December 25, 2015

Mahabharata 2014

Politics has never been my cup of tea. I have never been interested in it at any time during my whole life. I am fully conscious of the fact that I was subjected to it and was made to suffer helplessly and silently at various levels in my working life, social life and family life (particularly extended family life). Perhaps I am too simple-minded, a moron, who has not been bestowed upon such traits as are necessary for indulging and succeeding in this wily craft. On the contrary, I have been accursed with a very strange idiosyncrasy, which is hilarious at times and embarrassing at other times. When I see something, some person or some situation, I immediately get reminded of another thing, another person or another situation. There are times when there is a noticeable similarity between the two objects whereas on many other occasions, there is not even the faintest resemblance. Anyways I continue seeing things that way and am not able to help it.

I see Mahabharata in the political situation that currently prevails in India. I see it being re-enacted deliberately and shamelessly with such outrageous exhibition of hatred, animosity, abysmal indecency and evilness as would make even the original Mahabharata desperadoes look like angels. 

I call this new edition as ‘Mahabharata 2014’.

What are the various characters and situations that I see in ‘Mahabharata 2014’? 

I begin with myself. I see myself as Sanjay. I am only seeing ‘Mahabharata 2014’ being enacted and am reporting it dispassionately like a live broadcast of a cricket match sans any opinion or comment of my own. Since I am reporting to myself only, I become Dhritrashtra too. But I see another person who fits the bill for that role. He will come in and take over shortly. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the protagonist in ‘Mahabharata 2014’. Narendra means "lord of men" but to me it is "human incarnation of Indra”. Since Indra was the biological father of Arjuna, Narendra Modi is Arjuna literally and figuratively. I also see a marked change in character from the original. This latter day Arjuna is intrepid and is neither afraid nor reluctant to fight. His ambidexterity is characterized by a conspicuous singularity. He can take on and vanquish any adversary as well as any of his own. He is persistently accused of recalcitrance by friends and foes alike.

Another rather the most important feature of ‘Mahabharata 2014’ is the absence of Krishna. I do not see Krishna in any person nor do I see any person being capable of playing Krishna. Consequently Arjuna of ‘Mahabharata 2014’ is virtually without a sarathi (Charioteer)–the guide. Ostensibly for the records, the new BJP leadership has taken an initiative to draw upon the political wisdom and acumen of its stalwarts and to seek continued guidance from them. Accordingly, it has instituted a ‘Margdarshak Mandal” (Guidance Group) - a collection of select BJP stalwarts. But since ‘Margdarshak Mandal’ is virtually dysfunctional, Narendra Modi is bereft of the advantage of independent, frank and free sound political wisdom. He is therefore constrained yet happy to act as both Arjuna and Krishna.

Rahul Gandhi is the obvious pick for the part of Duryodhna. Sonia Gandhi automatically gets to be Gandhari. It is rather remarkable that the spelling of 'Gandhari' includes all the letters that form the spelling of 'Gandhi'. The two remaining letters in 'Gandhari' viz.  R & A could as well be expanded into Remorseless Aversion, the trait that she is currently exhibiting against Modi by scornfully condemning him as a personification of all things evil and branding him as 'Maut Ka Saudagar' (Merchant of Death) etc. etc. Alternatively, RA could be simply read as Rahul’s Amma or yet again taken as Robert’s Amma-in-Law.

In ‘Mahabharata 2014’, I see the Kauravas, the Pandavas and other armies in the present day Indian political parties, organizations, alliances and other outfits.

I see the so called ‘Saffron Brigade’ comprising RSS, BJP and NDA allies as the 'Righteous' Pandavas. And I see Indian National Congress(INC), Nationalist Congress Party(NCP), Samajwadi Party(SP), Janta Dal (United)(JDU), Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janta Dal(RJD), Mamta Bannerji led Trinamool Congress(TMC), Mayawati led Bahujan Samaj Party(BSP), Kejriwal led Aam Aadmi Party(AAP), all communist parties and any "Left" sympathizers and supporters as the opposing ‘sinister’ Kauravas. A large number of self proclaimed rationalists and secularists also overtly support the Kauravas.

I often see Atal Bihari Vajpayee as Yudhishthira, perhaps because he was the first non-congress politician who became prime minster of India. That was very much like Yudhishthira being anointed the king of the newly created kingdom of Indraprastha.

However, since Vajpayee is presently reported to be having serious health issues, is often confined to a wheelchair and fails to recognize people, I see Atal Bihari Vajpayee as the Bhishma of ‘Mahabharata 2014’. I pray to Almighty for blessing Vajpayee with a healthy extended long life. But taking it stoically, there is no denying the fact that ‘he lies on the death bed and will depart for his heavenly abode whenever he wills it’.


I see Manmohan Singh as Dhritrashtra. He was not even an MP when he got picked as Prime Minister. He has never been a member of Lok Sabha. The only time, back in 1999, that he fought an election for Lok Sabha, he was defeated by Vijay Kumar Malhotra of BJP. He continues to serve as a member of the Indian Parliament, representing the state of Assam (not Punjab! nor Haryana!! nor even Delhi!!!) in the Rajya Sabha for the fifth consecutive term since 1991.

Manmohan Singh ruled as Prime Minister for 10 years, not only with a near zero visual acuity but also complete virtual impairment of other faculties including those of speech and hearing. He was totally dependent upon and was directed by Sonia Gandhi in ‘managing’ the affairs of the state including his prime ministerial duties and obligations. Therefore, I am not at all surprised that I see Manmohan Singh as Dhritarashtra.

I see Lal Krishna Advani as Dronacharya. Though he belongs to BJP, he is not comfortable with Narendra Modi and has bewrayed signs of sympathy for opponents of Modi both within BJP and outside.

I see RSS and Mohan Bhagwat as King Drupada and Dhrishtadyumana. INC and its allies keep alleging that RSS is the master mind of the ‘Saffron Brigade’ and that all the battle plans and stratagems are worked out by Bhagwat & Co. I also see that it is not a coincidence that mouthpiece of RSS bears the name Panchjanya, the name of Krishna’s conch (See references 1 & 2 below).

I get confused because in Mahabharata, the real master mind was Krishna and Krishna alone. If RSS and Bhagwat were accepted as master minds, they would become Krishna. I reiterate that I do not see Krishna in any person nor do I see any person being capable of playing Krishna.

I am convinced that Narendra Modi is playing two roles viz. Arjuna and Krishna. But I do not see him succeeding as Krishna. I am concerned that owing to the absence of Krishna, I see that this war of attrition will not be ending any sooner.

I am confused with respect to Draupadi also. I see Draupadi in two ladies viz. Sushma Swaraj and Smriti Irani.

After BJP’s loss at the hands of INC, in the general elections in 2004, it was Sushma Swaraj who had averred  that ‘if Sonia Gandhi were selected as prime minister, she would wear white saris, shave her head, not wear any ornaments, eat only black gram and sleep on the floor so long as Sonia Gandhi remained prime minister.’ (see reference 3). I see this averment as Draupadi’s vow: ‘not to tie her hair until she has decorated it with the blood of Dushasana’.

Smriti Irani’s election campaign against Rahul Gandhi and their bitter war of words on ‘Twitter’ and other social media are well known. Therefore, it is alright that I see Smriti Irani as Draupadi. Anyway, I see Smriti Irani as Draupadi more often than I see Sushma Swaraj in that role.

Describe here below are some events which occurred during the past few years that remind me of some events of Mahabharata.

BJP’s victory blitzkrieg in assembly elections held in 2013 in the states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and BJP turning up as single largest party in Delhi assembly elections the same year, reminds me of  Rajsuya Yajna performed by Yudhishthira. I see Rajnath Singh as Yudhishthira.  Rajnath Singh as BJP president led the party during the above elections while Yudhishthira as the king performed the Rajsuya Yajna. I see that Vasundhra Raje, Shiv Raj Chauhan, Raman Singh and Dr. Harsh Vardhan led their armies a la Arjuna, Bhima, Nakula and Sehdeva (order of names is random and correspondence between two sets of names is unintentional).

And I see the biggest event of all: Narendra Modi being catapulted onto the national scene and taking centre stage. In fact, this event comprised a series of events: Modi getting inducted into BJP’s parliamentary board; his  getting appointed as leader of the campaign (subsequently rescinded) and finally the official declaration of his being selected as ‘prime ministerial candidate’ of BJP and NDA. In the culmination of this event, I see Narendra Modi morphing into Arjuna. I also see that this event caused a lot of heartburn within BJP and NDA. LK Advani’s sulking and smarting from being sidelined is well recorded. I see that the biggest fall out was that Nitish Kumar and JD (U) openly protested and that the alliance between BJP and JD (U) was broken and JD (U) parted company with NDA.

Narendra Modi as Arjuna was lapped up by people and how!!!

‘Ab Ki Baar Modi Sarkar’, ‘Har har Modi, Har ghar Modi’ ‘Achhe Din Aane Wale Hain’, and ‘NaMo’ became household sacred daily chants. Modi wave, rather tsunami hit the Indian electoral shores and swept state after state. And then came along the biggest achievement of BJP in its whole political life: BJP securing absolute majority in Lok Sabha elections in 2014. It was an unprecedented and unique first. Bravo!!! BJP had outdone itself.

I see that Modi reveled and excelled in playing Arjuna.

The Modi tsunami continued its devastation of the INC electoral fiefdoms. INC was comprehensively mauled in Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand. BJP came up with unprecedented electoral performance in J&K and annexed (shared) power in state government for the first time in the annals of history in J&K and India.

The success of BJP with Modi at the vanguard had two consequential effects.

1. INC and its allies and all left-sympathizers became alarmed and extremely worried. They saw the specter of total annihilation staring them in the face.

2. Some adherents of BJP became overconfident and overzealous. They started behaving as if they had come to possess a magic lamp, mere rubbing of which would summon a genie, who would do their bidding and would accomplish any task they could wish. They over indulged and did some acts which they misconstrued to be populist among Hindu masses. These acts did not help BJP and Hindutva. They had contrary effect: the self proclaimed secularists and anti-communal (read anti RSS and anti BJP) forces got further alarmed. The roar of the victory juggernaut of Modi and BJP served as a wakeup call for the self proclaimed ‘secularists’ and ‘anti-communal forces’. Hitherto, most of these disparate entities had no love lost between them and were at loggerheads and daggers drawn with one another. A lot many of them had been sworn enemies of the INC. But now they identified one common enemy: Modi.

I see this ‘unholy’ alliance of anti-RSS, anti-BJP and anti-Modi forces as Samsaptakas of ‘Mahabharata 2014’. In Mahabharata, Samsaptakas were the bravest of the Trigartas, who, led by their King Susarman, had taken an oath ‘to either kill Arjuna or die in that attempt’. After taking their oaths, they performed their own funeral rites, for they well knew that their chances of victory were slim, and that death was almost a certainty. (See Reference 4)

I see that in the meanwhile, Modi took yet another avatar. He became Abhimanyu in addition to being Krishna and Arjuna.

Another event that keeps coming to my mind is Delhi Elections-2014. I see it as ‘Dyut Kreeda and Draupadi Cheer Haran’: the gambling game and the attempted disrobing of Draupadi.

BJP gambled by delaying Delhi elections. The delay gave an opportunity to all anti-BJP forces to rally together and it gave them sufficient time to plan and implement their strategies. Since for them it was a ‘do or die’ situation, they focused on a single point agenda - that of defeating Modi (and BJP). Aam Aadmi Party and Arvind Kejriwal were supported overtly and covertly by INC and others with all their might in all manners and forms including financial, social, organizational, logistical, disinformation, propaganda and even muscle power)

BJP lost the game. The margin of loss (67:3) was nothing short of stripping in the public. BJP became Draupadi and Arvind Kejriwal became Dushasana. Since this time round, Krishna was not there to come to her rescue, Draupadi had to suffer ignominy. I do not see any BJP member as Bhima. I do not know whether this humiliation would be avenged any time soon and wonder as to when BJP would be able to regain its honour. 

I see yet another event: Bihar Elections 2014. Opponents of Modi and BJP had learnt their lessons well from Delhi elections. It had dawned on them that Bihar was the final frontier. They had come to realize and were afraid and that if Modi and BJP were able to conquer Bihar, all other states (except Tamil Nadu and perhaps Andhra Pradesh) would easily fall into the lap of BJP. Therefore, they temporarily buried their differences, capped their larger than life egos and stitched a Mahagathbandan of unlike minds. They got a lucky break. They were able to hire Prashant Kishor, who was rumoured to have been ditched unceremoniously by BJP after Lok Sabha elections. Prashant Kishor in his new avatar became Dronacharya who would organize a Chakra Vyuh. Nitish Kumar was already mightily miffed with the selection of Narendra Modi as NDA’s prime ministerial candidate. He lamented under his breath that he had been denied a ‘rightful’ opportunity to lead NDA and to become Prime Minister of India. In the wake of this happening, Nitish Kumar had already transformed into Karna. At the same time, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Mamta Bannerji, Maya Vati and others who were slated to face BJP’s onslaught in the near future were seeing Modi as Abhimanyu in addition to seeing him as Arjuna. Their pledge of support to Nitish Kumar was equivalent to their volunteering to join the coterie of ‘Seven Maharathis’, the seven warriors who were instructed by Dronacharya how to thwart Abhimanyu’s rampage. (See Reference 5)

I see the defeat of Modi and BJP in the Bihar elections 2014 at the hands of Mahagathbandan with tacit support from others as ‘Abhimanyu Vadh’ (slaying of Abhimanyu).

Will Modi and BJP be able to avenge this defeat? Only time will tell.

I am not blessed to see the future. I see only the present and am able to recollect and reflect on the past.

I see a few more characters in ‘Mahabharata 2014’. I do not know why, but I see Lalu Prasad Yadav as Shakuni. Perhaps, I subconsciously believe that in the dice game that the Bihar elections also was (in addition to Delhi 2014 elections), Lalu was able to gimmick the dice with the controversy he created in the wake of Bhagwat’s remarks on reservations in general and reservations for backward classes in particular. He also loaded the dice with proclaiming himself as the champion of the downtrodden and spearhead of fight against ‘communal forces’. He was able to manipulate the dice to do his bidding. It is no wonder that RJD outsmarted even JD (U). What this Shakuni will do with Karna is also something to ponder for Nitish and JD (U). Lalu will be in no hurry to forget the treatment that was meted out to him by Nitish and JD(U) till Mahagathbandan was stitched or rather till the seat sharing arrangements were finalized. Lalu is certainly not a votary of ‘forget & forgive’. Jungle Raj may as well have its second coming.

I see Lalu as Shishupal, given his predilection for using all kinds of epithets, insinuations and invectives for BJP in general and Modi in particular. There are other claimants to the role of Shishupal. The latest is Arvind Kejriwal. He has had the gumption to call Modi ‘a coward and a psychopath’.

Of course, the original claimant to the role of Shishupal is Mani Shankar Iyer who is a known communist and a proud BJP/RSS hater. Iyer calls himself a ‘Secular Fundamentalist’ and does not hide his pathological hatred for RSS and BJP. He spews venom against RSS and BJP and anybody who professes to be a Hindu.

He is a known acolyte of Gandhi family. He feigns to be indebted to Gandhi family because of the support he received from Rajiv Gandhi at Cambridge when he entered student politics and fought a presidential election there. Though Rajiv Gandhi was his junior at Doon school and Cambridge, Mani Shankar Iyer must have done crystal ball gazing and seen him as a potential Prime Minister and in turn must have found it worth his while to hitch on to Rajiv Gandhi. He is a classical example of ‘More Loyal than The King’. After Rajiv Gandhi’s death, he continues his loyalty with Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and INC. I also wonder that with his communist leanings and professed interest in Grass Root Democracy, why he is not a member of communist party.

Mani Shankar Iyer is a master of the art of irritation. He seems to be drawing sadistic rather psychopathic pleasure in spawning controversies. I do admire his command of English language and his gift of the gab. But I wonder that with the kind of language he employs and the manner (see the contortion on his face) in which he articulates his highly biased views, why is he almost a permanent fixture in debates and discussions on some TV channels. Since in his latest interview to Pakistani Dawn News, he has virtually sought Pakistan’s help in ‘removing Prime Minister Narendra Modi from power, to be able to continue peace talks between India and Pakistan’, I see him being tried for sedition / treason.

I have been also wondering about the ‘Yadavas’. I was not able to understand why RSS, BJP and other Hindutva votaries are anathema to these supposed descendents of Krishna. I dug into Mahabharata once again to seek the answer. I found that in the original epic, a number of Yadva clans had always sided with Jarasandha who was the father in law of Krishna’s maternal uncle Kansa. Kansa was slain by Krishna which made Jarasandha a sworn enemy of Krishna. In fact Krishna had to leave Mathura and move to Dwarka in Gujarat to save Yadavas (of Mathura) from Jarasandha’s attacks. Jarasandha was also a friend of Karna and was in turn sympathetic with Kauravas. A number of Yadva clans who owed their allegiance to Jarasandha, automatically became allies of Kauravas.

Again, it is notable that when both Arjuna and Duryodhana approached Krishna for seeking military support, Krishna obliged both of them by agreeing to help. At the outset, he affirmed that he himself would not take up arms and fight. Then he informed that he would divide his military help into two parts. He further informed that
  • One part would comprise only him and that too without weapons.
  • The other part would comprised his Narayani sena.
Arjuna was given the first chance to choose. He chose the weapon-less non-fighting Krishna. Duryodhana registered his protest against not being given the first chance to choose but was, in fact, happy to take Narayani Sena. Consequently, Yadavas fought on the side of Kauravas and against the Pandavas. They are thus ordained and destined to fight against RSS and BJP.

 I also see a minor irony in this ‘Mahabharata 2014’. Krishna had to run away from U.P to Gujarat, Modi came from Gujarat to U.P to fight and win the election and establish himself as ruler of Delhi, the latter day Indraprastha.

I do not see any end to this ‘Mahabharata 2014’. This war of attrition is likely to continue at least till 2019 or till the time BJP/NDA has control over both houses of parliament or loses control over both houses, whichever is later.

And I am sure to see more things and shall report at opportune times.


References:



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