Ashwatthama

7 August 2019

No other personality evokes as much controversy as Drona’s son. Actually I constantly say this that only a person who does not know ‘tharka’ logic of Dharma can anoint the Awards for Teachers in India after Drona. Because Ashwatthama was to be Drona’s Achilles heel. First the offering of powdered rice water as milk to the child made Drona so guilty that he approached Drupada and sought to share his throne! Next Drona homed in on Arjuna even as he ensured he taught his son more by giving him a wide necked pitcher, by teaching him skills more than the other Pandavas and Kauravas. After this to maintain Arjuna’s preeminence, he ordered Ekalavya who merely mentally accepted Drona as a guru to cut his bowstring thumb! But Drona’s plans were short lived, because Karna the disciple of Parashurama came and proved an equal to Arjuna. It was only after Arjuna was taught by Shiva and offered celestial weapons by Agni, that he was able to better Karna in battle.

So Ashwatthama was used by the Pandavas under Drishtadhyumna as a ruse to force Drona to abandon the fight, which he did when Yudhisthira called out his son’s death, and in the heat of battle, the guru adopted the yogic pose and Sanjaya says his soul had cast off his body even before Drishtadhyumna came to cleave his neck off from that adamantine frame! So Ashwatthama came to haunt the Pandavas, as he reduced their camp in the Dreaded Night after the war was won, leaving no survivors! That bloodbath not enough, he unleashed the Brahmastra on all unborn children, and it was Krishna who saved Abhimanyu’s unborn child in the womb of Uttara, allowing the safe birth of Parikshit. The spoilt brat was cursed, and will wander festering with sores, fomenting disaffection for times to come!

Now can you find echoes of Mahabharata in the current mood of the country, where prejudices and pretences allowed us to create this monster of Article 370, where we felt that Kashmiris were living on our dole for eternity, exploiting their stupendously beautiful land, allowing us to visit like aliens and rubbing it into us, while usurping the gifts of Pandits and Buddhists? So finally when Article 370 was maimed by the body blow of State of J&K Reorganisation Act 2019 between 5 and 6 of August, it was not like a drop of Little Boy over Hiroshima that we make it out to be…

‘Picture Abhi baki hai mere dost!’

Dharma always alludes to the seed. If the seed is poison, if it is camouflaging the real intentions, if subterfuge is deployed, Dharma says that it will not bear the intended long term fruit. The Mahabharata is about Dharma, about how eventually the Pandavas took their stand and the Kingdom was handed over to them, their progeny took it forward after the blood bath at Kurukshetra. It was as Vidura explained to Kunti, Dharma, in the form of one who was called ‘silent’ ‘weakling’ one without guile, who was not capable of scheming like his opponent Duryodhana, Yudhisthira who ensured that Dharma tilted the scales at the great war! If you look at pre-Vaishnava text sources for the Mahabharata like the one I did in Markandeya Purana, Krishna is there, but his role is not the one he assumes now. The Pandavas were considered as the elemental assimilation of Supreme Divinity, and Draupadi their Supreme Consort. So when Dharma protects Dharma, Dharma protects Dharma, धर्म एव हतो हन्ति धर्मो रक्षति रक्षितः is both an allegory and a philosophical statement.

Now are the actions of our players in accordance with Dharma. I am not talking here of the Dramatis Personae of politicians and executives, I am simply talking of the thousands of faceless, nameless people who use the platform of social media to express their views on the issue. Since Kashmir is clamped down we only have rest of India’s views as of now. The views are broadly based on: 

*Grave misunderstanding of Article 370, projecting the same as a matter of applicability of Indian laws, when only a few exceptions operate in J&K like the 1872 Contract Law ( because J&K already had one, being a pioneer in contract labour in Asia, with her carpet and winter clothing industry).Protective element to special regions operates as Article 371.

*Assumption that only in J&K non resident Indians cannot buy property, for  simply under the 1972 Tenancy Act, the Government of Himachal prohibits non residents from buying property in that state. Similar protective provisions for locals in terms of governmental opportunities, subsidies and ease of business operate across India, are in some form or other, only if we seek to dig them up, especially in territories that were absorbed into British India from other European Powers or Frontier territories.

*Belief that J&K was plying us dry, exploiting national resources disproportionately as a percentage of GDP when actually two Hindi Heartland states of UP and Bihar were the biggest culprits, diverting copious national resources to their upkeep.

So the national vent across ages was built on these gross misunderstandings, assumptions and beliefs, and an atmosphere unwilling to accept facts or rational arguments to counter them. Social media was full of people saying that thanks to changes in 370, they can now marry Kashmiri ‘girls’, they can own land in Kashmir, that now Kashmir will be flooded with investments and stuff like that. People like Mr Vivek Agnihotri said now he would be able to settle in a hill and operate an institution there, exactly what Nehru warned during a debate on 370 in 1963…(https://scroll.in/article/665862/myth-no-1-about-article-370-it-prevents-indians-from-buying-land-in-kashmir) There was a joke that whether you swing a property or vehicle loan for a houseboat on the Dal Lake!

There were educated well informed people pooping on this narrative, some saying that now Companies Act will apply for example, conveniently forgetting that Short Title and Extent says it is already applicable in its very enactment. Many people including the Hon’ble PM and Cabinet Ministers praised the young MP Mr Tsering Namgyal from Ladakh for having his say in Lok Sabha, when it would have been equally befitting to hear what Farooq Abdullah the sitting MP from Srinagar constituency, Kashmir said to media persons at the gates of his residence, in that very House(Lok Sabha) in that very moment, wouldn’t it! After all if the Government had so desired, it could have been arranged, couldn’t it? The words of Dr Farooq would have entered the records, that even at what he described as Kashmir’s darkest hour, he had faith in India!

We know what ever happened was not ‘form’, but beyond the politics, what the past two days have shown is the ugly underbelly of the average Indian. Whether it is because he/she is poorly informed or because of intentions, I have no doubt. I am of the view, that now Indians by and large revel in bigotry. We have so internalised it, that the lines of Dharma are blurred before our eyes. We are ready to grab the fruit, and we care two hoots for the manner in which the fruit was obtained or whether we are intended recipients of it! But today, in this hour and moment, we are delirious and merry like Drishtadhyumna was after slaying Drona! It is a fulfilment for many of us and so gratifying to see this happening in our very life time! So India, a nation beholden to Dharma now treads on wheels that are not six fingers aloft the earth… now she treads wheels that grind the very earth, riding rough shod over every thing in its path!

The soul hangs heavy, trying to console itself, that perhaps there was no gentler path to this. May be we as a collective just built up to this moment when we erupted in this atmosphere where actions were paramount, where ends justified the means!

Ashwatthama, now wandering has acquired a companion! He greets with hysterical laughter the soul embodiment of India’s Dharma, and hopes she will give him company for the ages ahead, while she pines for her people’s love and recollection, and hopes her journey with the accursed wanderer is short lived!