Prof Amitabh Mattoo is Chair and Professor of Disarmament Studies at the Centre for International Politics, Organisation and Disarmament at the School of International Studies in JNU, and Honorary Professor at the Faculty of Arts, University of Melbourne. In Strategic Choices, Ethical Dilemmas: Stories from the Mahabharat (Penguin, 2023) he has, with his co-authors Dr Aruna Narlika and Professor Amrita Narlikar, delved into some of the enduring lessons of the epic and interpreted them for more contemporary concerns.
Excerpts from an interview:
What prompted you to take up Mahabharat at this time?
As a Rising power, both within academia and the policy community there is a renewed focus on disinterring Indian strategic culture and thought, and our two great epics, the Mahabharat and Ramayana, provide a remarkable entry-point.
Mahabharat has fascinated me since my childhood in Kashmir. I grew up with my grandmother, Didaji, introducing my brother and me to the Mahabharat as bedtime stories, and to Ramdhari Singh Dinkar’s epic poem in Hindi, Rashmirathi, on the life of Karn. Later, I watched the film version of Peter Brooke’s magnificent original stage play, Mahabharat.
But it was at Oxford as a student, through the collections at the Indian Institute and the Bodleian, that I accessed a new world of scholarship on the early texts of India. And in 1991, close to his death, Bimal Krishna Matilal, the Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics at All Souls College, Oxford, wrote one of his final pieces: a brilliant polemical essay, Krsna: In Defence of Devious Divinity.
The article challenged the Western view of the apparently less-than-godly conduct of Krishna before and during the war on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. This article inspired me to look at this great epic through a contemporary lens, and since then I have read several translations of the Mahabharat, learnt basic Sanskrit, and written on the great epic including popular pieces that were published by The Hindu as well. When Dr Aruna Narlikar and Professor Amrita Narlikar initiated the idea of a joint book, I was delighted to be part of this international collaboration.
Can the Mahabharat answer questions on strategic issues that India faces?
Mahatma Gandhi is believed to have once said, “If all the Upanishads and all the other scriptures happened all of a sudden to be reduced to ashes, and if only the first verse in the Isha Upanishad were left in the memory of the Hindus, Hinduism would live forever.
In a similar vein, I believe that if all the books on war and peace were to suddenly disappear from the world, and only the Mahabharat remained, it would be good enough to capture almost all the possible debates on order, justice, force and the moral dilemmas associated with choices that are made on these issues within the realm of international politics.
In saying this, we are confronting a major Western critique of India; a Eurocentric belief that India and Indians had only episodically written about strategic issues and that there was no real culture of strategic thinking in India. The American think-tank Rand’s, Vice President, George K. Tanham, had put this starkly in his 1992 paper, Indian Strategic Thought: An Interpretative Essay in which he argued that the Indian elite had not systematically or coherently thought about national security.
Since then, many scholars, including at JNU, have reviewed different traditions of strategic thinking in India: from Asoka’s post-Kalinga idealism to the more predictive hard-headed realism of Kautalya, to the more critical traditions of thinking about war and peace.
Today, as India confronts some of its biggest strategic challenges there are deep insights that the Mahabharata offers us, including from the immortal dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna. Krishna (even in his mortal form) is the ultimate strategic visionary, a political genius, who believes in upholding the Dharma, almost at any cost.
Ultimately, for Krishna, our strategic policies must be rooted within the overarching framework of Dharma and for promoting the larger righteous national interest (Yato dharmas Tato Jaya: Victory and Dharma go together) rather than any selfish or partisan cause.
Can you please highlight some of the stories that you have written in your latest book on the epic?
Take for example the first story in the book, “On Alliances and Partnerships: Ganesha, Vyasa and the Writing of the Mahabharat.”, it illustrates both the importance of teamwork, but also the importance of choosing your team wisely. When Vyasa had to find a collaborator to dictate the text of the Mahabharat (which was ready in his head) in he took Brahma’s advice and requested Ganesha, but even while Ganesha was inclined to agree – he had his own set of demands, and the final understanding was a negotiated one. It illustrates the importance of building alliances in this complex interdependent world, but with allies with whom not only is there strategic convergence but also a sense of shared purpose — and even there it is important to argue, negotiate and bargain to secure the most optimal outcome.
Similarly, the second story is “on focus on the big picture and the accuracy of Arjun’s aim”. This of course retells the popular story of Arjun’s single-minded focus when their Guru, Dronaacharya decided to test the skills of his students, but also adds the additional skill demonstrated Arjun demonstrated when called to save his Guru’s life: adaptability and being able to prioritise and put things in perspective.
Can you please elaborate on the idea of unusual friendship or alliances in this book.
This is a personal favourite: the friendship between Duryodhana and Karn. It reflects a friendship which transcends social barriers, as well exemplifies the way some relations can withstand the pursuit of self interest and power. This has deep lessons for international politics, and in some ways India’s strategic exceptionalism is rooted in Karn’s ethical dilemmas.
Are the lessons of Mahabharat contrary to the notion of non-violence?
Yes, and this concern id one raised by the sage, Uttanka, in Āśvamedhikaparvan, when he encounters Krishna after the war. Why does Krishna not successfully broker peace between the warring cousins rather than preside over genocide? Why does Krishna undermine his stature by apparently resorting to “duplicitous or even deceitful means in the course of war”? There are indeed compelling explanations to coherently justify Krishna’s actions, including those rooted in moral consequentialism and the lack of omnipotence of the Lord when he acquires an earthly form. Krishna is the final guardian of Dharma, a leader; and, on occasion, as Matilal has put it a leader needs to create “new paradigms for showing limitations of such a generally accepted moral code of truth-telling and promise- keeping”.
Of the few, in the West, who understood the importance of Dharma (otherwise, for most, an elusive term) was the scientist, J. Robert Oppenheimer (who led the Manhattan project that led to the development of the first atomic weapons). As he witnessed the first nuclear test in July 1945, he thought of a verse from the Bhagavad Gita: shloka: “kālo’smi lokakṣayakṛtpravṛddho lokānsamāhartumiha pravṛttahh“ (I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.).
What other episodes of the Mahabharata are relevant to our contemporary concerns, say climate change?
My co-author Amrita Narlikar often highlights brilliants that Mahabharat offers a vision of a non-anthropocentric view of the world and addressed concerns that are so germane to our planet. The story of the Noble Parrot and the Tree reflects concerns about ecologism and Yudhishthir and the Dog on animal rights and personhood.
