Epic Confusion

What's in a name? Shikhandi! Dhritrashtra! Let's at least try and get our analogies right.

WrittenBy:Dr. Ashoka Prasad
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“Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is a Shikandi, says Prashant Bhushan” was the headline in nearly all the English and regional newspapers two days ago.

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I have had a few European visitors these last few days and they were intrigued as to who this Shikhandi character was and why did the comparison churn up such a violent reaction. And there were at least two among them who had a fleeting familiarity with characters from Mahabharata and what they were supposed to represent. The Shikhandi analogy was something new even to them. After my explanation, one of them guffawed while the other was shocked as to how debased the political discourse in India had become.

Since then of course, Prashant Bhushan has denied using the term while referring to the Prime Minister. And has stated that he was just pointing out that the UPA was trying to project Manmohan’s supposed probity as a shield against his wilful indifference to the corruption that was taking place right under his nose. If that was indeed the case, and I have no grounds to question Mr Bhushan’s version, then I would like to add that the analogy was perhaps inappropriate.

Like all of my generation, I grew up on the folklore of the Mahabharata which saw particular traits symbolised by each character. And we were expected to conform to the colloquial interpretation. Just one peep into the newspapers here and one would find analogies galore from the Mahabharata.

Before I move on to what I believe would be a more appropriate Mahabharata analogy, I shall delve a little into some of the egregious analogies from the Mahabharata in recent years which I can recall.

“Another Dhritarashtra comes to the fore”. This was the translation of the headline that was emblazoned on the front page of the regional newspaper, Amar Ujala on March 30, 2012 describing A.K. Anthony’s role in the recent shenanigans we’ve all been reading about.

I spotted the Amar Ujala headline while I was waiting at a lawyer’s chamber where a copy of today’s newspaper was the only reading material available. I was not actually sure how this comparison between the two characters – A.K. Anthony and Dhritarashtra – was legitimate, and therefore read the entire article. The purport was very clear. All those who while claiming total probity in their personal lives but being possessed of the tendency to overlook the corruption right under their noses were modern day Dhritarashtras.

The first was of course Manmohan Singh who was always making a point about his personal probity, yet continued to turn a blind eye to the scams that took place right under his nose. And now we had Anthony, who has been routinely touted as the cleanest member of the Cabinet, being caught out not taking any action when the Army Commander apprised him of another general who had made an egregious attempt to grease his palm. All he could do was to say, “Oh my God!” and cover his face.

The same day, I reached my afternoon clinic to find a copy of Jansandesh. And what do I find there? “Manmohan Singh has proven himself to be a modern day Dhritarashtra. And his Cabinet Member Anthony is taking a cue from him”, would be the rough translation from an article on page 4. This statement was attributed to a local politician.

Later on in the teatime bulletin on Sahara News which I happened to watch, I heard another politician –  a state BJP man that I had never seen on TV before – make the same comparison between Dhritarashtra and the Prime Minister, only a bit more forcefully.  Dhritarashtra Day indeed!

And only then did I begin to wonder how inappropriate and absurd this analogy was, and how poorly it reflected on the journalists in question as well as the politician-at least as far as their comprehension of the Mahabharat goes.

Let us consider the accepted facts of this sordid saga. Our Army Chief, General Vijay Kumar Singh had about 18 months ago approached the Defence Minister, A.K. Anthony, to apprise him that a Lieutenant General had approached him and indicated that he assist in the procurement of a substandard material for the Army, in return for a little greasing of his palm. The Defence Minister had expressed surprise and dismay. Up to this point there was consensus. Beyond this there is wide divergence between the respective versions of the Army Chief and the Defence Minister.

I am no expert on defence matters and certainly not competent to comment on the merits of the defence materials in question. But I must state that General Singh’s version seemed more credible to me primarily because the general’s commitment to the armed forces has not been questioned by even his most severe critics and to me it is inconceivable that he would not desire the clean-up of the stables – he has demonstrated that ever since he took over the office. Therefore, I am tempted to believe him rather than the politician here who may have had his own reasons for not wanting an enquiry. He waited and waited inexplicably and only when the matter came out in the public domain did he think it proper to refer the matter to the CBI.

And it certainly seems to be a familiar pattern with this government. Raja’s misdeeds were overlooked for an unacceptably long time by both the PM and the Finance Minister. It was only when the press started going hammer and tongs at the government and the Supreme Court started breathing down the government’s neck that it was forced to act. There have been other instances not only during UPA 2 but even during UPA 1 when the Prime Minister’s penchant for inaction was astounding to say the least, especially his inability to rein in his ministers. To start with, he never took any action against Mani Shankar Aiyar when it came to the fore that he was maintaining a residence in the illegally-constructed colony of Sainik Farm, even while remaining a Cabinet Minister. This was despite Aiyar not even making a secret of it as his Lok Sabha address at the time showed Sainik Farm as his residence. The PM did not see any inconsistency here. The Prime Minister also waited for days to sack a Minister from Bihar who had been declared an absconder, since he had gone missing to avoid criminal proceedings. His inactivity to act in cases of moral turpitude during the UPA 2 is fresh in people’s memories.

But do these lapses, both by the Prime Minister and his Defence Minister display a Dhritarashtra mindset? I do not think so. It betrays an improper understanding of the Mahabharat by both journalists as well as politicians. And if a Mahabharat analogy is to be sought, I do feel there is a prominent Mahabharat character which is a more accurate representation of what we are witnessing.

Like all others of my generation, I also grew up listening to tales from the Mahabharat in my childhood years. These discourses usually came during my boarding school vacations, from the family elders who in turn imbibed them from the pundits. We were expected to accept all the pundits had inferred and never question either the historicity of the epic or the infallibility of the message as the pundits presented them. I recall myself and my contemporary cousins having violent discussions over our respective understanding and morals we had supposedly imbibed.

To the rebel in me, the epic even in those days opened up more questions than it served to answer. I remember, for instance, how upset I was that almost all the characters except one or two represented a standard of morality that we were otherwise expected to shun. Yet the fascination remained. After all, how had this saga outlasted all the turbulence that Indian history represented? And later on when as a teenager hoping to embark on a career as a philosopher, I read Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan’s description of the Mahabharat as “a compendium of existing philosophies”, which I remember seemed very strange to me. According to me, Dr Radhakrishnan with all his erudition had got it wrong. Apart from the Bhagwad Gita there is no real philosophy in the Mahabharat. Instead it is a human enquiry offering an exposition of all the dilemmas we face in our everyday existence. Renowned Mahabharat scholar, Chaturvedi Badrinath, shares a similar assessment.

The character Dhritarashtra is supposedly not endowed with vision. He relies on others to explain to him the happenings around him and is so reliant on others for his survival that he expediently overlooks their grievous failings. To juxtapose that in the present political context, simply does not make sense. Manmohan Singh and A.K. Anthony both have independent credentials to sustain them reasonably beyond politics, should they wish. The fact that they choose not to is a conscious choice they make. Both can sustain themselves independently and neither suffers any physical handicap. They have both been known to take independent and bold decisions which have brought them kudos in their previous avatars. Therefore, to compare them to Dhritarashtra is inaccurate.

I would not even deign to comment on the Shikhandi analogy!

Now to the character I feel they most closely resemble. Do you recall a character in the Mahabharat who witnessed the public disrobement of his grandson’s wife and remained quiet? Yes, it is Bhishma who was witness to the most heinous crime – in my view – being perpetrated by his own grandchildren on his own granddaughter-in-law. The reasoning that was presented to me in those days – that he was beholden to the criminals – was singularly unconvincing. Vidur had the same handicaps as Bhishma but made his disgust and revulsion public. As did Gandhari.

Bhishma has always remained to my mind a dubious character and I could never feel for him any of the deference that was required. Even his celibacy was a result not of any conviction but a desire to satiate his father’s lust.

Returning to the current context, do we recall a character in our polity who is being presented as a model of probity but who chooses to remain inactive when confronted with virulent criminality on specious grounds such as a coalition dharma? I leave it to your imagination.

If the Mahabharat parallel must be indulged in by the media, I feel that Bhishma would be a more appropriate comparison. It’s surprising that journalists and others have not used it yet. After all, post-Independence India is replete with many such modern-day Bhishmas.

Remember who chose to overlook the infamous Jeep scandal to ingratiate VK Krishna Menon? It was the same Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, who was always uncomfortable with questions being asked in the Parliament about Pratap Singh Kairon, who despite his considerable achievements is widely regarded as the most corrupt Chief Minister in the history of independent India. It was Nehru who was never comfortable with the Mundhra scandal. And it was Nehru again who insisted on retaining Menon after the China debacle.

I suppose the analogy was never taken up because Bhishma is still treated with deference. But is it not about time we, journalists and ourselves looked into the matter more objectively and try and rid the country of the “Bhishma complex”? I am a firm believer that as we look upon Bhishma as an ideal figure worthy of emulation, it has blunted our capacity and motivation to deprecate the tendency to be indifferent to injustice and evil around us as this venerated character was.

Down with the Bhishma syndrome!

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