Rahul Gandhi mentions Eklavya: His story beyond the thumb-cutting, questions of ‘dharma’ it raises

He added that favours to big businessmen “cut off the thumb” of farmers and small businessmen, while schemes like Agniveer and lateral entry into government jobs are akin to cutting off the thumb of job-seeking youth.

The broad story of Eklavya and how he lost his thumb are well-known. But what happened to him after the episode with Drona? What questions of ‘dharma’ and duty are raised by his story? We explain.

Who was Eklavya?

The basic version of Eklavya’s story goes thus: a brave Nishad boy, he went to Dronacharya, teacher to the Kaurava and Pandava princes, and asked to be his disciple. Dronacharya refused. Eklavya then made a clay idol of Drona, considering him his guru, and practised archery on his own, becoming greatly proficient.

One day, Drona was out hunting with his royal disciples, with their barking dog ahead of them. Suddenly, the dog is silenced. The guru and his disciples find the dog with arrows filling its mouth, which made it go quiet, but did not hurt it at all. Everyone is impressed with this feat of archery, and the archer is discovered to be Eklavya.

When Drona asks about his teacher, Eklavya recounts how he regards Drona as his guru. Drona then asks for ‘guru dakshina’, the mandatory fee a disciple is to pay his teacher. He demands Eklavya’s right thumb as his fee, which Eklavya promptly pays.

What is less known is where Eklavya was before this episode, and what happened to him once he lost his thumb.

Eklavya was the son of Hiranyadhanu, the king of Nishads. Nishads in the Mahabharata are tribes that live in the mountains or in forests, engaged in activities like hunting and catching fish. Another story goes that Eklavya was adopted by Hiranyadhanu, while his biological father was Devashrava, the younger brother of Vasudeva, Lord Krishna’s father. It is unclear how Eklavya came to be adopted by Hiranyadhanu, but some versions of his legend say he was abandoned in the forest by his biological parents when saints, upon his birth, prophesied a dark future for him. He grows up in the forest, brave and strong.

The Udyog Parva and the Drona Parva in the Mahabharata mention Eklavya’s life story, and his eventual killing by Lord Krishna.

Nandalal Bose’s illustration of Eklavya. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Drona having his thumb cut off seems not to have affected Eklavya’s fighting prowess much. Lord Krishna tells Arjuna that he still managed to fight in “leathern gloves”, and was a fearsome sight to behold.

Hiranyadhanu, Eklavya’s father, was a general in the army of Magadha king Jarasandha. Jarasandha was a sworn enemy of Lord Krishna, attacking his kingdom of Mathura numerous times.

“Eklavya was eventually killed by Krishna, though his death is not described in great detail,” Jitamitra Das, senior preacher at the ISKCON temple in New Delhi’s East of Kailash, told The Indian Express. “In the Mahabharata, Krishna tells Arjun that before the Kurukshetra War [the final battle between the Pandavas and the Kauravas] began, He killed off many mighty generals who would have sided with the Kauravas. Among these warriors killed was Eklavya,” Das added.

The interpretations of Eklavya’s story

Eklavya’s story is widely seen as an instance of the privileged upper castes and classes seeking to gatekeep knowledge (Drona refusing to teach Eklavya, a deserving student), and then punishing those from the lower castes and classes who still manage to learn. A hegemony on skill and talent is thus sought to be maintained, unfairly eliminating challengers from outside the charmed circle.

However, the Mahabharata, one of the most sophisticated treatises on right and wrong ever written, shuns easy binaries. Thus, the conduct of those manifestly on the right can also be questioned, and instead of right and wrong, situations and actions are framed in the question of duty: what was a person’s duty, or dharma, in a given situation, and did they uphold it? What were the consequences of their actions?

Let us look at the two primary actors of this story, Drona and Eklavya.

Dronacharya was the guru of the Pandavas too, but he fought on the side of the ‘immoral’ Kauravas in the Kurukshetra war, as his duty lay with the crown of Hastinapur, on which sat Duryodhana’s father Dhritrashtra. This same lens of duty can be applied to his dealing with Eklavya. Drona was the royal teacher, and thus his duty was to ensure there was no rival to the princes in the land, by any means.

However, his duty compelled him to such lengths also because he made what can be called a mistake. Traditionally, princes went to the ashrams of rishis (sages) to learn, where they were treated as any other student (case in point: Ram went to the ashrams of Vashishtha and Vishwamitra in the Ramayana). However, in the Mahabharata, Drona came to the palace, and thus, the royal status of his charges could never be ignored.

Also, in many retellings of the Mahabharata, Drona seems motivated by his fondness for Arjun, his star pupil. Drona’s effort, here, is to make sure competition to Arjun, and not necessarily to all princes, is eliminated.

In the case of Eklavya, there is of course the tragic hero aspect. But he did go ahead with ‘accepting’ Drona as his guru, even though the latter had clearly refused. A guru is supposed to teach not only warfare but also the rules and ethical boundaries for its use. As a self-taught warrior, Eklavya lacked this knowledge that should have complemented his formidable fighting skills, potentially making him a dangerous figure.

However, such complex questions of right and wrong are the subjects of books, seen with the necessary context. The version that survives in popular memory has its own compelling power, and in that, Eklavya is definitely the wronged hero.