In2-MeC

ISKCON Skopje, Macedonia
1 July, 2003

The kings who ruled during Vedic times were great rsis. Now our great political leaders are peanut farmers, movie actors, playboys and cowboys. If the king is good the people will likewise be good. If he is a rogue, then that is what the people will become, by following him. Politics is always dirty business. It means intrigue, it means compromise, it means state-sanctioned violence, it means arrogance, it means favoritism, it means steamrolling the rights of the individual for the interests of the state. . . these and many more unpleasantries are found even in Vedic history, what to speak of Kali-yuga history. Politics is like cooking in that if you want to fry up a delicious sabji, you have to take out a knife and start cutting; similarly if you want to have a nice government, some peoples' interests will have to be sacrificed.   Consider how Queen Kunti and the Pandavas escaped the trap that Duryodhana laid for them at Varanavata. He housed them in a palace built from highly combustable materials. His plan was to have that palace set afire while the Pandavas were sleeping. But Vidura kept them informed of Duryodhana's intrigue. On the night the fire was set, a feast was first held in the palace. Intoxicants were served. A low-class woman and her five sons had been allowed into the palace for the party; they got drunk and were permitted to stay overnight in a single room. The Pandavas escaped the fire through a tunnel an ally had secretly constructed. They deliberately let the low-class woman and her sons be burned alive in their sleep, knowing that Duryodhana would be fooled by the six charred bodies into thinking that his plot was successful in ridding the world of Queen Kunti and her five sons. Wasn't that unfair to the low-class woman and her sons? But that is what politics is all about. The road to a strong and virtuous government passes through calculated actions of unfairness, cruelty, oppression and war. Even in Vedic times, rare was the king who did not have to at some point or other resort to such policies. But the great thing was that such kings deeply pondered their actions beforehand. They sought the advice of wise brahmanas. They were not whimsical. They knew the difference between right and wrong.   Everything they did was carefully considered in the light of the Vedic scriptures. The scriptures acknowledge that for the sake of the village, an individual sometimes has to be sacrificed. And for the sake of the town, a village might have to be sacrificed. For the sake of the city, a town might have to go. That's politics. A political science professor I met in the Netherlands gave me this definition of politics: "The management of human affairs in an imperfect world. " So how much worse off we are when ignorant meat-eaters, woman-hunters, drunkards and gamblers take the post of leadership. Politics alone is bad enough, but mix in unqualified leaders and you have a recipe for chaos. In the Kali-yuga patriotism is another ingredient that is purposefully added to blind the people to the mess they are in. Patriotism, or nationalism, was unknown in Vedic times. Even in Europe during the Middle Ages it was unknown. There was only Christendom, the realm of Christian belief that stretched from Greece up to Scandinavia. The different peoples of Europe were there, they spoke their different languages, but they did not think "I am a Frenchman," "I am German," "I am English. " They thought "I'm a Christian and I live under the rule of my Christian king. " In Vedic times people similarly identified with Vedic dharma and their local king, not with some artificial border drawn on a map. Nationalism is dog-ism. Dogs mark their territories with urine and defend these boundaries with snarls, barks and finally bites. Dogs are crazed; approach their "property" and they go wild, barking like hounds from hell. Nationalism makes a dog out of a human being. He sees his flag waving in the breeze, he hears the national hymn, and he thinks "I am so proud to be an American," or  Russian or Indian or Iraqi or whatever. That heavy dose of dehatmavada (body-ism) stupifies them. "I am an American and my President is George Bush. That's all I need to know. Rise for the flag salute. " Want to know more?  Go to: http://www.georgewgirls.com/ and to: www.geocities.com/derpanzerkampf/hitlerdance/

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