Written and illustrated by Sahana Kumar – a grade 5 student of Hiranandani Foundation School, Powai

Many nations and communities are and have been in a war with each other. I wanted to document that, so I have drawn a map of the world describing all the wars between some of the nations, religions or communities who live in the world.

While drawing this map, I intended to depict the countries showing
friendship, respect and love towards each other. I also drew little
aeroplanes to show that they are at peace with each other in an ideal
world.

I’m going to describe some of the conflicts I depicted one by one.

China and the Uighur Muslims: The Uighurs are a group of 11
million Turkic Muslims who live in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region
in north western China. The Chinese have lately been constructing
high security prison camps to hold the Uighurs under surveillance.
The Chinese government has always claimed that these are
re-education camps to make them follow communism but they are
actually detention camps where the Uighurs were beaten because
of their religion.

Pakistan and India: India has been fighting with Pakistan since
the times of the partition and we have also had many wars with
them, notable among them the Kargil war.

India and China: India and China have have had many skirmishes, both being the leading powers in Asia. When Tibet was fighting for her freedom against China, the 14th Dalai Lama fled over the Himalayas and asked for
asylum from India. Once China got to know of his escape, it asked
India to give him up. But the Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal
Nehru, refused. Hence China attacked India and the
Indo-Chinese war began.

Sun Yang and Mack Horton: In the men’s 400 metre Freestyle at
the World Aquatic Championships in Gwangju, South Korea, Sun
Yang stood atop the podium with a gold, while the silver medalist,
Mack Horton, stepped down from the podium and stared straight
ahead. Horton was protesting against what he believed to be drug
violations by Sun Yang. Later, the three time Olympic gold
medalist was banned for 8 years by The Court of Arbitration for
Sport for refusing to give a doping sample in 2018.

Argentina and Great Britain: What the British call the Falkland
islands are known as Las Malvinas in Argentina. It is an offence in
Argentina to have a map that describes the islands as anything
other than the ‘Islas Malvinas’ and all primary schoolchildren are
taught to draw the two main islands- east and west. The British
were caught off guard when Argentine General Galtieri ordered
an invasion of the ‘ Lost Little Sisters’- which was regarded as a
great success, until the British took back the islands again.

Mexico and the USA: Mexico and the USA have always fought
over the matter of illegal migrants crossing over the border. Each
year, thousands of migrants die trying to cross the border. Read
more about this here .

USA and erstwhile Soviet Union: USA has always been
mistrustful of the Soviet Union’s leader, Joseph Stalin, and his
tyrannical rule over his people. These feelings died down after
they were allies in WWII, but rose again, so the Cold War
started. The Vietnam war started when their rivalry was at its
peak. The US still does not trust the USSR, (now split into Russia
and many other countries), but knows that it is the leading power
in the world and that Russia will never rival it.

Ukraine and Russia: The war in Ukraine started in Kiev, where
there were protests when the president declined a deal for
integration with the European Union. After the police used
violence to subdue the protesters, more people protested. In
2014, the president fled the country. Also in 2014, Russian
troops annexed Ukraine’s Crimean region, before annexing the
whole peninsula after Crimeans joined the Russian Federation.
President Vladimir Putin said that he did this to protect the
Russian citizens and Russian speakers in Crimea and southeast
Ukraine. Since then the situation has cooled down but cross
border skirmishes still continue sporadically.

I have drawn doves to depict bringing peace to the world and
beseeching the nations to maintain good ties.

In the picture, I have quoted Robert Frost’s line “Good fences
make good neighbours” from the poem Mending Wall . To suit my
drawing, I have changed it to “Good walls make good neighbours”.

Written & illustrated by Sahana Kumar
Sahana is an avid reader, likes politics and history and geography. She swims competitively. She loves art. She is a student of Hiranandani Foundation School, Powai and is currently in Grade 5 and would mostly move to Grade 6 without writing her exams!