A critical analysis into the nature of Mahabharat

Shared first on Facebook, 13 April:

Whoever is reading this long post, I hope I do justice to your time. In the light of the ongoing socio-political crisis India had steadily sunk into, especially since last 3 years or so, I would like to share one of my thoughts on Hinduism.

A decade ago I was a strong believer. I was raised in essentially a Hindu family (but I wasn't exposed to its dark sides until recently in a small town of Rajasthan (another story)) and during few difficult times I guess faith had helped us tremendously. During college one of the things which plunged me into a phase of depression was exploring my religious nature. I transitioned into an agnostic, then to anti theist and finally, while India was still being ran by an economist, I identified myself as an atheist with a liberal view towards others. I think the whole point should be to let people live peacefully, protect them and empathize with them regardless of their personal beliefs.

But then when I look back and try to think in my free times, I see Mahabharat book/story to have created profound effects on the psychology of the Indians. It's very hard to criticize it unlike other religious books, and its open ended subtle preachings can be manipulated by anyone to fit into real life scenarios. One can even find professors and scientists in my country quoting Gita/Mahabharat etc without running the risk of backlashes and criticisms from the rationalists or their colleagues or the scientific institutions they represent.

Based on what I have read and heard on Mahabharat, I can find two "flaws" in it, which not only should make it a non-ideal piece of religious literature but also should have degraded its socio-psychological importance than what it enjoys presently. Those flaws will be:

1) Lack of apology: In the entire story/series of stories, I fail to recall a single instance where apology was featured. I am not talking of mere verbal apology, but act of apology when one in situational power is forgiving and calling off a certain consequence for someone. The entire complex story is built around the holy rule: reactive consequence is must and fair. Few times it had been disguised as duty or helpless (not really) situations, but letting go of the past was seen to be entirely forbidden.

Why/how does it matter?

Well, consider caste system. The basic goal was to bring economic/power equality across communities. But the higher caste people are not ready to let go of their ancestral pride. They can shamelessly shadow their own wrongful deeds with the past glory attached to their caste. The lower caste people also have very similar funda. Instead of advocating economic equality, they bring into debate some 3000 years of history where their caste was put into socioeconomic injustice, instead of talking about building a sustainable future for our and the next generations. Holding on to the past without any good reason and at the cost of peace has become a norm for all of us. "Move on" is just not possible as easily as it should be.

This also leads to apathy. A worse form of society which Ambedkar was particular concerned amongst the castes more than the mere inter religion rivalry.

2) Lack of humor: I am not talking of mockery or oppression etc, which don't represent humor in the first place. But real sense of humor and incorporating it in everyday life. One of the strange stories of Mahabharat for me as a child was Kunti mistakingly suggesting Draupadi to be shared/married to her 5 sons. It wasn't seen as a harmless slip of tongue, to be laughed at and moved on. It was made a big issue. Suddenly the girl and her husband had no say, and even the mom herself was unable to humor it down and ask her sons to ignore it. Later in some literature there were some speculations on the motive of Kunti, but still in the main story a non existing issue was centralized and empowered. Even in the rest of the book, I am unable to find any display of true sense of humor.

Why/how does it matter?

Well, do you think we Indians are truly liberal? We can neither let go of the unimportant things nor could see things beyond the norms and rules. Atheists see believers as primitive and believers see atheists as a sub set of their own religion or someone lost in the spiritual journey. Lack of humor has failed us to believe that we ourselves have flaws. Having flaws is okay, but being blind to them is not.

We cannot take criticisms or jokes on us very well. We despise freedom of expression. We refuse to give space where our parents, our religions, our national flag etc can be criticized even theoretically. Suddenly one of the abuser will tell "hey don't tell anything on my mom's name (what about mine?)" or "look i am not telling anything on your religion so you don't (oh you totally can)" or "don't. disrespect. our. flag. (but what if our flag is ugly and i have a better design or I want to wear it as my underwear like the Americans do?)".

All these things matter. Look where it has dragged us as a society. Honestly, we may restore our economics and laws but inherently we will always be flawed, right? In high school we had boring moral science classes where some arbitrary declarations were made: forgive and forget, we had literature classes by cbse where stories by RK Narayan and O Henry were prescribed, but in the hearts of the 80% Indians it was Mahabharat. If you consider me as an average reader also, then let me tell you again: I have no clue of any incidents in Mahabharat where there was "move on" or act of apology, or sense of humor or "let go" attitude (open to rectify my ignorance if someone can point out incidents (please avoid extremely rare incidents which has zero cultural relevance...you get the drift)).

A few years back, I was in the state of mind where I was procrastinating to read an unabridged version of Mahabharat and Gita having heard so much about them and which seemed so perfect to us. But then I have realized the deep flaws which had affected us irreversibly in not so good manner, so I am dropping the idea to save my time. There are so many other good writers to read (I am still open to read religious books if I see the need to understand a particular part of history better).

And, I have not yet talked about the rape crimes in the recent news (India, April 2018). I was merely talking about us.

NB: 

I have read 3 different versions of Mahabharat including the English one by c rajagopalchari. I have also read Gita. But wanted to read a more detailed non English version for an elaborative leisure study in later life. I believe I have moved on over that desire.