The Lament of the Half Golden Mongoose
Is it possible that the State that is supposed to protect
the small fish against the big, may on occasion, sympathise with murderous predatory fish roaming the
territory ? Is it possible that many may witness the hunt passively because
their attitude may be poiltically expedient ? One does not, ofcourse believe in
such a degree of idiocy, but during disturbed times the absence of other
plausible explanations justifies considering it.
This is how Ved Vyas in his great epic Mahabharat muses about an ancient fratricidal war that wiped
out entire families . Truth, he finds, absolute truth, is the first casualty.
In this epic, the family elders, great generals and diplomats and priests watch
the willful dismantling of Raj Dharma by the powerful mutely . Their appalling
self serving silence at that point broken by some of the smallest and seemingly
most insignificant and ordinary creatures from the working world and nature
indicting them harshly for relegation of their Dharma. After all it is hardly
debatable that while butchering and setting of men, women and children on fire
is going on the state must exercise its monopoly of power to intervene swiftly
and decisively. And the individual’s right to protection by the ruler must not
be sacrificed to the god of popular sentiment !
Towards the end of Mahabharat comes the awesome tale about a
strange mongoose sniffing around the area where a jubilant Pandava king,
Yudhishthir ( also known as Dhrm Raj or the king of Dharma) has just performed
the glorious Rajsuya Yagna signaling his arrival on the throne after a long war
. The lowly mongoose with half his fur gleaming gold, comes to the site where
the fire sacrifice has been performed and as the amused citizens watch, begins
to roll in the ashes . While they are wondering at his strange behavior, the
mongoose stands shaking the ashes off his fur and yells, “Fie upon you, Dharm Raja,
for this your great Rajasuya Yagna is a sham ! If you had really earned the
blessings of gods, my remaining fur would have also turned to gold . Years ago
in the year of one great drought I happened to be in the home of a hungry
farmer and saw him and his family feed their last meal to an unknown starving beggar and court death . After witnessing
this great act of self abnegation I rolled in the tiny patch where a few grains
of the last meal lay scattered, and half my body that touched it turned to gold
. I thought the rest of my fur would also turn to gold if I rolled in the
remains of your regal Raj Suya Yagna. But nothing has happened . O Yudhishthir,
you killed your Raj Dharma when you killed your own brothers to get to the
throne, so you may mount great and glorious rituals but they will not generate
good will . Dharmaraja indeed !”
The mongoose’s ghost is roaming the streets of India once
again in the shape of a woman called Teesta . She who had once defied the
Emergency by working in an underground magazine Himmat (Courage), is now
pursuing justice for the victims of 2002 riots . In a country of over a billion
she is among the few to ask the mongoose question : Why did the State, despite
its monopoly of power, fail in its most basic duty to protect so many from
extreme violence and left them to be slaughtered on the streets as the police
watched mutely? She has, understandably
been facing the most suffocating pressures and ugly innuendoes for the past
thirteen years. But she and her brave band of supporters have not allowed that
fratricidal carnage to be pushed out of
public memory . Make no mistake. The criminal revision petition she has been
chasing on behalf of Zakia Jafri, is not
just about the riots in a housing society where Zakia’s husband was dismembered
and killed by a violent mob. It is about the much larger issue of Raj Dharma or
what the jurist Indira Jaising calls the doctrine of Command Responsibility.
According to Hindu scriptures, the final answerability for all
great acts of sin or redemption, Paap or Punya, must lie with the leadership in
the Rajya, धर्माय राजा
भवति न कामकारणाय तु, मान्धातारैव जानीहि राजा
लोकस्य रक्षिता(A Raja becomes a Raja only to uphold the Raj Dharma and to
protect the people, not to do as he wills. )says the sage Angiras to Mandhata.
It is not Teesta but Raj Dharma, that is on trial. We need
her as the post Mahabharata war India needed the half golden mongoose.