Social prejudices get so ingrained in people that even Yudhishthira fell victim to it, writes KAVITA SHARMA, taking a leaf out of the Mahabharata
Between the Conception
and the Creation
Between the emotion
and the response
Falls the Shadow.
—T S Eliot
Injustice and conflict, whether in Europe,USA or Asia,give a sense that something is giving way and spinning out of control. Is a new order emerging out of the old or is it a world gone mad, ‘swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight;where ignorant armies clash by night’? As a student of the Mahabharata,the thought took me to Draupadi’s humiliation in the Kaurava court.How could Yudhishthira,the son of Dharma,stake his wife Draupadi in a game of dice and watch even as the Kauravas attempt to disrobe her and humiliate her in court? What about the other venerables gathered there — who remained mute witness to this violence? The first question is about the dignity of a woman.Is woman,man’s possession? Does he have the right to own her and use her as a stake? Of course, this question can also be asked in the context of Yudhishthira, son of Dharma, gambling away his four brothers in the game against Duryodhana.Does he own his brothers just by being the oldest? Can the latter find some mitigation because they are all a part of a power play in the quest for the throne of Hastinapura? But why Draupadi? Yudhishthira using her and the complicity of the Kaurava clan in her humiliation, reveal that they had no concern for the selfrespect and dignity of women.
What aggravates this further is the subconscious or even conscious anger they feel towards the woman of substance who challenges set notions of what a woman is supposed to be — and who threatens the traditional hierarchal structures and their concomitant power play. This kind of resentment against strong women is evident all around us in society even today.At least one factor responsible for the increase in the number of cases of violence against women is anger at the crumbling hierarchical relationship between men and women, in which traditionally, women have been subjugated by men who have demanded and usually been given unquestioning obedience.A recent case in point is the heinous murder of the feisty Pakistani model Qandeel Baloch.She was killed by her own brother who says he does not regret the act, as his sister was posting ‘shameful pictures’ on social media. Education and the consequent professional rise of women, the falling of male bastions, political visibility, economic independence, rights of inheritance, and laws for the protection of women are some factors that make some men feel less important. In such a situation, while new societal, legislative and judicial structures are put in place, their implementation is often ineffective.This is because many of those in charge of implementation do not subscribe to them — consciously or subconsciously.These include some women, who might have internalised archaic ‘values’ and made them their own. Draupadi raises some questions about Yudhishthira:Whom did he lose first, himself or Draupadi? The implication is that if he lost himself first, he, being a slave,had no right to use her as a stake in the game of dice.The question raises a dharma conundrum, because if Yudhishthira had no right over her, she was free, although still at the mercy of the Kauravas, and if he continued to have rights over her, she was enslaved.
Either way, it would leave Draupadi vulnerable to exploitation. The question really pertains to interpretation of dharma or law and how it is to be implemented. Both depend on values that a society accepts as relevant. That is why the same laws are interpreted differently not only by different courts but even by the same court at different times, even when the facts involved are similar. Yudhishthira remains silent.Vidura, Dharma incarnate, makes a feeble protest and asks Dhritrashtra to stop the game. He fails. Bhishma passes the buck of interpreting the law to Yudhishthira when he says that dharma is subtle, thereby failing in his duty as guardian of the throne and, hence, of the people. Only Vikarna protests unambiguously and strongly, but no one pays heed to him including Bhishma and Dronacharya. The injustice meted out in court seems atrocious but it is not an unfamiliar one.Taking a cue from the Mahabharata, one answer could be that when ethics give way to expedience and those in governance are motivated by lust for power and wealth, the structures of governance remain but become hollow from within.Without ethical governance,people become vulnerable to exploitation.
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