The 'Bhasmasur' Syndrome

Once upon a time, Lord Shiva was pleased with the prayer of a demon (asur) who asked for a boon that he may be able to burn anyone to ashes (bhasm) mere by placing his hand on enemy’s head. As promised, Shiva had to grant it to him. That demon then came to be called as ‘Bhasmasur.’ He later became a threat for he tried to burn Shiva himself.  However, Lord Vishnu rescued Shiva by enticing the demon, posing as the dancer ‘Mohini’. ‘Bhasmasur’ got the taste of his own medicine and was reduced to ashes. We all are quite familiar with the story. Although it is a mythological tale, in history it does repeat itself. There are many such ‘Bhasmasuras’ and we have instances in politics, where creation became life-threatening for the creator itself. Here are a few such examples.

Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and Congress: The urge to rule the land of Punjab led Congress to fuel Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, a self proclaimed religious leader to fight the Akalis. Congress used him as a pawn that later became a threat to their throne. Sant Bhindranwale grew too big for the Congress and even dominated the Akalis. Congress now had had to fight a bigger demon of its own making and paid for its folly with the life of Indira Gandhi (then PM) and the blots of Operation Bluestar and anti-Sikh riots on its face. 

HAMAS and PLO: A Palestinian organization, HAMAS, is understood to have been raised and promoted by the Israeli secret agency, MOSSAD to counter PLO (Palestenian Liberation Organisation). However, later HAMAS sided with PLO and turned on Israel itself, creating more troubles for MOSSAD. 

USA and Taliban: We all are aware that Afghanistan was caught in the tussle between the two superpowers, Russia and America. To counter the Russian influence, America and Pakistan covertly promoted Al-Qaida and Taliban, which not only wrought vast destruction in Afghanistan but later went out of hands and turned upon USA. The result was the 9/11 attack on Twin Towers in the USA, and now Pakistan too, on whose land these organizations flourished, is facing the music. 

India and LTTE: Indian Government secretly supported LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) an extremist body of Tamils in Srilanka, against Srilankan Govt. The fight continued till one day Srilanka requested India to come and help them control LTTE. Indians went there proudly thinking their own protégé would readily listen to them. Reality was rather exactly opposite. India lost more than 2000 army men and retracted red-faced. There is no answer for this political blunder. However, LTTE avenged India’s interference by killing Rajiv Gandhi.

What is unique in human race that has taken it so far ahead of other creatures? Intellect, we say. Thinking, analyzing an experience and learning from it, we say. True for all sciences and arts and skills; with that we have attained this present stage of technology. But, does that happen when we take some of the most important decisions of our lives that concern us, or sometimes thousands of others or even full nation’s future? To fight one demon, we often create a bigger one who turns upon us like a boomerang. Leave international matters, in our daily lives too, we create many such long term troubles by behaving irresponsibly and sometimes unethically. 

Every addiction and bad habit will sooner or later assume the form of a ‘Bhasmasur’ and we may not get a ‘Mohini’ to rescue us. We feed the devil and then blame our fate. Hence, a little thought and a small long term planning can save us from many a trouble. 

 Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it

(All the images have been taken from the Internet)