March 10, 2008	Monday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 1, 1429

Archives Write to Mr. Jawed Naqvi

In the days that the TV serial Mahabharata became a rage in India, many families in Lahore, I am told, and other places in Pakistan that could catch the Doordarshan transmission, would sit glued to the box on weekends when some of the popular episodes from the Hindu tradition were broadcast. There would be those of course in Pakistan who had read the Bhagavad-Gita and followed the story of the epic war with all its deep statements and rivetting subplots. However, that still leaves out too many people who heard Prime Minister Manmohan Singh describe his predecessor Atal Behari Vajpayee as the Bhishma Pitamah of Indian politics but remain confused about its true implication. At one level Dr Singh would appear to have a Pakistan-like model in mind where two or more pro-American parties are trying to come together in a common cause against their common detractors — the rightwing mullahs in Pakistan and the leftwing communists in India. At another level it could be a clever effort to break opposition ranks by wooing a key leader away from them.

No one really knows the precise imagery that Dr Singh had in mind when he likened the controversial Mr Vajpayee to a respected character from one of India’s most revered mythologies, but one obvious possibility is that the reference was to the sagacity of Bhishma Pitamah, who was an equal elder to all the key protagonists on both sides of the battleground — for though he sided with the villainous Kauravas in the war, he remained a father figure to the Pandavas, the eventual victors of the battle. Dr Singh’s plea to Mr Vajpayee to reach out from across his corner in the opposition to join hands with him on the nuclear deal with the United States, the context of the comment, has caused all-round confusion. Just a few days before Dr Singh’s address in parliament, Mr Vajpayee’s aide and former national security adviser Brajesh Mishra gave his “personal approval” to the deal, a view that was at variance with the BJP’s official line of opposing it. So something is brewing.

Given the interesting analogies our parliamentary debates throw up and also because the prime minister’s Bhishma Pitamah remark lends itself to even more interesting interpretations than the obvious one, it would be useful to know a bit of the character being discussed. We all know that a great battle called Mahabharata took place between the Kauravas and the Pandavas. Thousands of people died in the war, and the Pandavas defeated their cousins, the Kauravas. Bhishma Pitamah, their uncle, was fatally wounded in this battle. King Yudhisthir, eldest of the victorious brothers, asked Lord Krishna, mentor of the Pandavas, whether they should go and see the dying warrior. Krishna told the Pandavas not only to go but also seek Bhishma’s pardon and to seek his guidance in politics about how to run the new government. Pandavas with their wife Draupadi went to visit him. Bhishma Pitamah was surprised when they asked his guidance in politics.

It was then that Draupadi was caught smiling to herself, a tinge of sarcasm crossing her gentle visage. Upon Bhishma’s insistence Draupadi recalled how the sagacious man had remained mute and passive when she was being insulted by the Kauravas in their palace, when they tried to disrobe her, after winning her from the five husbands in a game of dice, but failed because the cloth kept growing thanks to Krishna’s divine prowess. She taunted the dying Bhishma for his policy of silence at her humiliation and its contrast with his present advice on politics to the Pandavas to be fair and honest to their subjects.

Bhishma’s reply to Draupadi should send Dr Singh scurrying to the kitchen to prepare a lavish meal for Mr Vajpayee. But before I clarify why he should do so, it might be useful to go through the records of the no-confidence motion that Mr Vajpayee had tabled against the Narasimha Rao government, in which Dr Singh was the blue-eyed boy of the cabinet. And it is curious that Mr Vajpayee had quoted in the course of his no-trust speech from the Mahabharata where he described Mr Rao as the blind Kaurava king Dhritarashtra. It was Mr Vajpayee’s apparent reference to two senior ministers, possibly Messrs Arjun Singh and Sharad Pawar, as two villains from the Kaurava family who had surrounded the blind king that got a tart reply from Mr Arjun Singh, who is seen as a perpetual thorn in the flesh of the BJP. Remember that the discussion was taking place after the BJP had led the demolition of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya.

Mr Arjun Singh’s barb at Mr Vajpayee in the Lok Sabha was withering:

“Referring to a historical incidence, you have tried to make a taunting remark about when Dushasan and Duryodhan were sitting on either side of Dhritarashtra. I would like to ask you whether you know only this much of Mahabharata? Don’t you know about the last moments of Bhishma Pitamah when he had given his last preaching to everybody?” And the next speaker recalled the last moments of Bhishma for Mr Vajpayee. That speaker was socialist leader Mr Sharad Yadav. “Everybody looks to the past with his own angle,” he said.

“The stories of Mahabharata were read by Shri Atalji and Shri Arjun Singhji with their own respective angles. Atalji has rightly said that the present prime minister is surrounded by Duryodhans and Dushasans and Arjun Singhji has referred to the teachings of Bhishma Pitamah. I am also starting my debate with the teachings of Mahabharata, which I have read with my own angle. Bhishma Pitamah was lying wounded on a bed of arrows. My two colleagues here have narrated this episode of Mahabharata with their own angles but I have my own point of view…There was a character in Mahabharata, who bore insult, pain and distress. She was Draupadi. When Bhishma Pitamah gave his sermon, Draupadi laughed sarcastically. It hurt Arjun (one of the five Pandavas married to her) who was closely attached to Bhishma. He asked her the reason for her laughter. At this Lord Krishna who was guide and philosopher of the Pandavas, commented that she was not an ordinary woman as she always spoke with the courage of her convictions. When she was asked about the strange occasion for her laughter she said that the man who was giving great sermons to the Pandavas, never acted upon those principles.”

Bhishma Pitamah’s reason for his silence at Draupadi’s humiliation is considered even by his admirers to be a chink in his moral armour. He tamely explained to Draupadi that his culpability in the crime was the outcome of his eating the food given by the Kauravas. Just what was wrong with the food is a subject of interpretations. But let us say in common parlance that having eaten the Kaurava salt so to speak, which had made him forget his duty, he could not protest the outrageous act committed against her. However, now since his impure blood had been shed in the battle and he was now preparing to die of his many wounds, the impurities of the Kaurava food too had been expelled from his system. That was Bhishma’s explanation to Draupadi for his strange silence at a crucial time of the narrative. The question in today’s context is: who did Draupadi resemble in today’s Indian politics, someone surely that Mr Vajpayee had let down. Who is Arjun, who pays obeisance to Bhishma, and who is Krishna in the metaphor of today’s issues? Moreover, is it true that the Mahabharata between the Congress and the BJP is getting over and a new alignment is nigh? These are some of the questions that Dr Singh will have to explain to the MPs as he rustles up a fine meal for Bhishma Pitamah, so that both together could influence the course of Indian history. The interest in the great Indian legend on both sides of the border is not about to wane.

jawednaqvi@gmail.com