So now, it is the Indian mythology, which is been wrongly targetted.
Logic has good as well as bad aspect.
Through logic, many criminals are saved in courts and many common men and
women are kept in jail though they have not committed a crime.
So we can find fault if we desire so, in anything.
MahaBharata and Ramayana are no exceptions.
But in Europe, history tells that the disabled were brutally killed as
they
were considered bad for society. It is not mythology but the real history.
In indian culture, there is a stigma against disability, but they are
treated comparatively well compared to other culture.
Vedprakash Sharma
http://www.musicalexpressions.myehome.in/
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From: AccessIndia [mailto:[email protected]] On
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Subject: [AI] Fwd: Indian Mythology Has a Problem With Disability- The
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From: Karthi Govarthanan<[email protected]>
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2016 19:30:18 +0530
Subject: Indian Mythology Has a Problem With Disability- The Wire Article.
To: "uday. ganesh01"<[email protected]>, sivaramanvvs
<[email protected]>, pathisamy<[email protected]>
Indian Mythology Has a Problem With Disability
BY MARTAND JHA ON 31/10/2016
Mythology has taught us to enable discrimination against disabled people,
portraying them negatively and telling us that they deserve it because of
sins committed in past lives.
Sanjaya meets Dhritarashtra as his envoy for peace negotiations. Credit:
Wikimedia Commons
It is said that one can find every aspect of life in the holy text
Mahabharata and if one doesn’t find it there, then chances are little that
one will find it elsewhere. But while it is true that the
Mahabharatacontains elements of philosophy, life, war, intellect, passion,
jealousy and treachery, one element is not discussed as it should have
been:
disability. The character associated with it is Dhritarashtra, who is
negatively portrayed throughout the text. In fact, many believe that he is
to blame for the epic battle between the cousins (Pandavas and
Kauravas) because he adamantly insisted that his son, Duryodhana, should
be
king after him, instead of the more worthy Yudhisthira.
Since very few people in India have actually read theMahabharata, the
don’t
know about the character of Dhritarashtra before he became king – an
aspect
that has been cautiously kept hidden. Both Dhritarashtra and his
step-brother Pandu had a very cordial relationship. Pandu, being the
younger
brother, held Dhritarashtra in very high-esteem – and it was reciprocated.
Both were disciples of the great Bhishma, their uncle who was also looking
after the administration of the kingdom since there was no king on the
throne at the time. Bhishma himself couldn’t take the throne because of a
vow he had made earlier in his life. Since Dhritarashtra was older, he was
trained to be a king, while the younger brother, Pandu, was trained as a
warrior and lead the army and become thesenapati. Bhishma trained the
brothers so the kingdom could go into safe hands.
Bhishma’s idea was sage, because Dhritarashtra was visually impaired from
birth and thus couldn’t fight wars. He was trained in administration,
management, decision-making, delivering justice – all very important
aspects
of being a king, while the aspect of war was left to Pandu, who could
militarily assist his older brother. As a team, they could have achieved
wonders.
But when Dhritarashtra was being crowned, Vidur, the young prime minister,
who was also taught by Bhishma, objected to him becoming king. How can a
blind man sit on the throne of a king, he had argued. How could the
kingdom
be a great empire if the king is blind? How could important decisions be
made on the battlefield if the king is sitting safe in the capital?
Nobody said anything to Vidur’s questions because a king with a disability
was unprecedented. As a result, Dhritarashtra had to step down; his
disability was taken as his inability. Denied his rightful place, this
became a turning point for Dhritarashtra and guided the person he was to
become.
After a short period of time though, Dhritarashtra was made the king
because
Pandu left his throne and eventually died. It was only out of compulsion
that Dhritarashtra was accepted as king. Had he been made king the first
time around, he wouldn’t have been made as conscious about his
‘disability’.
Now, he was a ‘sloppy second’, someone’s ‘reject’ and he knew this very
clearly. Now the question is, when Dhritarashtra sat on the throne, was
the
Kaurava empire anything short of a mighty empire? Was the administration
poor, were people unhappy, was justice not delivered? The answer is no,
because Dhritarashtra had people like Bhishma around him, along with
Vidur,
who took care of the intricacies of administration.
All the wrongs began to emerge later, when his son Duryodhana was born.
Dhirtarastra wanted him to be king after him, even though Duryodhana was
unworthy, simply because he wanted to ‘undo’ the injustice done to him. He
wanted to ensure that his son wouldn’t be a ‘sloppy second’ like him and
that’s why his son was raised believing the throne was his birthright.
Nobody is born bad but it’s society which ‘makes’ or ‘breaks’ an
individual.
Our society just saw the bad person Dhritarashtra became, but turned a
blind
eye to what led him there. Since he was disabled, people who have
historically discriminated against differently-abled people were further
encouraged to justify their attitude towards differently-abled people.
One may wonder what mythology has to do in this context. Indian society is
deeply affected by our mythology and its characters. The illiterate know
about these stories. The impact of our mythology is such that people
identify with the characters and inculcate values drawn from them into
their
own lives. The depiction and characterisation of disabled people in Indian
mythology is extremely negative and people have used the stories to
justify
their discriminatory attitude against differently-abled people.
The case of Dhritarashtra is not just about a disabled person has been
depicted in poor light. If one looks at the Ramayana, the character of
Manthara has also been demonised to a great extent. In fact, she has
largely
been blamed for sending Rama on exile for 14 years. Manthara was the maid
of
the queen, Kaikeyi, and is seen as instrumental in convincing the queen to
ask Dasharatha to grant her the two boons that he had promised her a long
time ago. Under Manthara’s influence, Kaikeyi asked the king to make his
son
Bharat the next king of Ayodhaya instead of Rama.
However, some folktales point out how Manthara didn’t have anything to
gain
by sending Ram to exile. Instead, she suffered heavy public scrutiny that
linked her character to her orthopaedic disability, because of which she
couldn’t stand erect.
Mostly, our mythological texts have shown disabled people either as
powerful, cunning and mischievous characters or as beggars in a state of
extreme pain and poverty. Also, disability and mocking disability is
justified in the name of sins carried from their previous births. Rarely
can
one encounter disabled characters in a positive light. One such character
was Ashtavakra, who was physically disabled since birth. Born in a Brahmin
family, he mastered the Vedasand other holy scriptures at an early age. He
was mocked by the intellectuals in King Janaka’s court on account of his
disability, where he had gone to participate in a
shastrartha(philosophical
debate).
Ultimately, he defeated his mockers and earned a lot of praise from
everyone. But this story from the Chandogya Upanishad sets a dangerous
precedent, if observed carefully. The subtext is that if you are
intellectually capable, your physical disability doesn’t matter. Then, if
a
disabled person is not an intellectual, does it gives others the right to
mock his or her disability? The moral seems to be that a disabled person
has
to be extraordinary to earn basic respect, a phenomenon that continues
today.
The time has come to ask tough questions, to point out the wrong messages
which have been disseminated by these texts and to re-interpret these
texts
in the light of the present day situations so that differently-abled
people
are not judged by the wrong morals of our mythological texts that relegate
disability and disabled people to negativity.
In "Rights"
Categories: Rights
Tagged as: Chandogya Upanishad,disability rights, Mahabharata,mythology,
Pandavas and Kauravas,Ramayana.
The Wire is published by the Foundation for Independent Journalism, a
not-for-profit company registered under Section 8.
The Wire’s journalism is partly fundedby the Independent and Public
Spirited
Media Foundation.
--
Regards
Boopathi P
PhD research scholar,
department of English Literature,
School of literary studies,
EFL University.
Hyderabad-500007
India.
Mobile: +91-9843693951
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