Campaign dharma and the reluctant warrior

If you have been following the Munnar panchayat elections, or not, you might have done a double-take at the name of the candidate the BJP is fielding – Sonia Gandhi. And if you only heard of it now, don’t worry, this is not a bizarre high-level defection. The candidate’s father just happened to be a huge Congress supporter, while she married a BJP supporter and happened to join his party. Goes to remind us – we might think ideological differences are irreconcilable, but real lives are messy, and roles shift all the time. Why, even Krishna, who was so firmly on the Pandavas’ side in the Kurukshetra war, gave his entire army away to Duryodhana.

Whoever wins the panchayat election, based on their name, party symbol, or something else, the real challenge with the government is in actually effecting change. Since we are already on the Kurukshetra war, I was thinking of how difficult it was to actually get Arjuna to fight. Krishna, god himself, gave him an eighteen-chapter exposition on a variety of matters to get him to quit feeling sorry for his relatives and fight the war. First, he told Arjuna that the soul is eternal, and the body is subject to death anyway. So what does killing someone in battle really mean? And then, he told Arjuna how to perform actions such that the resultant sins don’t attach to them.

He even revealed his vishvarupa, the cosmic form, which showed Kaurava warriors, including Bhishma and Drona, gnashed between the teeth of Krishna, who stood as Death personified. Krishna essentially told Arjuna that his opponents were all dead already, killed by Krishna, and Arjuna only had to be the instrument. After all this, Arjuna conceded that his doubts were resolved and he would fight the war.

Then Yudhishtira, with his brothers, went to Bhishma and the others and asked for their blessing. And they blessed him with victory, even as they recognised that entailed their deaths. And then the war began. Bhishma, the grandfatherly figure, transformed into the formidable warrior who wreaked havoc upon the Pandava army. The twang of his bow was terrifying, and Pandava soldiers were fleeing at the sight of him. Krishna told Arjuna the time had come to make good on his promise of ending all his opponents. Arjuna agreed. Arjuna broke Bhishma’s bow twice in a spurt of enthusiasm, and Bhishma was impressed. The grandfather in him emerged again, and he congratulated Arjuna – “I expected no less of you, my child. Well done!” Perhaps that made all of Arjuna’s sorrows rise again, and he began to fight feebly, resisting injuring Bhishma.

Bhishma had no qualms about attacking Pandava soldiers, or even Arjuna and Krishna themselves. At this point, Krishna finally lost his patience with Arjuna. Without even addressing him, Krishna said aloud to another warrior, “I shall kill Bhishma and end the war myself today. I will win the war for Yudhishtira single-handedly.” Krishna leapt off Arjuna’s chariot, carried a large chariot wheel and marched towards Bhishma, who welcomed death.

Arjuna, filled with guilt at attacking Bhishma, was now filled with more guilt at the prospect of causing Krishna to break his vow of not fighting in the war; he clasped Krishna’s feet and begged him to desist, promising to fulfil his earlier promises in earnest. Krishna finally relented, and we know the rest of the story of how Bhishma fell in battle.

Just imagine, if it took god so many tries to get one very powerful warrior to actually fulfil his war campaign promises – what will it take for us to get campaign promises fulfilled once officials get elected?

The writer is the author of How to Love in Sanskrit and likes writing new things about very old things.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.