Netflix is known to be a platform with an agenda. According to the story as told by Vedavyas ji Sri Krishna goes step by step thinking aloud that Drona can be defeated only if he casts away his bow and arrow which he would do only if Aswatthama dies. And Aswatthama cannot be killed as he is immortal but if somehow the message of his death is conveyed this may affect Drona. On being questioned how can such a message be conveyed as this would be a lie, he comes up with the strategy of killing the elephant and the rest. Then he leaves the final choice to Yudhisthira and Bhima to take it or leave it. It is therefore a half truth. The point here is either the Pandavas keep their hands totally clean and be regarded as Mr Saint while Dharma and the nation falls with Duryodhana continuing to run the kingdom like his personal fiefdom to satisfy his lust and ambition or else to accept the fire of hell for oneself but save humanity and dharma? What should any man with an awakened conscience do? What would any person with little reason and common sense do when the destiny of a civilisation is at stake because the strong and the mighty stand blatantly with adharma? You see dharma is the centre here, not rules and regulations and personal prestige or the fear of hell etc. Mahabharata is a hindu dharmashastra, not a Christian gospel of saintliness and moral rules. Dharma is not a set of moral rules but very simply all that helps the individual and humanity advance one step forward. That is what we see beautifully portrayed in the Mahabharata.
Life is not a standard rule book for all times but a constantly evolving manifestation where truth and falsehood are intertwined with each other in such a way that falsehood uses truth to fulfil its evil intentions. Besides, war has its own dharma and strategies to dishearten and disarme the enemy is part of it. That is how the great Shiva ji won using guerrilla warfare giving a false impression to the Mughals and Pathans. Should he have left them to overrun the country as the ‘Mahatma’ might have done. Should Hanuman ji and Lakshman ji would have waited till Meghnada finished his yagya that made him invincible? Should Rama taken on Bali the brute beast in a hand to hand combat or better cleared the way to usher a more humane way of life in Kishkindha? These and so many other moral dilemmas are brought out in the two greatest epics of all times. Most of all the dilemma of Arjuna before the battle. Where morality ceases to provide the answers there the higher spiritual law, dharma, intervenes. This higher spiritual law and its workings are not bound by human rules and regulations just as human beings are not bound by the unwritten rules of the jungle where might and instinct are right. Human beings use their intelligence. So too the spiritual intelligence uses Wisdom to fulfil higher ends. In the end what matters is not so much the act but the motive, the intent, the larger purpose behind. Soldiers do not kill as mercenaries do though both use strategy, even deception. But what makes one a martyr and the other a terrorist is the intent behind their act. One kills to defend his nation in a war, while the others kill innocent unarmed civilians to enforce their hard religion upon everyone. It is the intent that is paramount, not the act in isolation to the rest of the story. One has to see things in a total context and background and not in isolation.
Affectionately
Alok da
