There is no doubt about the fact that Lord Krishna is famed for his righteousness, dharma and satya however he has slander and there is allegation against him in the epic Mahabharata. These views are not subjective opinions that are concealed in devotion or spiritual aspects; rather, these are objective views of rational thinking, if there was one!
In the epic, Mahabharata, the deaths of Karna Drona and Bhisma are interpreted as acts of treachery by Lord Krishna. The perception of the death is considered as unfair, immoral, unethical and against all norms of war. It was a fact that none of the Pandavas wanted to kill them under the said circumstances. They were made to resort to adopt such unethical means at the precept of Lord Krishna.
To decode the perspective, Mahabharata is not about right or wrong or black and white, instead, it teaches that life is completely grey. Defining the grey is not easy because it is deeply rooted to the context. Every character has a shade of grey and that is what makes him or her closer to being human. He or she has the combination of strengths and weaknesses altogether and he or she has to suffer the consequences.
The death of Karna, Drona and Bhishma is seen as injustices in the particular episode of the war, one should also recall the innumerable injustices dispensed out on the Pandavas that had happened, before the war of Kurukshetra to name few incident of injustice are the incident of lakshagraha, incident of malpractices in the dice game leading to exile and that too with unfavourable conditions, incident of insulting Draupadi, not keeping the promised land after 13 years and many more. The lives of the Pandavs had been spent more in jungles than the palace which was their rightful home. The war of Kurukshetra itself was not an activity of equals – the Kauravas had a much bigger army, than that of the Pandavas. However, the deaths of the heroes were not to be seen as a counterstroke.In the act of ‘killing’ of Drona, Bhishma and Karna there was no ill design implementation. Why such decisions were implemented can be better understood in the light of management parlance as it is ethics of the emergency situation. Before we move forward lets understand what is “Ethics” – it is moral principles that govern a person's behavior or the conduct of an activity. And the branch of knowledge that deals with moral principles. Next let’s understand what is “Emergency”- a serious, unexpected, and often dangerous situation requiring immediate action. Arising from or used in an emergency.Ethics of emergency situation implies ethical decisions which have been taken in dire emergencies. Emergency is better understood as a situation of crisis or a situation of urgency or urgent situation. This ethics of the emergency situation in this case was keeping the greater good of the society in the view, and certainly it was not for personal gains. The deviation in the particular case from the norm, was not really for any personal benefit here at all, including saving of lives. Lord Krishna acted to resort to the ethics of the emergency situation in getting all of them eliminated (by killing them) toward the greater good for humanity, through means that are questionable outside of the particular context. They were all in the way, associated with an unjust cause, and had serious personal flaws in their characters.
Karna, a hero in the truest sense of the word, however he was a misplaced hero. His entire life was a quest for recognition, which made him fall into a slavery, who had nothing right at his side. He needed to repay the debts, and his debt was so strong that it became his sole objective of life to repay the debt.
Next comes Drona, who was the Guru or teacher of Kauravs and Pandavs. Drona was guided by an initial enmity with Drupad and then the future of his son. Both were personal agendas, and he did not have any serious affinity for either the Kauravs or the Pandavas. A teacher of his stature who was powerful, and had capacity and was capable. However he was unfortunately driven by narrow considerations of life.
Last comes Bhishma, Who was only focused and determined to serve the throne of Hastinapur according to the oath made by him long back. The focus and the determination of saving the throne were so strong that he could not see anything beyond it. He had a vision whose existence and virtues of life had serious ramifications, which was for a larger interest which was being misused by the perpetrators of evil.
What do you think about these heroes who were fighting the wars!! Were they unaware of the war that they were fighting for? Were they not aware of the ethical and moral objectives of the war that they were fighting? Were they not aware of the consequences of the war? When all in their hearts they knew that the cause of the war itself was flawed? What significant efforts were made by each one of them to avoid or stop the war, especially when each one of them was in his own way strong enough and could have insisted on stopping the war, just by not willing to participate in the war?
Pandavs needed justice to regain and rebuild all they had lost, after paying a heavy price for their mistakes. Lord Krishna was guiding them here by the consideration of dharma which had been taken to a different dimension altogether. It is an accepted interpretation; that the ethics of the emergency situation notwithstanding, the truth that was by and large given an unconditional status. Lord Krishna’s major intention was to establish a sense of dharma and satya – the righteousness in the world to come. Did Lord Krishna resort to indulge into lies (as many call it) anywhere in the epic except in the specific case of war of Kurukshetra? Nowhere has Lord Krishna advocated any of his duty for the sake of the work to be done, not without consequential consideration, and it was certainly without selfish motives and intentions. When were made by Lord Krishna to establish dharma and satya with a lot of austerity, then using selfish motives, lie and commit injustice would that be his nature?? Just think twice if you have any doubt about the integrity of Lord Krishna. You must ponder here – never has a lie been uttered anywhere. What was uttered was untruth. Lies are spoken with selfish motives, but an untruth need not have selfish motives.
While writing about Lord Krishna’s matter of integrity, I’m reminded of an incident from the American Civil War. When General Sherman had decided to burn down Atlanta, his Commander was shocked and wrote to him to stop it immediately. The General is supposed to have told his Commander, “War is cruelty and you cannot refine it”. According to him a war has its own logic and momentum once it begins. It inevitably escalates, and you cannot blame the soldiers and generals for the killing, sometimes mindless. You can only blame those who started it. Nothing could be different in case of the war of Kurukshetra .
If you take a close look to the epic you will find that an austere and an unforgiving streak of dharma and satya appeared rather than the adharma and asatya run throughout the epic. If good people are not allowed to win by any means, and if they had to fight justly, then one must be prepared to face the fact that they might lose. There was no guarantee that truth and goodness would prevail in human history. The Pandavas then had to accept all the wrong doings on them and had to wait one day, one month, one year....several years until the war of Kurukshetra. The outcome of the war of Kurukshetra was that the entire world would have been so different that if the most important thing then was to just fight on a truthful ground and fairly. Since the Pandavas did not fight the way they should have fought and they failed in their individual dharma, but managed to uphold dharma at large. Needless to say that they were punished too where none of them allowed to ‘live happily ever after’. Even Lord Krishna and his community faced elimination and died a bitter death. A big price had to be paid on the part of the Pandavas and Lord Krishna for eliminating all that stood for wrong and erroneous and establishing the rule of the right and just.
What do you think? Was that fair? Did it have morals into it? Did it have ethics in it?
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