Silence is not always Gold

India has been in a state of continuous crisis for the last few months!

Mahabharat and its hero’s come to mind, now especially, since I just recently finished reading this wonderful book called “The Glass Palace”……about Draupadi’s life.

The epic’s lament and the things about our leaders! The epic is a continuing repository of crisis in public morality…..just as our problem of governance and our institution(s).

And what is at stake .,….in the epic and now……success!

Raja, the un-hero of today and Yudhisthira the un-hero of the epic – I don’t think its possible to be both successful and good? No high status can be conferred to a person who is honest and kind.

And to top it all ……”silence” is at the heart of the problem …….today and as was in the epic !

Today our squeaky clean selfless PM has to silently preside over one of the most corrupt government!

In the epic, Bhishma remained silent when Draupadi was being disrobed. When she questioned the “dharma of the ruler”, everyone remained silent AND then it was Vidura who spat out at the immorality of silence! He is believed to have said that ‘half of the punishment goes to the guilty; a quarter to his ally; and another quarter to the silent”.

CWG-gate, Raja-gate, Radia-gate….et al - have shamed us before the world.

The purpose the epic’s war was to cleanse the earth, which was groaning under the iniquity of the rulers.

Should our own leaders (political and others) prepare for the same fate that befell the epic’s hero’s?

“The things we admire in men – kindness, generosity, honesty, openness, understanding and feelings…are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest – sharpness, greed, meanness, egotism and self interest – are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first, they love the produce of the second”…famous lines by John Steinbeck

And this is what seems to be the root of the present crisis in public morality.