In the previous episode, we had witnessed the continuation of Bhishmachaarya’s accord on “Raaja-Dharma”, particularly in the context of thirty-six important qualities of a leader. Till now we’ve witnessed around eighteen of them and in yesterday’s episode, we had witnessed Bhishmachaarya explaining that whenever a “Dharma-Kaaryam” is done towards the people’s welfare (Any sort of developmental activities), secrecy should be maintained with regards to the commencement and progress of the project as far as possible. If this is not done, it gets into a lot of hurdles and eventually gets very difficult and challenging for successful completion. Of course, when the project has been completed and people have started reaping the benefits out of it, the leader can always talk about it in public and take credit.
Moving on further, Bhishmachaarya explains thus, “Oh Yudishtra! While giving “Dhaanam”, you should be careful enough not to give anything to greedy people! If you start giving these greedy people, they will never be satisfied with whatever you give, and will constantly keep cribbing about you. This will eventually create a lot of negativity, which might be detrimental to the kingdom!” This is extremely true, even in today’s context as well. There are several people like this amidst us whom we come across in everyday life. Some people are extremely difficult to satisfy. No matter whatever we give them or take care of them in several innovative ways, they will never be happy! When it comes to money / finances, we can witness this characteristic in many of us as well. No matter how much ever salary we receive, we are still not going to be satisfied. We are going to compare our salary with some others’ and keep raising our voices that we are not getting enough. In olden day marriages we would have seen this – No matter how much the bride’s family does to the groom’s, the latter is never satisfied with the former’s. In Indian marriages, the concept of “dowry” was extremely popular in olden days, however of course, it has faded away in recent years. Without analyzing the practicality of the situation and the family, the groom’s side would put forth unreasonable demands to the bride’s side. If the bride’s side is unable to fulfil those demands for whatever reason, the bride would be tortured emotionally by her in-laws after the marriage is over. This has been habitual in traditional Indian families for several decades. If we look deep into such situations, it is evident that all these problems stem from something called “greed”. Thus, we’re seeing here very clearly that this “greed” leads us to several problems, and particularly in these kinds of cases, we see several families breaking down because of unreasonable demands not being met!
So, the point here is, there is no point in giving anything to a person who is an epitome of “greed”. Moving on further thus, Bhishmachaarya continues further – “Oh Yudishtra! You should never trust a person who has done an “Apakaaram” (Hinderance). You should ensure that you keep only those people who do “Upakaaram” (Help) at crucial junctures amidst your inner circle!” This is extremely important again, as “trust” is a major factor when it comes to successful leadership. Several key policy-making decisions revolve around trust at various levels of the management – Both from top to middle to lower levels. If we have people who create stumbling blocks at every level and who create hindrance in everything that is being planned and implemented, the work gets stalled and the leader ultimately has to own responsibility for it! This is exactly what Bhishmachaarya is explaining here, and for a leader to be successful, he / she should ensure that trusted people are deployed at several key levels for effective planning and implementation of “Dharma-Kaaryam”.
So for today, let us understand up to this point, and we shall continue this discussion forward in the next episode as well! Stay tuned! 🙂
The Indian Dharma 