On 09 August 1765 – English founder of Methodism John Wesley wrote in a letter: ‘You have but one Pattern; follow Him inwardly and outwardly. If other believers will go step for step with you, well; but if not, follow Him!'”

People who were truly touched and transformed by the LORD Jesus, will become His disciples and His ambassadors. Such individuals, groups and nations will be missionaries and never mercenaries. What the colonial West has done in the past 500 years is there for all to see.
– 09 August 1788 – Birth of Adoniram Judson, American Baptist missionary. He first sailed to Burma in 1812, and spent nearly all of his remaining 38 years in missionary and literacy work there. Judson translated the entire Bible into Burmese by 1834.
– 09 August 1883 – Death of Robert Moffat, pioneer missionary to southern Africa. The father-in-law of David Livingstone, one of his achievements was to translate the Bible into the Sechvana language.

The world is in desperate need of Christ the LORD’s ambassadors and missionaries…not the mercenaries whose sole aim and purpose is to suck the blood of others, to enrich themselves, their people, their groups and their interests. May we as Christians learn to follow the LORD Jesus, who “Quit the Ways of the World” in purchasing our redemption through the Cross of Calvary, where He willingly chose to shed His blood and lay down His life.
– “​1 Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.” – Ephesians 5:1-2
– “8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light 9 (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), 10 finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. 11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret.” – Ephesians 5:8-12

Let us quit the sinful, wicked and evil ways of the world. The world believes in certain principles, and therefore their conduct. As Christians we are called to believe the LORD Jesus, and walk faithfully and obediently in the principles that He Himself espoused, practiced and preached. Even so, the LORD help us.