Dharma 301 part 1 – There is no Ninth Schedule in Dharma

A lot of reactions to the Dharma debate. As requested a new category has been created for this series of debates. For those of you just joining you can find all the previous posts and references to Sandeep’s critique by visiting the category page here.

Two core issues have emerged from all the responses to 201 and 101.

1. Dharma is relative not absolute.

Deriving from this are questions like how do you define righteousness as well as comments like its the slippery slope, its not all that black and white, contextual morality, visesha dharma etc….

2. Where are the scriptural references to explain this absolutist intepretation

Following from these are all the questions around Krishna’s conduct, Draupadi’s polyandry, Vali’s slaying … the list goes on.

Will address the first issue in this part, will get to the scriptural and historical questions in the next part.

Is Dharma absolute or relative ?

Offstumped asserts that Dharma is absolute and not relative. There is no escaping the moral absolutism of Dharma.

To better appreciate this let us consider the following.

What is the nature of Dharma ?

As Sandeep puts it eloquently in his critique, it is to sustain and protect.

So if we accept this as the basic premise it stands to reason that to sustain and protect, Dharma has to be consistent. For if Dharma were not consistent it would essentially have left the door open for exceptions. Such an inconsistent Dharma in order to justify or rationalize those exceptions would end up favoring one party over the other arty. This means that in the eyes of those being judged such an inconsistent Dharma would appear to be partial towards one party and?biased against the other party.

Once bias and partiality are attributed to Dharma, it also stands to reason that the aggrieved party no longer views Dharma as as an unbiased judge to protect its interests. Once that happens the basic contract or understanding that exists between the two parties for civilized conduct breaks down.

This means the inconsistent and partial Dharma failed to protect and sustain which goes against the essential nature of Dharma.

So if we all agree that the basic nature of Dharma is to protect and sustain then it must be seen to be just, impartial, unbiased and consistent. That can only happen if Dharma is absolute in its morality and not relative.

If Dharma is absolute and not relative, what must it govern ?

It follows from the above that if Dharma has to be always absolute and never relative, it must never judge the “What” of human conduct but only the “How” of it.

Why only the “How” and not the “What” ?

As we have seen from numerous examples and Visesha Dharma described by Sandeep that the “What” of human conduct changes with time, with context, with situations.

So if Dharma were to be always consistent, just, impartial, unbiased how can it be called to judge something which is inherently inconsistent and contextual and stil satisfy all the requirements of its fundamental nature.

There is only one way this can happen and that would be for Dharma to always examine the “How” of things. So even Dharma is called upon to judge the “What” of human conduct it must not pass value judgement on the “What” but instead it must probe on the “How” of the process that created the “What” and the “How” of the practice of the “What”.

Let us understand this with an example.

Let us take the case of society before the dawn of agriculture. It stands to reason that such a society was pre-dominantly comprised of hunters. In such a society there was no immorality in hunting and killing animals even if it involved the bovine ilk. Now also consider cousins of this society who lived in a settlement on the other side of the forest and practiced agriculture. In this alternate society the rearing of cattle assumed importance to support agriculture so the killing of Cows for food had to be checked. So this society put in place a code of conduct that made it immoral for Cows to be killed. Now let us assume a girl from the Hunter society was given in marriage to a boy from the farming society. Having been brought up on meat the girl wants to kill a cow. The boy objects as it would violate his morality given the code of conduct.

Is the girl right or is the boy right, how do we resolve this dispute ?

Let us say we call upon Dharma to resolve this conflict. Let us say also say this was a Dharma that concerned itself with the “What” of human conduct. Then it has a problem. For it has two conflicting codes to deal with. One which says it is Dharma to kill a cow and another which says it is Dharma not to kill a cow. Now we have required that Dharma has to be consistent and not biased.

So how is it possible for Dharma to be both for and against killing a cow at the same time ?

It cannot. Hence the very basis by which Dharma can judge this situation cannot be the individual codes of conduct of each society or Visesha Dharma. It has to be something larger and universal.

What is that something larger ?

Again as we said at the beginning, the nature of Dharma is to protect and sustain. So if we take it that the 2 societies with different value systems were to co-exist as one civilization without killing each other there needs to be a contract, a shared value that allows each society to have the freedom of its individual value systems but at the same time provides them with a common basis to transact with each other and more importantly not finish each other off.

Dharma is that contract, shared value. Since it needs to apply to vastly different societies it must be universal and eternal in its nature. It exists as long as that unstated civilizational contract exists. It ends when that civilizational contract ends. Hence the saying

Dharmo rakshati rakshitah

It will protect and sustain as long as those who want it to protect it. If they abandon the need for civilization then Dharma can no longer protect.

This takes us to the title of this part on why there is no Ninth Schedule in Dharma.

The Constitution is like Dharma. It has to specify the “How” nation’s business must be conducted and not the “What” of Government should do.?

The moment the Constitution was polluted with ammendments that strayed from laying down general principles of the “How” to prescribe specific “What”s? we created the slippery slope.

Nothing exemplifies this slippery slope better than the Ninth Schedule. It is like Contextual Morality. It provide an escape path for Dharma or the Constitution to escape from its own stringent requirements.

From unlimited Reservations to Offices of Profit, every exception that was at odds with the “How” of our Nation’s Business was allowed sanctity by this place holder in the Constitution called the Ninth Schedule.

This is a great example highlighting how the ferment of Dharma over the centuries might have occured when the “What” took precedence over the “How” and Dharma was misinterpreted to provide sanctity to the “What” even if it was at the expense of the general principles of “How”.

Visesha Dharma in as far as it refers to Contextual Morality that deemed exceptions as Dharmic is like a giant historical Ninth Schedule.

Its an aberration and an anomaly.

Calling it Dharma doesnt make it Dharma.

More on the historical questions in the next part.

Filed under: Dharma-debates