KRISHNA OR SHANKUNI

In the Gita, Krishna says, “Amongst the gamblers, I’m the greatest cheat”. The pacifists become thoroughly disturbed on hearing that the Mahabharata encourages ‘tit for tat’. How is it that someone as powerful as Krishna had to play foul with the Kauravas? Why should He give up His rules? Rules are rules; they must not be changed. And whoever violates them for any reason is a culprit. To punish a culprit takes some violence but that itself is also a crime. So we retain our ground, unchangeable and firm.

The laws of Nature are certainly unchangeable. Change creates nuisance. The problem is someone  or the other must deal with anarchy or power or injustice or inequality or disease or criminals and so on. But nobody wants to deal with these and thus the exploiters are flourishing.  It is more foolish to believe that the bad will turn good by the power of time. In eternal time, neither you nor we have experienced ‘change’ in the criminals by doing nothing against them.  The pacifists may quote a few isolated incidents in attempt to prove their point, of course the isolated one itself.  But the reality is something very different from that.

It takes greater honesty in an honest person to do what is right against those who are wrong. A cheat is persistent in his habit; he is used, bound and consumed by his habit. So any good counsel will certainly fall on deaf ears. But the honest man may take to cheating sometimes, not to be one amongst them, but to free the man of his obstinate habit.

All over Mahabharata, we see Krishna adopting this method, not because He was habituated to manipulate. It was His habit to do good, to bring good, to create the legacy of good. On the other hand, Shakuni was the master of  all deception.   So how does one bargain?  Krishna’s bargain was ‘cheat the cheater’ – His last resort. And He did this only in order to establish the cheerful leader who lives by Nature’s law and creates legacy of doing the the needful for those who are truly needy.