The politics that has forgotten its raj dharma has become ruthless and is attacking the ancient civilisational ethos of our country. We can find greater congruence between Hindutva and political ideologies of Mussolini and Hitler. Sabka sath, sabka vikas has become khas admi ka vikas. It has unfortunately privileged the neo-liberal corporate. The weak, the poor and the downtrodden have every little or no space in Modi’s new India. Artha without dharma is ruling the roost and has even degenerated into an unbridled kama as lynching mobs and raping goons seem to enjoy a free run in our society. Dharma seems to have been long dead and what we are left with is a mad chase of artha and kama. We seem to be happy with a this worldly moksha defined by greater accumulation of wealth and power. Recent events in Goan politics are also not far removed from this predicament of our country. The resignation of the two MLAs of Congress once again demonstrates the lack of raj dharma at all levels of political life in our society. This has brought up a question: has our ballot box become a road to unfreedom? Our political establishment has rejected the way democracy is and is thrusting on a democracy that they wish to construct. We too have become partners in this silent murder of democracy. A little money (artha) will give us pleasure (kama) and we will sacrifice substantive democracy by voting those who have no regard for the welfare of our people. Hence, it may be important to reflect on the meaning of dharma to assess its loss and trace ways of its recovery so as to save democracy in our country.
The term Dharma cannot be translated. There is hardly any semantic equivalent to it in English. It has been said to mean duty, virtue, righteousness, religion, law and host of other things. It has been specially associated with the performance of Vedic rituals by group of people who are called Brahmins. It thus includes rituals and moral behaviour. Its Sanskrit root ‘dhr’ means to hold or sustain. It is believed that dharma maintains social, moral, political and economic order. In its primary sense the word dharma stands for the essential nature of things without which they cannot exist. Thus, for instance, fluidity is an essential nature of water. Similarly, heat is an essential nature of fire. Likewise the term dharma also stands for the essential nature of human. It is in this realm that it acquires moral significance. The Upanishads for example teach that the essential nature of humans is divine when they teach that atman is Brahman. This realisation is said to be the ultimate aim of human life. It means that the way we conduct our life reveals this fundamental principle in life. Dharma thus, becomes an obligation to live in congruence to the way things are and not the way we wish them to be. Understanding and living in accordance to one’s true nature is the summum bonum of life otherwise one is living adharmic life. The refusal to see that world as it is and seeing it as one wishes to see it is at the bottom of most of our problems and may be viewed as the basis of adharma.
The reflection on dharma/dhamma of Buddha is urgently required to understand and respond to the complex ways that we have subjected ourselves to adharma in our society. We seem to fail to accept the way things are and force upon the realty the way we wish it to be. We seem to want the reality to become our wish fulfillment. Chakra Samhita seems to propose that a person who is faithful to dharma is sane and happy. This mean one who is able to live with things as they are is a sane person. This suggests that one who is in conflict with the things as they are is insane. Such a person is described as Swasthaya (self-stable). This means the one who deviates from dharma is abnormal or even insane. We also seem to have a similar definition of abnormality in Kashyapa Samhita. That the ancient Indian scholars were precise in their definition of insanity (Unmada) is a plain truth. The falling away from dharma is not just a decent into adharma but is also a loss of sanity too. Now the question is: who is insane? Our political establishment has failed to accept the essential nature of democracy and thus have stepped into adharma. By setting the reign of adharma, they have also descended into insanity. But this drama would not have played out successfully if we had not embraced adharma and become insane. We too are engrossed in the pursuit of artha and kama without the light of dharma . If the corruption of Congress was adharmic , what makes both crony capitalism and communalism of BJP dharmic? This does not save the local political parties from the general decay afflicting our politics. Their pragmatic politics of taking the side of the wining horse as is the case in Goa is also not free from adharma. All in all with fear and trembling, we may come to realize that we are living in an insane society that is driven by politics of self interest of various hues and colours. Though the west celebrated madness as next to something divine (we can find this being taught in the writings of Plato as well as historical research of Michel Foucault, in his book, madness and civilization) , with the advent of Modernity, insanity came to be understood in opposition to reason and a mad person became demonised as irrational. We too have steadily moved to this reason /unreason binary in our society. This may have impoverished our understanding of its linkages with a life of harmony and equilibrium sought through dharma. Our plight is serious as we have institutions, cultural organisations and political parties that publicly pose as upholders of dharma but unfortunately have fallen into the darkness of adharma. Hence, we need to urgently face our collective insanity and look for therapy . Otherwise, our ballot box will continue to be a road to unfreedom.
(The author is Professor of Rachol Seminary)
