Karna: The Evil Counsel Of A Jealous Master

News18

17-07-2025

Karna's disgraceful conduct on countless occasions is the earliest and perhaps the perfect case study in the theory and practice of Communism
From his teenage years, Duryodhana had cultivated a Duṣṭa-traya — a Diabolical Triad comprising Śakuni, Duśyāsana, and Karna, which assisted his self-scripted drama of evil that ultimately ruined him and the Kaurava kingdom and the nation.
This is akin to the sinister cabal surrounding Indira Gandhi whose depraved counsel wrecked India and culminated in her assassination and the genocide of Sikhs — all horrors of her own making.
The parallel doesn't stop here. Karna's loyalty was a personal loyalty exclusively reserved for Duryodhana. For him, Duryodhana was Hastinapura, just as DK Barooah had infamously declared that India was Indira.
The iconic Kannada litterateur, journalist and philosopher, DV Gundappa fleshes out Karna's innate character and the nature of his relationship with Duryodhana:
'When Karna was mocked and humiliated for being the son of a Sūta (charioteer in this case; in general, low birth), he was unable to find a convincing counter to it and had to swallow the indignity."
Indignity bred inferiority within Karna, which in turn spawned a lifelong resentment against the whole world, in a manner of speaking. Duryodhana became the perfect vehicle to channelise this misguided bitterness. Unqualified servility to Duryodhana was an agreeable cost to pay for his unceasing war against the world.
Karna's disgraceful conduct on countless occasions is the earliest and perhaps the perfect case study in the theory and practice of Communism. In its ideological scheme of things, you are not a true Communist if you don't first loathe yourself, and then loathe yourself for life. By extension, a self-loather is also a perpetual blame-hunter. Thus, if I am poor, neglected, disrespected and despised, it is always someone else's fault — that someone else is the invisible but the real entity called society. Every notable Communist ideologue from Karl Marx to today's Woke champions has invariably projected their personal pathologies as injuries done to them by society.
In this context, one can recall Dr SL Bhyrappa's memorable reply when he was asked why he did not become a Communist, given his painful childhood and his struggling student life: 'The same society that treated me unkindly in those early days also gave me opportunities to study and become something. The same society continues to respect me as a writer. I should be grateful and not wage war against it."
This is an obvious and rather straightforward truth that anyone can realise if they set aside their ego and self-pity and look inward.
Thus, Karna's ego operated as a self-induced shame for being labelled as a Sūta. It blinded him to the existence of another stalwart, Vidura — one of the most profound characters in the Mahabharata. Vidura too, hailed from Karna's social strata and he held a place of great dignity in the court of Hastinapura.
Two early episodes in the epic reveal how Karna, like Karl Marx, recasts his personal pathology as a war against the world.
In the Vidurāgamana-Parva of the Adi-Parva, this is what Karna says about women in general but his real target is Draupadi: 'women think that it is desirable to possess more than one husband. Draupadi has attained that."
In the same Parva, we notice Karna admitting that the Pandavas are intrinsically Dharmic and that Duryodhana cannot defeat them on the plane of Dharma. He gives a line by line rebuttal to Duryodhana's strategies to wreck the Pandava unity. In this portion of the Parva, Duryodhana operates from pure jealousy while Karna operates at a fouler level: he knows that the Pandavas are innately virtuous, yet he wants to deliberately injure them. For two basic reasons: One, to please Duryodhana, and two, to extract his personal vengeance against Draupadi. His sickening advice to Duryodhana is breathtaking for its sheer evil: 'Duryodhana! O Lord of the Earth! It is impossible to win against the Pandavas through Sāma, dāna, and bhēda. Victory is possible only through valour (Vikrama)."
Here, Karna gives the honourable trait of valour to justify the launch of an unprovoked, Adharmic war to fulfil his itch for spite. We invoke Gundappa once again:
'… Karna was bereft of the ability to distinguish between Dharma and Adharma in his loyalty towards his benefactor. Karna never felt the need to tell Duryodhana: 'this is good for you, this isn't."
Indeed, more than anybody, Karna unerringly knew that wicked counsel would please his master.
To be continued…
(The author is the founder and chief editor, 'The Dharma Dispatch'. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18's views)
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