Male of the Brahman species-the twice-born Dwij sanctified with a sacred thread-is free of temporal rules that govern society. He need not soil his hands to make a living; in the institutionalized structure of Hindu hierarchy, it is the responsibility of other castes to ensure his survival. His mere presence is pure and his words are beyond reproach. Like the beak of a crow that remains clean despite pecking on decomposing carcasses and partaking of abominable filth, a Brahman´s hand continues to be unpolluted even after performing purification ceremonies for thousands of sinners. The biggest punishment that can befall a Brahman is being made an outcast. Birds of prey would envy such freedom.
The Western notion of freedom is immunity from an obligation or duty. Safety of life, guarantee of liberties and security of property sets an individual free to engage in pursuit of health, wealth and happiness. Since such a freedom is based on individual rights, it increases needs, creates wants and physical possessions become markers of achievement. In Indic traditions of Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism or Hinduism however, freedom is the state of release from all worldly attachment. Paradoxically, this independence of existence ties a person even more tightly to traditions. The bird is not free anymore.
In a much-quoted verse of Bhagvada Gita, Lord Krishna ordains: "You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action. Never consider yourself the cause of the results of your activities, and never be attached to not doing your duty." Freedom thus becomes a true bondage from which the only release is death.
Krishna Prasad Bhattarai (1924-2011) loved to recite Bhagvada Gita, his meager worldly possessions had become a legend in his lifetime, but like a true Brahmin, he could never completely sever his ties with performing "prescribed duties" toward his country, the crown and commoners around. Ironically, it was his attachment to the common issues of life that made him so individualistic. In the concept of Karmayoga (union with the Supreme through performance of one´s prescribed duties), the performer and the taskmaster become inseparable. The realization that ´I am in Him and He is in me´ releases the devotee from social norms of propriety. Once that status is achieved, the seeker has no need to pursue the path of truth for he has then become a part of the Truth above all falsehoods.
There is not much in Bhattarai´s life to interpret or comment because his weaknesses were as public as his strengths. It is the responsibility of the reader to understand an open book. "My life is my message," said Mahatma Gandhi; Bhattarai tried all his life to live that dictum. His legacy is what he was and the beauty of his life would always lie in the eyes of the beholder.
Whether Bhattarai had reached that depth of attainment and become a Sanyasi is debatable, but he apparently believed that he indeed was what people had begun to call him--a Sant, the embodiment of virtuosity. He behaved like a Sant--sanctimonious, sarcastic, and solicitous towards laypersons--and breathed his beliefs to the last of his life.
Chains of confidence
Except for those who knew him intimately, Bhattarai was not a nice man to know. Since he sincerely believed that whatever he spoke or did was for the good of everyone else, he cared a little whether what he considered witty could be construed as insulting. He spoke his mind with little or no concern for the feeling of his interlocutors. All that mattered to him was ´Mero Ma´ (´My me´, the title of his book) and ´Ma ra mero rashtra´ (I and my nation, purportedly his last written communication); everything and everyone else was secondary.
It created immense confusion, if not outright infuriation, at times. Soon after he had been made the prime minister of the country at the behest of Supreme Commander of People´s Movement Ganeshman Singh (1915-1997) in 1990, a group of engineers approached him with a request to right the wrong decision of the interim government. Appointment for some 150 temporary engineers had been allowed to lapse. The decision was manifestly malicious, these young professionals had been victimized for ´taking part in politics´, which during Panchayat regime was a euphemism for supporting democratic movement.
The Bhattarai government in Singh Durbar behaved as a mere successor of Lokendra Bahadur Chand and approved the proposal of the previous dispensation to dismiss pro-democracy engineers in a sly way. When reminded of the anomaly, Bhattarai´s response was terse and to the point, "Millions had supported the struggle for democracy, they are now trooping to Baluwatar with bills of services rendered. I cannot clear all their dues as the prime minister of this country." His sentiments could not be faulted, but what really hurt complainants was that he did not feel the need to even sound sympathetic toward the plight of the desperate youngsters that had lost their jobs. Premier Bhattarai sincerely believed that his authority was limited to performing his ordained duty.
The second episode concerns his encounter with a group of concerned citizens from Dhanusha-Mahottari, an area he had served first as a rebel commander and then as a governor during the revolutionary days of 1950s. They requested him to declare the whereabouts of persons made to disappear by his predecessors in Singh Durbar. The father of Dr Laxmi Narayan Jha had been his comrade-in-arms during anti-Rana struggles. Once again, Bhattarai refused to be reassuring, "Do you think the regime would keep a ticking time bomb in its basement for so long? They must have been killed." He snubbed the request that government make its stand public. Bhattarai did not want to interfere in the designs of destiny.
His rejoinder to some Madheshi complainants, once again mainly from Dhanusha-Mahottari, was even more dismissive. They had gone to request that Bhattarai retract one of his controversial statements made in New Delhi. Reports had appeared in Kathmandu media that when someone asked him why Madhesis were not recruited in the then Royal Nepal Army, his retort was to the effect that neither did the Indian army, which had a Gorkha Brigades but no Madeshi battalions. Coming from the prime minister of a country where Madeshis made up for more than one-third of the total population, even the most charitable interpretation of such a ´nationalist´ posturing was extremely embarrassing. Bhattarai refused to budge; his faith in the imperial theory of Martial Races was unshakable. In chaste Hindi, he dismissed his petitioners to stop whining and concentrate on winning elections so that they could become rulers rather than soldiers. Nobody could question his intentions, but the implied insult continues to rankle many Madeshis to this day.
Freedom from commitments
The idea of philosopher-king is at least as old as utopian dreams of classical Greek philosopher Plato, a thinker believed to have been born in Athens or Aegina between 429 and 423 BC. The connecting hyphen, however, has repeatedly failed to resolve the contradictions between a seeker of truth and the enforcer of the will. Other than the possible exception of Rajarishi Janak, though even he was more of a philosopher than a king, reconciliation between spiritual and temporal urges have always been illusory.
Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan (1890-1988) had to succumb to the will of Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876-1948) of creating Pakistan at all cost. Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) was killed soon after Indian independence; Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964) not only became the longest serving prime minister of his country, but also the founding father of a democratic dynasty. Witness to the unfolding of these cataclysmic events of South Asia, Bhattarai somehow believed that history was not a predictor of politics and he could be the premier and yet retain his inclinations of being a preceptor of virtuous living. In the event, he spent his entire life reconciling these two irreconcilable urges.
Bhattarai died about two weeks before the first death anniversary of his long time personal friend and political adversary Girija Prasad Koirala (1925-2010). Together, these two imminent personalities helped shape the destiny of Nepal. Bhattarai will perhaps be remembered more for how he lived and what he wanted to do rather than what he achieved.
The constitution that Bhattarai had helped promulgate failed the moment it was announced when Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist) refused to offer anything more than ´critical support´ for the supreme law of the land. To realize his unfulfilled dream of becoming an elected people´s representative, he had to seek a Madhesi-dominated constituency and ask for the votes of people he considered unwarlike and somehow less nationalist. Despite the bluster of his parting speech on the floor of the house, his second term as prime minister of the country was lackluster at best.
Koirala´s failures have been legion, but the class he alienated through his relentless pursuit of self-prescribed goals flocked to Bhattarai for succor and shelter. Since a large number of such people were of the literate and comfortable classes, Bhattarai remained a hot favorite of the media and was celebrated as the pious opposite of sinning Koirala. Even after death, these two personalities would probably be constantly compared in all future references about any debate over idealism and practicality, majoritarianism and constitutionality and constitutional monarchy versus republicanism. Both sides will have committed adherents. Bhattarai will have his acolytes while Koirala too will have his supporters in the Nepali Congress. Koirala died in harness with unfilled dreams for his party. Having renounced the party that made him whatever he was, Bhattarai died unencumbered. His flight to freedom was that of a free soul.
There is not much in Bhattarai´s life to interpret or comment because his weaknesses were as public as his strengths. It is the responsibility of the reader to understand an open book. "My life is my message," said Mahatma Gandhi; Bhattarai tried all his life to live that dictum. His legacy is what he was and the beauty of his life would always lie in the eyes of the beholder.
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