Nitopadesha #1: Citizens and Rulers

Nitopadesha by Nitin Pai is a play on the famous Hitopadesha tales. The book has short tales with animals as the main characters, and are meant as “moral tales for good citizens”. What makes for a good society? What is needed for good governance? The answers are not always obvious or intuitive.

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Take this tale about a pond where there was an agreement that a duck would catch and eat only one fish per day. One day, a duck accidentally caught two fish. He got a lot more satisfaction and nobody seemed to have noticed. So he started eating two fish everyday. When the other ducks noticed this, they started copying him – some because that duck seemed happier; others because there seemed to be no penalty. Soon the fish count fell steeply, and the ducks struggled to find enough food. It got worse. With no food (fish) left, the ducks were forced to leave the pond whereupon they fell victims to the jackals in the forest.

 

The moral for citizens? Balance greed and responsibility; selfishness and altruism. Why I liked this tale was because the moral included too much altruism as a danger to society. How can that be? Because when overdone, people stop working or saving as they will be taken care of anyway. Society as a whole cannot function efficiently if too many people develop that mindset.

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Another tale was about a crane ran an eatery that was doing well. Then someone suggested that things would be even better if she introduced more discipline. The first rule she came up was about instilling cleanliness. All employees should wash themselves in cold water infused with petals of fresh jasmine every morning before coming to work. Other such rules followed – the intent was relevant to an eatery, but the specifics were as crazy as the first one. At the end of the month, the crane was surprised that the earnings had reduced from earlier times…

 

The moral of this tale? Bad rules are like a rotten fruit that spoil the good ones. Because once people believe a rule is absurd or unenforceable, they begin to have doubts about other rules, even the good ones. It soon becomes muddied to a point where people are not sure which rule could be a stupid, pointless rule. From that point, people just follow whatever rules are convenient.

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A third tale was about the ideal ruler. The ruler who was extremely virtuous had a dream where the representatives of the Lord of Dharma visit him. He asks them how he will be judged and is surprised when told that while he is indeed very virtuous, on the dharma front, he scores poorly. Stunned, he introspects and decides to also become dutiful to one and all. The representatives of the Lord of Dharma again appear in his dream and rate him high on virtue and dutiful, but still low on dharma.

 

Taken aback, the ruler thinks long and becomes mindful, carefully thinking of the consequences, intended and unintended of his actions and policies before making decisions. Now, finally, he is rated high on the dharma scale.

 

The moral? A ruler should be judged based on the consequences of his policies, not the intentions behind them. Or how good an individual he may be. Producing good outcomes for his subjects, that is the dharma of a ruler.

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