Lucknow: Senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi who is not happy with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah expressed his displeasure through an article. In the article entitled “Rajdharma – How rulers must conduct: Lessons from ancient India was published in the magazine ‘Power Politics’ he indirectly took a dig at both the leaders besides, BJP party and its ideological mentor RSS.
What seems to be a dig at the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah duo he stated, “The king according to Valmiki cannot be a despot. We find in Ramayan the king consulting ministers, learned men, and the principal officers of the Army in shaping the policy of the state”.
In another paragraph he writes, “The main purpose of the state according to the Mahabharata is to create conditions for freedom from fear, including the fear of violence. In other words its purpose lies in protecting the small fish from the big fish keeping in mind that in the process the state does not itself become the big fish. That will lead to oppression and terror resulting in adharma by the state”
The paragraph which could be read as addressing the fear of “gau rakshaks” and other lynch mobs states the essence of Rajdharma thus, “Let the king protect his subjects from their fear of him, from their fear of each others from their fear of each other and from their fear of things which are not human”. “The main purpose of the state according to the Mahabharata is to create conditions for freedom from fear, including the fear of violence.”
The paragraph is being fervently WhatsApped within BJP circles. Though Joshi’s piece was published in February but was recently started being circulated by an RSS WhatsApp group and from there has gone viral in the Sangh circuit.