(RJELAL) Research Journal of English Language and Literature Vol.4.Issue 4. 2016 A Peer Reviewed (Refereed) International Journal (Oct.Dec.) http://www.rjelal.com; Email:[email protected]

RESEARCH ARTICLE

ANTI-WAR SENTIMENTS IN

VISHNU RAM Research Scholar, Dept. English & Foreign Languages, MDU, Rohtak, Haryana, India. [email protected]

ABSTRACT Can war be the solution of quarrels among humans for property, kingdom and honour? Is war necessary to bring peace and prosperity in the world? Can war be termed as holy or unholy? ’s Andha Yug deals with an array of such questions. Needless to say, innumerable generations of India has grown up listening the story of the war fought in as it is recorded in the eponymous epic. The epic seems to entrench a view insidiously that wars and slaughter can be holy and participating in carnage is only one’s karma. Andha Yug can be seen as an eye-opener in this regard. The play takes its readers to the VISHNU RAM eighteenth day of the war and a couple of decades following it. The readers are

made to rethink about the outcome of the ‘holy’ war. The play poses certain questions exposing the sham belief that wars destroy evil. The events of Andha Yug can easily be compared to the partition of Indian subcontinent and post- partition wars between India and Pakistan. Neither the nor the brought peace. Wars merely increase the feelings of disillusionment and hatred among people. Through Andha Yug, Dharamvir Bharati attempts to present a war as a war, not as holy or religious or the harbinger of peace. Keywords: War, honour, destruction, karma, suicide, meaninglessness, neutral, code, moral, blind, existence. KY PUBLICATIONS

The Mahabharata and the Ramayana, the with their more changed versions, e.g. Parkash Jha’s two great Indian epics, have always been closely Rajneeti and Mani Ratnam’s Raavan. Besides associated with the consciousness of traditions, folk inspiring so many annual festivals and dramatic tales, ethical codes and societal norms of Indian performances, these epics are widely used for the subcontinent. Being full of parables and moral syllabi of lower and higher education across the lessons related to the spiritual, social and country. psychological lives of people, they have continuously Much longer than the Ramayana, the remained important sources of inspiration for poets, Mahabharata represents the Indian political, social novelists, and playwrights. They are even adapted and cultural scenario more closely. Over the last into television serials by notable directors, e.g. B.R. hundred years, is translated into Chopra and Ramanand Sagar. And some more several foreign and Indian languages. Moreover, its eminent filmmakers adapted them for silver screen smaller incidents and anecdotes have inspired many

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literary creations of small and large scale. Andha indulgence his sons have brought destruction to Yug, a play by Dharamvir Bharati, is one of such their clan. shows deep dissatisfaction literary creation inspired from the Mahabharata. towards the ethical concepts of the world. Published in 1953, Andha Yug is a very Meanwhile, unsuccessfully tries to pacify significant post-Independence play. It is considered them. to be a landmark in the history of Indian drama. The second act, ‘The Making of the Beast,’ When dramatized for the first time on the stage, it concentrates on the character of , one was immediately hailed as a classic play of highest of the three survivors from the side, the order. Written just few years after the Partition, it other two being and Kripacharya. He is meditates upon the difficult phase of the holocaust enraged because gets shamefully which destroyed the lives of millions of people. The defeated in the war. Victory in the war matters the play brings the fact into light that the real most to Ashwatthama because of his father’s independence, peace and prosperity cannot be unlawful murder in the same war. He behaves like a achieved by the means of war or division. Wars beast justifying his actions reasoning that even cannot resolve effectively the basic existential persons like chose the side of untruth problems of human lives. by speaking half-truths to get advantage in the war. Along with many other languages, Andha Blinded by anger, he attacks and a Yug is translated into English abundantly by various Mendicant. Kripacharya and Kritavarma save the authors. Among these translations, Alok Bhalla’s former but the latter is strangled to death by translation of the play seems the best one. Bhalla Ashwatthama. masterfully captures various dimensions of the ‘The Half-Truth of Ashwatthama,’ the third argument depicted in the play. Further, he act, details how from the fight of an owl and a crow beautifully retains its epic grandeur, and poetic Ashwatthama gets the idea to destroy the simplicity blended with supreme elegance. army while the soldiers are sleeping. Duryodhana As mentioned earlier, the moral and gives his consent to make Ashwatthama the new political issues depicted in Andha Yug are relevant commander. Meanwhile, Yuyutsu, the only Kaurava even in the twenty-first century. This technocratic who sided with the considering their side age is perhaps the eponymous age of blindness virtuous, is humiliated in by the citizens surrounded in the sinister forces of terrorism, and his mother for fighting against his own relatives. corruption, religious fundamentalism, and Vidura, again unsuccessfully, tries to console bloodshed over the issues of community, caste and Yuyutsu. honour. The next section, ‘Interlude: Feathers, The play has a prologue, five acts, an Wheels and Bandages,’ explores the ideas of interlude and an epilogue. The prologue begins with honour, Karma and blindness chosen willingly. This an ‘Invocation’ addressed to Narayana, Saraswati part does not affect the main narrative but as the and . It is followed by the ‘Proclamation’ Mendicant comments it is there to understand the explaining how Vishnu Purana mentions the age of “inner contradictions” of some of the characters darkness that will follow ‘the great war,’ the strong who appear as specters in this section (Bharati 90). reason behind the decline of prosperity, and The fourth act, ‘Gandhari’s Curse,’ honour from the earth. chronicles the destruction of Pandava camp by In the first act, ‘The Kaurava Kingdom,’ furious trio of Ashwatthama, Kripacharya and , Gandhari and Vidura along with all Kritavarma. Gandhari along with Dhritarashtra, the citizens of Hastinapur apprehensively wait for Sanjaya and Vidura visits Kurukshetra. Greatly Sanjaya who is neutral in the war for what happened disturbed at the sight of the corpses of his sons and in the battlefield in the eighteenth day. relatives, especially after seeing the carcass of the Dhritarashtra, though somewhat reluctantly, half-eaten Duryodhana, Gandhari alleges that acknowledges that because of his too much is responsible for the war and curses him

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with an ordinary death following the destruction of honour. Gandhari considers these concepts as his clan. Krishna accepts the curse and thus making useless and manipulative. Even the narrator begins Gandhari even more remorseful. the play in the following manner: The fifth act, ‘Victory and a Series of Both sides in the war Suicides,’ is an account of the suicides of Yuyutsu, violated Dhritarashtra, Gandhari and some others. Krishna the code of honour… also goes to the forest even after knowing that he the perhaps more than the would be killed by a hunter in that forest. The Pandavas. (Bharati 27) suicide of Pandava brothers and is hinted The same violation is perhaps the sole reason upon as Yudhishthira, disillusioned after war and behind the end of the dwapara yug and the defeat disappointed by the disrespectful behavior of his of “whatever is good and gentle and beautiful” brothers, decides to go on a pilgrimage on the (Bharati 27). What makes this concept weak and higher crests of Himalayas. manipulative is the fact that it remains vague and In ‘Epilogue: Death of the Lord,’ another unspecified from the beginning to the end of the invocation is devoted to the Christ-like sacrificial play. Everyone seems to revere it and want to abide death of Krishna. Sanjaya and Ashwatthama witness by it. However, it is either manipulated by cunning Krishna’s death by Jara who is reincarnation of people suiting their own ends or abandoned by wrongfully killed Mendicant. In the end, Chorus people finding it useless. Immensely disappointed comments that with the death of the Lord began the Gandhari comments: age of darkness that will be full of half-truth and I had seen the ways of the world some more great wars. and knew The author of Andha Yug warns the readers that dharma against an age of darkness. He wants them to duty and honour improve themselves because improvement of their were illusions. souls is the only way out from the encroaching When the time of reckoning arrives darkness and evil. He implies that there are at least wisdom and honour two ways of improvement: the first is learning are always useless. (Bharati 37) through one’s own experience and the other is She is of the view that hypocrisy directs all these learning through others’ experience. At the very precepts: beginning of the play, the playwright asserts that the Morality, honour, selflessness story is meant to enlighten its audience. And that and surrender to Krishna enlightenment or improvement is to be achieved are mere disguises through learning from others’ experiences in their —masks that cover our blindness. (Bharati lives. The story warns us against several types of 37) blindness: spiritual blindness barring the soul from Gandhari fails to notice her own cynicism and contentment, deliberate blindness causing people double-standard approach regarding this issue. She not to accept the reality, and many others produced wants to abandon whatever that is not useful to her out of the feelings of indulging affection, anger, sons and whatever comes between their victory in contempt and jealousy. In ‘Proclamation,’ the the war. This may be the reason that everybody playwright remarks: seeks the usability of these moral codes. Throughout This is the story of the blind— the war, these unspecified codes are brazenly Or of enlightenment distorted through the use of clever words. Krishna, through the life of the blind. (Bharati 26) Sanjaya, Yudhishthira, Ashwatthama and everyone Moreover, the concept of honour and dharma is else use words to compensate for the broken code mentioned frequently throughout the play. Vidura of honour. Moreover, the code of honour seems reminds Dhritarashtra that all, especially Krishna, only the construct of words. Humans seem to mould forewarned him about the violation of the code of this code of honour to suit their subjectivity along

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with the needs and demands of the times in they are aspects of a person. Murders can be justified in the living. In this case, Dhritarashtra frankly admits the name of sending people to supreme soul of Krishna reality of his attitudes in his life: after freeing them from this illusory world created I had spun an illusory world by Maya. This is how Ashwatthama defends himself of dreams and desires and passions that he sees no sin in killing others. He formulates out of the depths of that darkness. his own dharma: My love, my hate, my law, my dharma From now on had evolved out of my peculiar world. my only dharma is: (Bharati 33-34) ‘kill, kill, kill Similarly, the greatest message of the Mahabharata and kill again!’ is unnervingly confusing. It tells the mortals to act, Let that be to perform their karma and to do righteous deeds. the final purpose In act 2, the lonely Mendicant recites the words of of my existence! (Bharati 54) Krishna to that were included in Bhagawad Not only Ashwatthama who refuses to take the Gita: responsibility of his actions, there are certain other Truth resides characters who blame others for their own actions. in the acts Nobody contemplates their own motives for taking we perform. part in the war. There arise so many questions when What man does we find no person ready to take the responsibility of at each moment the atrocities occurred in the war. How the war becomes his future started in the first place? Is it simply happened while for ages and ages…. no one wanted it to happen? Is the war the only The meaning of man’s existence option to restore dharma and honour? Do Pandavas lies in the actions he performs participate in the war only for the sake of not in the refusal to act. (Bharati 58-59) righteousness? Do the Kauravas get involved in the But there is intense chaos because there is no war just to claim their right on the throne? Or they distinct demarcation between right and wrong. It is desperately want to teach the Pandvas for being said that action should be inspired from one’s somewhat superior in everything and being dharma and the call of conscience. What if favoured by the elders of the Hastinapur. And somebody considers that his/her karma is not doing perhaps Pandavas want to check the level of their any karma at all? The two guards are addressed as powers. Still, they blame each other for their ruin. mental slaves because they refrain themselves from They do not mention their own sadistic inclinations, any real action. If this be so, then Arjuna is worse but curse Krishna for not stopping the war. They are than a mere mental slave. The guards are not doing their karma to much extent willingly, yet directed mindlessly in their passivity while Arjuna assert that others urged them and so they are not brushes aside his own opinions and kills thousands responsible for the havoc that accompanied the war. of people at the instigation of Krishna. Perhaps the It is easy for Gandhari not to analyze her own role very refusal is his karma that he abandons in the and to curse Krishna saying, “If you wanted/you favour of Krishna’s karma of making him kill the so- could have stopped the war” (Bharati 122). called evil-doers. It is quite easy to blame a word (i.e. God) Unfortunately, the concept of karma is for the foul actions of humans. The major character capable of justifying almost any heinous crime or with considerable supernatural powers in Andha Yug evil that is possible in this world. Countries can wage is Krishna. His thoughts and opinions are verbalized wars considering it their karma. People will rob, for only once. Rest of the time, he is merely torment and kill one another claiming it to be their reported by various characters, namely Sanjaya, the karma. They can easily assert that souls are Mendicant, Vidura, Yuyutsu etc. If the mythic immortal and they are damaging merely the physical structure of the play inspired from its originating

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epic is overlooked, Krishna seems perfectly human. 161). This cannot be true because they have His humanitarian attempts to avoid the war fail and opinions because they think and comment upon the he reluctantly finds himself with one of the warring conditions belonging to their rulers and other sides. They use his name to veneer their own hatred people. Moreover, they made choices though they and insensitivity. The Kauravas continually evade are slave. They choose to stay slave, whether it is accepting their own complicity in evil while they mental slavery of not changing their attitude to life continue to dismiss Krishna as a war-loving, or physical slavery of not leaving the place where capricious and manipulative god. Bhalla, in his they lead purposeless and meaningless lives. introductory preface to his own translated version The old guards could have opted to rebel Andha Yug, comments on the attitude of the against the authorities for making them march Kauravas taking Ashwatthama as leverage: endlessly day after day in the dark corridors. Ashwatthama embodies what the Kauravas Strangely, they stick to their mundane job. They can have stood for all along—ambition instead be interpreted as the most stoic and enlightened of peace, power instead of companionship, persons who impart the spiritual message that avoidance of responsibility instead of eventually we have to accept the commonality and justice, contempt for everything instead of ordinariness of our lives. Life is meaningless and hope for the well being of all things. (Bhalla trying to find meaning and purpose in it is a 11) meaningless project. Contrary to them, people with There is only one shadowy appearance of Krishna purpose, honour and faith are tormented by the and only once he directly speaks for himself in the very possession of these phenomena: Some of them whole play. If we judge him by his talk to Gandhari, like Yuyutsu think that they lived their lives for a he seems benevolent, loving, sincere, sensitive and wrong purpose, the likes of Yudhishthira feels caring. He not only accepts the wrongfully inflicted betrayed as they find their desired destination curse by Gandhari but also takes responsibility of all agonizing and the so called detached and neutral the good and evil deeds, the only person to take like Sanjaya and Krishna are never at peace. Aware some kind of responsibility for his own and others’ of this meaninglessness, the two guards continue to actions. Although when the Chorus says that “the live with a stoic attitude, while others who realized wars that gods promote” (Bharati 44), we are their existential meaninglessness in the hard way enticed to agree with Shakespeare’s immortal lines attempt suicide. The guards use a very important that appear in King Lear (Act 4, Scene 1, lines 36-37), existential refrain throughout the play: “As flies to wanton boys are we to th’ gods, /they kill All our actions us for their sport” (Shakespeare 77). But we have to are meaningless. be courageous enough to take the responsibility of Our faith our own actions. We cannot expect some imaginary our decisions creatures all the time to take this burden for us. our courage Although every character in the play shows our lives some awareness of the futility of human actions, are meaningless desires, and motives, but the two old guards seems utterly meaningless. (Bharati 29) highly aware of this futility. They know that they are The burden of existence is not that easy to endure. guarding nothing valuable and indeed nothing is In Act 3, Scene 1 of Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, the valuable in this world. Still they march up and down eponymous character expresses his qualm about the desolate corridors of the Hastinapur palace all living in this world, “To be, or not to be? That is the their lives. Chorus mistakenly calls them “the two question…” (Shakespeare 59). Everything humans do old guards with the mentality of slaves” perhaps in their lives is essentially meaningless. Whether misdirected from their own statements they live for hundred years or twenty years, the end acknowledging that they have no opinions and faith is inevitable. Nothing is permanent. So-called and subsequently they make no choices (Bharati footprints of name and fame produced by mighty or

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good deeds do not last forever. Cosmic reality Directed by the feelings of hatred, jealousy belittles everything that is earthly or humanly for and contempt, humans are allured to think that war that matter. The play under consideration explores can bring solutions to their material-cum-existential the same unsavory truth. Life seems a curse to most problems. The playwright strongly gives his message of the characters in Andha Yug. They are either that wars provide no solutions, temporary or dissatisfied with the present situation of their lives permanent. Ironically, they create some more or compelled to choose death after realizing the problems. Andha Yug borrows some of the incidents futility of their lives. At a point in the play, from one of the great epics, the Mahabharata. It Ashwatthama thinks aloud: takes readers into the middle of the eighteenth day Should I commit suicide? of the great Kurukshetra war supposed to annihilate At least I shall be released adharma from the world. A plethora of events have From this impotent existence. already been passed that led to the war. They are Even if I were to burn not included because the playwright seems to in the fires of hell highlight the conclusion of the war. What happened I would not after the victory of ‘dharma/virtue’? Do the have to endure remaining humans get into the state of lived- so much torment. (Bharati 53) happily-ever-after? When considered deeply, Andha Yug is essentially In reality, the new rulers lose their peace an anti-war play. It undoubtedly deals with other and sensitivity after this large-scale slaughter. themes such as spiritual blindness and subsequent Yudhishthira is the most representative of the degeneration before the advent of mythic Kali yug, disillusionment even after getting the desperately- dehumanization during a holocaust, blurred desired victory. He finds that it was nothing more boundaries between right and wrong in critical than a kind of self-destruction: times, meaninglessness of life, justification of And what is violence in the name of religion etc. Nevertheless, it victory then? cannot be denied that the anti-war sentiments Is that not also occupy the central place in the play. a long and slow act In addition to the massacre in battles, of suicide? (Bharati 143) there is a massive collateral damage of the great He finds himself dejected, spiritless and helpless. He Mahabharata war. The ecological balance gets is disappointed to observe his brothers behaving imbalanced because of the use of lethal weapons in ignorantly and foolishly. Some of them have become the war. Future generation gets affected for arrogant and intellectually dull and some other are centuries. Innumerable innocent citizens supporting “grown old and weary” prematurely (Bharati 127). the soldiers from outside the battlefield are killed. The statement by chorus regarding the war Vidura’s description of one of such killings is the best beautifully sums up the whole anti-war argument example of this mindless and blind slaughter: using the character of Yudhishthira: When children, old men, and servants Day by day Yudhishthira grew increasingly ran out in terror dejected. Kritavarma’s arrows slowly he lost faith in everything cut them down. hope in everything Frightened elephants and in the ever-increasing darkness trumpeted wildly understood that his victory in war was smashed the tents hollow. (Bharati 127) and trampled the women It can be easily inferred from the growing decadent sleeping inside state of the new rulers that the end of the war is not to death. (Bharati 99) a happy one for even those are victorious in it. It is not just the character of Yudhishthira that

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represents the hollowness of the result of war, all Works Cited other characters equally represent its grim Bhalla, Ashok. Introduction. “Defending the Sacred outcomes to more or less extent. Gandhari, who in an Age of Atrocities: On Translating Andha loses ninety-nine of her sons, can be even stronger Yug.” Andha Yug. By Dharamvir Bharati. character to represent the havoc that a war wreaks New Delhi: OUP, 2005. Print. upon the participants and their relatives. To cite Bharati, Dharamvir. Andha Yug. Trans. Ashok Bhalla. Gandhari in the context of after-war scenario of New Delhi: OUP, 2005. Print. Hastinapur: Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. New Delhi: Atlantic Suicide Books, 2005. Print. violence ______.King Lear. Intro. by MK Bhatnagar. New adharma Delhi: Atlantic Publishers, 2007. Print. and family strife have grown a hundredfold all the cities and forests. (Bharati 140) Therefore, a war cannot be justified in the name of religion, gods, truth or honour. Nobody can claim that war is necessary, in some incomprehensible divine way, to maintain peace, dharma and prosperity in the world. The attempts to destroy ‘evil’ or ‘vice’ from the surface of the earth are illogical and nonsensical as virtue and vice are intricately entwined in human nature. There exists no pure form of any of them. Andha Yug asserts this point of view unequivocally. The Kurukshetra war, occurred to settle down the dispute of the succession of the throne of Hastinapur, can be compared to the partition of Indian subcontinent in the summer of 1947. There was a similar kind of genocidal civil war in the country between the two major religious sects of the country. Does that division or murder of about a million people brought peace and prosperity in India? The answer is simple that people were killed and peace became a mirage never to be achieved in the future ages. Besides continual blame-game, the fact that precious human lives were butchered brutally remains unpalatable yet true. In his heart- rending novel about partition, Train to Pakistan, Khushwant Singh remarks: Muslims said the Hindus had planned and started the killing. According to the Hindus, the Muslims were to blame. The fact is, both sides killed. Both shot and stabbed and speared and clubbed. Both tortured…. (Singh 1)

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