Das was in Kathmandu recently to deliver a talk on his latest book. Ajit Baral of Nepal Republic Media met him for an interview. The exchange:
myrepublica.com: You first published a novel in your early twenties, then a collection of plays, and then your observations of changes in post-liberalized India, and now a kind of philosophical meditation on dharma. How did this transformation happen – from a fiction writer, playwright, and scholar to now a philosopher?
GCD: It is a process of getting older, I suppose. It is also a reflection of moving from one ashrama, or stage of life, to another.
Which one of these books has been the most difficult or rewarding to write?
Writing fiction is more difficult, I believe, than non-fiction. Fiction is dependent far more on one’s imagination. It also needs more courage. I don’t know if I have the courage to write plays or novels anymore.
What made you write “The Difficulty of Being Good,” an unusual book in which you interrogate “The Mahabharata” to make sense of the present-day world in it?
Why the Mahabharata? I was concerned with the moral dimension of our governance failures in India. And I was searching for a civic morality for contemporary India. I knew The Mahabharata engaged with the world of politics. I also knew that the epic was obsessed with dharma. Moreover, no one appeals to God for telling
them about dharma: You have to figure it out for yourself. For all these reasons, I decided to interrogate the Mahabharata in order to seek an ideal of civic virtue.
Can a great work of literature really help us understand the present?
After spending six years continuously with the epic, I have learned that The Mahabharata is about the way we deceive ourselves, how we are not true to others, how we oppress fellow human beings, and how deeply unjust we are in our day to day lives. But is this moral blindness an intractable human condition, or can we change it? The Mahabharata is literature, and I believe that you can learn more about right and wrong from literature than from religion or philosophy.
We have been reading The Mahabharata for ages. If its wisdom had the power to show us the path ahead, it would not have been that difficult for us to be good. So what is the point of interrogating it to find its contemporary relevance?
Human beings have not changed since then. Hence, each generation can interpret The Mahabharata to suit its needs.
How difficult it is to be good?
Very. My book is not a self-help guide to become good, but it can help to improve one’s moral reasoning powers.
You have said that we are living in a world of moral ambiguity. Has the world always been as morally ambiguous, or are we increasingly being morally more ambiguous?
It has always been morally ambiguous. For those who are liberal and secular, it is more ambiguous since they depend more on reason than the will of God. And human reasons cannot solve problems with the precision of the physical sciences.
Does the rise of moral ambiguity in our life have something to do with the pervasion of capitalism, which I think unleashes baser instincts in us?
Capitalism is about you and me buying and selling goods in the marketplace. The market as we know it has been around for 10,000 years, since the invention of agricultural surplus. We act as rational self-interested beings in the marketplace—we want best-quality goods at the lowest possible prices. There is nothing base in that.
How can we strengthen our sense of dharma?
Through moral reasoning.
In your talk last week, you said that in The Mahabharata, the action stops and the argumentative Indian takes over. But do not the constant arguments over what entails dharma in the epic make the idea of dharma very hazy?
Yes, it does.
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