The inevitability of Vidurs’ in every age and era–Why the absence of Vidurs’ in today’s politics is so palpably felt.

Vivekanand Jha, RNchi. As I watched the proceedings in the court of Dhritrashtra, in
Hastinapur, on the ongoing repeat of serial Mahabharta, where the
epitome of wisdom, Vidurjee, the Prime Minister of the king
Dhritrashtra, I could hardly help but marvel at the outspokenness of
the man who, despite all the court members, many of whom were the Yug
Purush like Ganga Putra Bhisma, Acharya Dronacharya and Kripacharya,
maintaining an enigmatic silence at the demoralising and morally
degenerating spectacle of Duryodhana’s naked exhibition of
hegemonistic jingoism, when he had ordered his brother Dushashan to
disrobe Draupadi, stood out as the flag bearer of the social values
that a decent and civilised society would champion. But then I
wondered, why wouldn’t Vidur, like other wise members who deemed
silence as their potent weapon to escape Duryodhana’s ire, would have
abstained from so strongly protesting the outraging of the modesty of
the queen Draupadi, so as to continue to curry favour with the tyrant,
Duryodhana? After all, I wondered, what benefits did Vidur get, in the
wake of lashing out at notorious Duryodhana? But then the realisation soon dawned on
me: Those who are really enlightened, cannot simply be the
cheerleaders for an action that transgressed moral and ethical
compass that society had already fixed as its Lakshman Rekha. Hence in
the given backdrop, the action of Vidur, notwithstanding the enigmatic
silence of others, was compatible with the behavioural conduct of an
enlightened man who speaks truth, irrespective of consequences. No
wonder Vidur’s outbursts, in the wake of breach of Lakshman Rekha, by
the Kaurvas, warranted men of conscience, let alone those who held the
reputation of being Yug Purush, to rise in instant protests against
the misdeeds that were unleashed in Dhritrastra’s Durbar. However,
another question continued to trouble me: After all, what was the
outcome of Vidur’s strongly lodging his vehement protests against the
onslaughts unleashed against the weak woman who, given the
circumstances encircling her, was far hapless to insulate herself from
the humiliation that she was subjected to? On the other hand, if
Bidur, suppressing his moral and ethical urge, had reconciled to act
in a docile manner, feigning not sighting the horrible sight of
disrobing of Draupadi, as other novels present there did, would he not
then, guided by sheer expediency, have remained mute and consequently
would have earned the deluge of encomiums from Dhritrashtra as well as Duryodhana? However, Bidur chose to do otherwise, he, far from being
petrified into silence, reacted sharply against the ongoing crisis of
human values in the society and consequently set a precedent for the
human society that should learn to protest against the erosion of
moral and ethical values.

Chanakya was a Bidur to Chandragupta Maurya. He would stand as a
bulwark against any moral injunction placed for the welfare of the
society Many a times, Chanakya would simply prevail upon the killer
instinct of Chandragupta Maurya, and even participated in perpetrating
crimes that the civilised society would feel detestable and
abhorrent. It so happened that Chanakya, since Chandragupta’s boyhood
days, would inject poison in him to make him stronger. Once, albeit by
mistake, Chandragupta’s queen, mother of Bindusar, had erroneously
consumed the poison, resulting in her instant death. Incidentally, the
queen then, was in advanced pregnancy, and Chankaya, rather in an
inordinate exercise of blunt cruelty or blatant insensitivity, ordered
the piercing of the stomach of the queen to take out the foetus.
Bindusar was born in that unconventional manner. Therefore, a version
goes that Bindusar never forgave Acharya Chanakya for the same, and
was reported to have him killed at the later stage. Also, Bindusar,
never had a close affinity with his father Chandragupta and
consequently never took any step in building a large monument for his
father on his death spot–Chandragupta Maurya died while living a life
of a hermit in Karnataka, in a cave where he meditated. Barring this
aberration, Chanakaya always acted as Vidur whenever it came to
protecting the interest of Magdha. Even, while ordering for the taking
of foetus from the bosom of queen, Chankaya was overwhelmingly
concerned with the legitimate heir to Chansragupta Maurya.

India, in the wake of independence, chose Parliamentary democracy
where the Prime Minister was the head of the state( the ceremonial
role of President as the constitutional head of the republic
notwithstanding). Starting from Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru to Dr Manmohan
Singh, had appropriately comprehended and adequately appreciated the
role of Vidurs’ in their midst. Interestingly, in a democracy too, the
authoritarian streaks of leaders, if not kept in balance, degenerate
into fascism in no time. Indira Gandhi, during emergency, intoxicated
by the feelings of her own indispensability, the very inevitability of
Vidurs’ in politics, was kept in abeyance, if not swept aside.
Nonetheless, Indira trusted her close lieutenants who breached her
trust–Siddhartha Shankar Roy, her close confidante, who helped her in
drafting of the Emergency proclamation–disowned her in no time when
Morarji government had started the witch hunting exercise. But even in
distress, Indira had respectfully followed the advice and counsels of
her Private Secretary P.N.Haksar who, like Vidur, always stood between
her and the masses. he would even fight with the mighty Prime Minister
whenever he thought Indira Gandhi was going in the wrong tracks.
Indira Gandhi, despite her well known hubris, could seldom ignore the
counsels of Haksar. Indira had even trusted Pranab Mukherjee, who
claimed to have graduated into politics only learning under her
leadership where he worked as India’s Finance Minister. No wonder
Indira Gandhi, despite her despotic attitude at times, suitably
recognised and accommodated the role of Vdurs’ in presiding over the
state of affairs of the nation.

21st Century World, in bizarre uniformity, has produced the galaxy of
leaders who are omniscient themselves. Starting from Trump, the
president of the most powerful nation—presently China is seeking its
own claim over the tag of being the most powerful nation on earth, in
the post- Corona phase–thinks that Corona virus can be contained by
injecting the bleech in the bodies of patients. Such is the audacity
of these jokers that they even do not consult their advisers before
uttering such nuisance. Back home, we have an omnipotent and
omnipresent Prime Minister whose access to infinite is barely on his
finger tips—recall how our mighty Yogi, in the guise of Prime
Minister, with the full camera view, reconciles to go for meditation
in Kedarnath cave, just after the General Election. Alas, I wonder,
had there been no cameras to click, would the mighty Yogi, wrapping
saffron cloths around his body, would at all have made such a
fascinating spectacle for public consumption? Yes, Modi the magician,
loves to do all this stuffs to make his hordes of Bhaktas to go
berserk. Interestingly, our Prime Minister so much obsessed as he is
with his omnipotent image that, he gave a clarion call to the nation
that people should vote for all the 543 constituencies presuming that
he alone was contesting from all these seats, in both 2014 and 2019.
Why would Modi treat his 303 lampposts as equal to him when he knows
that they are there in Parliament with all his blessings? Small
wonder then our omniscient and omnipresent Prime Minister has little
or no importance for Bidurs’ and, therefore, none ever dare to play
the role of Vidur before him. None of his Cabinet Ministers can dare
consider his colleagues; in fact they are nothing short of his
subordinates who make an obsequious beeline for his favour.

Significantly, when an omnipotent Prime Minister presides over the
destiny of the nation, the importance of any expert, at best, becomes
the things of the past. No wonder even such an important ministry like
that of Finance, is not being assigned to a professional economist,
but to a decent lady who enjoys close proximity with the omnipotent PM
and can be expected to obsequiously surrender her valued judgment to
him. Nation too, is least concerned when it is assured that they have
one man show–an omniscient Prime Minister whose magic will finally
cure the pandemic like Corona, not by the medical treatment, but by
banging Thalis and lighting wicks, why would they be at all concerned
if the economy takes the nosedive? They have increasingly come to
believe in Modi the magician, who can do wonders, even though the
magician is yet to pull the single rabbits from his hat, not the Prime
Minister Modi. Adding to the further drama, such economic wizards like
Yashwant Sinha, Raghuram Rajan, are burning their midnight oil to
offer their wise counsels for bringing the economy back to rail, yet,
the omnipotent Prime Minister is least affected by such words of
wisdom, for they hardly find acceptability from the man whose own
perception is the final truth, not what the experts say. Ironically,
the nation stands bewildered by such omnipotence that finds its
manifestation everywhere when millions of workers are dying in
starvation when the million tones of corns are lying dumped in
government godowns.

Unequivocally then, this is the time and era of omniscient and
omnipresent leader dominating the polity. Significantly, when India is
in spell of a snake charmer whose charming the nation with his magical
spell of conspicuous presence in ‘Man ki Baat’, a monologue session
where he communicates with the nation —-he alone is the speaker
while 1.30 billion audience are the listeners–none has the
opportunity to question their omniscient leader. After all, why would
they question when they know that they are taking sermons from a demi-
god, not from the Prime Minister, why would they question; they can
only cheer their leader while he takes the entire nation of 1.30
billion of people to cloud nine, to the heaven, at least till the time
his magic of Man ki Baat goes on in Doordarshan. They know they are
listening to the magician of the century whose immense power lay in
vanishing Corona, not from any vaccine but by banging Thalis and
lighting wicks. They know that their leader’s immense power in
banishing pandemic, Corona, was so plausibly followed by the other
parts of the world, why would they need to question their leader’s
bizarre moves to improve the condition of their people? Press
conferences, they know, were meant for lesser mortals, lesser Prime
Ministers and Presidents–after all, Modi’s predecessors were not
omnipotent and omniscient, they were lesser being and thus needed to
answer the questions posed. In the era of their omnipotent leader,
what the people of India see never baffles them: those standing in
queue for buying wines, can afford such luxury while millions of our
brethren at the bottom of pyramid are dying out of starvation. Never
ever the gulf between the haves and have nots has been so starkly
visible as it could be seen in the long queues for buying wines and
hooch. Therefore, when the voice of dissent and dissension, is
dismissed as anti- national, where even those, fighting against all
odds, underscore the growing disparities within the country, are being
outright dubbed as Urban-Naxals, the chances of Bidurs’ raising their
voices against the omnipotent and omniscient leader is getting lower
and lower. No wonder then Twenty First Century India, prizes and
covets the cheerleaders and not Bidurs’, Ironically, the inevitability
of Bidurs’ in every age and era, stands debunked in this era of
omnipotent and omniscient Prime Minister presiding over the destiny of
Bharatvarsha. But, sooner than later, the realisation of the
conspicuous absence of Bidurs’ in Indian politics will be increasingly
felt.