1090. Reservation and Dharma.....!

Life of every individual is different. Although there is no similarity our ancients never approved inferior and superior status. For the society to thrive, they knew very well every individuals contribution was must. The service of a teacher, physician, sewer, potter, farmer, barber, weaver, butcher, solider, sweeper and priest were needed for anyone to live a comfortable life in the society. There was no question of predominant or subordinate in the society, everyone irrespective of their contribution to the society was equal.

The way of thinking of the inhabitants was also so, they had understood the verse of Bhagavad Gita Chapter 5 verse 18 where Sri Krishna tells Arjuna:

Vidya vinaya sampanne brahmane, gavi, hastini,
suni caiva svapake ca panditah samadarsinah

Meaning: A wise man sees a learned and humble Brahmin, a cow, an elephant, a dog, a dog eater and all other living beings as equal.

We cannot say when we lost this Samadarshana (looking all as same). As we lost the mindset of looking all as same, we started to rectify it with Samatva (Equality). Now the real issue started instead of getting back the triat of treating everyone as the same we started to create a similar status to all. So the acceptance of the first sentence in this write up “Life of every individual is different” now changes to “Life of every individual has to be same.” In the rukus to create equality in society, Dharma (Justice) was snubbed. The Aarakshana (Reservation) stepped in creating even more discrimination and discontent.

There was nothing wrong in reservation as it was introduced to uplift those who were not looked at as same. But the fallout of this reservation was that Gaunya (Merit) was overlooked.  Reservation is for those who don’t have anything, who don’t have the most basic means of sustenance; it’s not for those who drive around in cars or travel first class, or even those who raise slogans to divide the very country which funds their free education. No community or a person should be branded backward. Politicians have used this divide to their favour to come to power.

The Mahabharata war could have been ended in 3 minutes because of Bheema’s grandson, Barbarika who was a brave warrior. He was blessed by Maharudradeva and bestowed with three powerful arrows. The power of the three arrows was such that, with one arrow he could mark all those whom he would wanted to destroy, the second one would mark all whom he wished to save. And with the third arrow he could destroy everyone marked by the first arrow.

When Sri Krishna came to know about the three arrows he asked Barbarika which side he would support, Pandavas or Kauravas. Amazingly Ahilawathi, the mother of Barbarika had advised him to side with the smaller army, so considering that the Pandava’s had a smaller army he said he would side with them. Sri Krishna knew that during the course of the battle whichever side Barbarika was would become huge and hence he would have to jump to the other side, this was a huge paradox. There was no Dharma in supporting the smaller or weaker side, thus Sri Krishna asked him his head so that his involvement in the war would be avoided. Before giving his head to Sri Krishna, Barbarika expressed his desire to view the war, leading to Sri Krishna placing Barbarika’s head on the top of a mountain overlooking the battlefield.

This story tells us that appeasing of any community or a section of people without following Dharma is not good.