In the previous episode, we had witnessed the continuation of Bhishmachaarya’s accord on “Raaja-Dharma” and within that, he is explaining thirty-six important qualities of a leader. We’ve seen around sixteen to seventeen of them, and in yesterday’s episode, we had witnessed how a leader should avoid taking help from an enemy or from a person following “Adharma”, even at crucial times. We’ve seen several examples in this accord, with regards to King Shalya and Bhagawan Krishna. On one hand, we saw how King Shalya right royally walked into Duryodhana’s trap by consuming his food and drinks at a critical hungry time, while on the other, we saw how Bhagawan Krishna expertly avoided Duryodhana’s hospitality and instead went and stayed with Vidura. While King Shalya had to be on Duryodhana’s side during the Kurukshetra war as an obligation of accepting his hospitality, Bhagawan Krishna never had such problems, even though Duryodhana tried playing tricks on Him to somehow bring Him to the Kauravas’ side.
Moving on further, Bhishmachaarya narrates the next important pointer. Here he says thus, “Oh Yudishtra! Whenever you commence doing something good (“Dharma Karyam”), you should never publicize it. People should know about the “Dharma-Kaaryam” that you are doing, while experiencing the result of it. You should never do any propaganda that you are doing something great for the kingdom! If you do so, you will lose the eligibility to continue as a righteous king!” This is an extremely important point, which we see quite a lot in today’s context! Especially in India, we will see politicians organizing a grand ceremony to commence any “Developmental work” for their constituency or in the state or even at the country level. For instance, if there is an infrastructure project like a “Metro Rail” or an airport project, we will see that a grand “Bhoomi Puja” celebration will be organized. While doing a “Bhoomi Puja” is never a wrong thing to do, creating propaganda amidst the public is something that should be avoided.
After reading this, many readers might wrongly assume that I’m telling something against “Bhoomi Puja”. I’m never saying that. Performing “Bhoomi Puja” before commencing any developmental work is extremely important, wherein we invoke the “Anugraha” of Bhagawan before starting something. This is mandatory and per our “Sanaatana Dharma”, it brings enormous significance to whatever we do. However, the point that Bhishmachaarya is highlighting is different. Making a loud announcement amidst everyone that such a project is being started is what is wrong here. We might wonder why Bhishmachaarya is saying this at length. The moment we publicly announce that we’re commencing something good, there will always be ten people here and there to pull us down and to stop our pursuit. With this, there will be unwanted challenges that we have to face during the pursuit. For instance, we see every time in the news that several government projects hit various types of hurdles and they get inordinately delayed! This is primarily because of the propaganda that political parties in power do. While they do this to garner public attention and votes, the challenge here is the effective implementation. For instance, the moment a ruling party makes an announcement that an infrastructure project is going to be implemented, will the opposition parties keep quiet? They will start counter propaganda by saying that this project is being implemented at the cost of poor people’s lives and livelihood! They will try and create a sympathy wave for themselves and look to earn brownie points for their progress. We’ve seen this several times on several occasions.
This is the reason why Bhishmachaarya is explaining that it is better to keep the commencement of any “Dharma-Kaaryams” confidential in nature. Once the work is about to get completed and when people are starting to reap the benefits out of it, the government can publicize it and garner advantage. Until this point, the leader should be patient enough, not to get carried away by the flare of getting political mileage. Moreover, if the project gets stalled for some reason after a grand inauguration, what will happen to the name and image of the government? Again, the same opposition parties will build a narrative that this government doesn’t have the capability to implement anything! Hence, it is always to maintain secrecy while undertaking any “Dharma-Kaaryam” and after the successful completion, one can always talk about it!
So for today, let us understand up to this point and in the next episode, we shall continue this discussion further! Stay tuned! 🙂
The Indian Dharma 