The villain in Hindu narratives is not evil but is just someone frightened and clinging to wealth, power and throne.
Rahul Gandhi identifies his party, INC, with the Pandavas and ‘truth’, and Modi’s party (BJP) with the Kauravas and ‘power’. The Pandava/Kaurava binary is Hindu and mythological, aimed at the ‘Bharat’ vote bank, while the truth/power binary is standard western Left liberal, aimed at the ‘India’ vote bank.
One can imagine, before the 2014 elections, Modi saying something similar — he, the meritorious outsider, fighting against the entitled prince. Every one imagines themselves to be Arjuna when reading the Gita! Everyone insists they are fighting for dharma, which continues to be mistranslated as righteousness.
The binary divide, be it Pandava/Kaurava or truth/power, is essentially western, similar to popular binaries like God/Devil, privileged/unprivileged, have/have-not, right/wrong, good/evil, heaven/hell. It assumes a grand finale. A happily ever after. Or should I say, ‘acche din’? This is the linear paradigm, which Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism do not subscribe to.
In the Indic paradigm, there are no full stops, only commas. There is no armaggedon. There is no ‘judgement day’. There are only never-ending battles between devas and asuras, with alternating victories and defeats. The devas are the entitled residents of celestial regions and the asuras are the residents of the subterranean regions who feel tricked, denied and cheated of paradise.
The Mughal painters, and later the European orientalists, saw the devas as ‘gods’ and asuras as ‘demons’, and Amar Chitra Katha carried this misreading forward. But in the Puranas, they are two sets of children with a common father, Rishi Kashyapa, but different mothers, Aditi and Diti. The devas are privileged as they received the offerings of the yagna; the asuras are unprivileged as they do not get the same offerings and so fight the devas for it, or seek to disrupt the yagna itself.
From this mythic understanding comes the Hindu maxim ‘vasudhaiva kutumbakam’, which means ‘the world is my family’. Contrary to popular assumptions, this is no happy family. Here brothers, like the devas and asuras of the Puranas, fight over paradise and yagna. Here brothers, Kauravas and Pandavas of the Mahabharata, fight over property, just like Vali and Sugriva of the Ramayana. This is the primal conflict. Democratic elections every five years remain a fight for vote share. Brothers are still fighting like dogs over meat, neither willing to share or collaborate. Each one wanting the lion’s share.
The heroes of Hindu narratives are not true/good. They are simply humans who are able to overcome their imagined fear, albeit for a moment, and are able to be generous and share the world with their brothers. The villains are those who are unable to do so. The villain is not evil (a word with no translation in any Sanskrit- or Tamil-based language). The villain is just frightened; in fear, he clings to wealth and power and throne, like a dog clinging to its bone, a child clinging to its toy comforter. That is why Ram is not angry when he is shooting arrows at Ravana; nor is Krishna angry with Duryodhana or Bhisma or Drona, who are consumed by their insecurities. He is like the divine parent dealing with a terrified hence unreasonable child. Understanding this bhaav is key to understanding Hindu scriptures.
This bhaav is missing from Rahul’s speech. Understandable, the RSS and the BJP will say this is becasue he is the son of an Italian Christian mother. But the RSS and the BJP, Modi included, do not show this bhaav in their speeches. The fiery rhetoric of an evangelist ready to cast out the Devil is more their style. Actually, it is everyone’s style in a modern democracy. It is what wins souls, and votes.
You don’t see Rahul breaking down, like Arjuna at Kurukshetra, at the sight that he is attacking his own brothers and cousins and family members. You certainly don’t see Modi weeping at the thought of having to insult Manmohan Singh, or unleashing troll armies against those who say anything against him. Both of them subscribe to the modern reading of the Mahabharata. The binary of Pandava/truth and Kaurava/power is more Christian and western, than Hindu or Indian. This epistemological framework is at the heart of Hinduism, and Indianness, not the cosmetic saffron.
Here, we need a king who is like Vishnu, who gets the quarrelling devas and asuras to give up the tug-of-war and churn the ocean of milk and bring Lakshmi to everyone’s life. A Vishnu who eventually lets Kauravas get a seat in paradise, alongside the Pandavas, helping them appreciate the true meaning of family.
Devdutt Pattanaik is a mythologist, and author of the book ‘Boys Who Fought: The Mahabharata for Children’.
I enjoyed reading this and the observations of Aditi Mahajan. Illuminating! I like the Devdutt binary of good and evil (Aditi needs to take the further step of making a syllabus for Devdutt and others). Vishnu, by the way, tricked the asuras in the samudra-manthan he references. He appeared in the form of Mohini in order to wrest control over Amrita from from the asuras and gave it to the devas. See Vishnu Purana, Chapter 1, 109. But I even liked more Aditi’s simple assertion – one free from Devdutt’s sophistry – that India is a democracy that needs no “king” but better institutionalization of democratic values and methods. No argument there and no need for more to say!
Cheese is useful to eat – protein. Chalk has calcium but not recommended for consumption. But that’s the comments. I strongly disagree with Devdutt that western philosophy is not nuanced enough to go beyond binary of good and evil. He needs to read more. His assignment for next one year. But more than that: India 1. Doesn’t need a “king”. It’s not a monarchy. 2. Doesn’t need ‘Vishnu’, who sits in judgment of devas and asuras and dispenses heavenly fates. India is a parliamentary democracy. It doesn’t even need Modi or Rahul Gandhi to be relevant after two years. THAT is a western idea, more specifically,an American idea of one President to rule them all. It is perfectly possible – that NDA led by Sushma Swaraj (if Modi Shah don’t sabotage her) and a Cong of Jyotir Scindia or an Ashok Chavan or a Selja Kumari name them the next Prime Minister. Don’t lean on Indian philosophy to decide today’s politics. Indian democracy is not binary. There is a third front, and within Congress and BJP there’s enough evil and goodness mixed anyway. Yes, congress and BJP might get separated on the oldest fault line of Vaishnavites and Shaivites if the two sets of jokers go down that path: Shiv bhakts and Ram bhakts. I wish these were stories in books, and India had a decent economist in charge who didn’t come with baggage of bad law n order and religious riots. Who understood economics and was kind and didn’t scream that much. Oh, that was Manmohan Singh! And we insulted him! So, yea. Let these morons fight on Ramayana and Mahabharata while the world has progressed to Harry Potter. Patnaik will dismiss it as western philosophy. It’s the only true belief system in the world that’s making sense right now. Hinduism was taken over by Modi and he killed the religion and philosophy in one go, just by claiming it as his own.
Well written, there are no full stops, only commas, as long as we understand this we can make our lives and life around us beautiful
please do not equate rahuls intelligence to modis .it is like equating chalk and cheese.
an interesting reading of the scriptures and understanding . still there are so many ifs and buts. krishna showing the vishwarupa only to arjuna which no one else could see. why brahma vishnu and shiv only took the side of the devas in fight against the asuras. asuras are elder to the devas and are against the worship of vishnu or shiv. but still ravana and his brothers prayed to shiva to grant them powers. ravana was a just ruler so why was he discriminated against.one can go on and on…..
let the new dawn begins, let the chapter of indian History have a page titled as ” the Dawn of a new Era”
Lets get it started
“The villain is not evil (a word with no translation in any Sanskrit- or Tamil-based language).” Excellent!! Thanks for sharing this beautiful piece. Also noticed your brief profile at the end, and placed an order on your book.