An Analogy drawn from Mahabharat
Talking about the incident in the Mahabharata, when Draupadi was brutally harassed in front of the whole kingdom. That incident also marked the strong silence held by great renowned personalities of that time—Patriarch Bheeshma, Guru Drona, and Dharmaraj Yudhishthir, who was also a husband of the same lady who had lost her sacred dignity in the hands of power mongers.
The Silence of the Powerful: Law vs. Dharma
It has always been an issue of debate in Hindu society that the silence of the above men on this tragedy was because they didn’t want to break the ‘Duties’ and the ‘Table of Precedence’ they were bound with. I remember watching Mahabharata on television during the pandemic when this particular incident came up. I could feel the powerlessness of a woman, screaming and constantly begging for the so-called power holders to save her from this ‘Naked Injustice.’ I immediately asked my mother why on earth they were not stopping this, why they were not reacting when they could, and why Bhima was not using his muscular strength to dig these evildoers down into hell. My mother calmly replied, “They are bound by obligations and their manly promises.”
My reaction was the same as you are feeling—it was unjust. But my mother, defending her holy scriptures and showing respect to all those ‘GREAT’ men, told me they were bound by the law of their time. According to that law, one could not simply turn away from his promises, nor could one break customs and traditions. I felt cowardly and was unable to watch the Mahabharata after that incident.
A Lesson for Society: Justice Must Evolve
The patriarchs were following the law there, but were they doing justice to Draupadi? The simple answer is NO. Law is not a continuous and evolving process, but Justice is. We all know what happened when those people allowed this injustice to take place under the cover of their obligations to follow the law. The massive destruction of families in the greatest war mankind had ever seen took place only to provide justice to a lady who had lost her dignity long ago.
Our past clearly shows us that law is made by humans, but justice is done by Holy Nature, and obstructing the latter with the force of the former only brings destruction to the whole society.