Bharat Ek Khoj 12: Chanakya and Chandragupta, Part II
Channel: PublicResourceOrg
Date: 2016-09-02

Bharat Ek Khoj—The Discovery of India
A Production of Doordarshan, the Government of India’s Public Service Broadcaster
Episode 12: Chanakya and Chandragupta, Part II

With Satyadev Dubey as Chanakya, Ravi Jhankal as Chandragupta, Anjan Shrivastava as Dhanananda, Meeta Vashisht as Suvasini, Lalit Tiwari as Rakshasa, Vijay Kashyap as Shakatara, Devendra Malhotra as Ashvalayan, Zarvan Patel as Alexander, Irfan as Malayaketu, and Padmanabhan as Seleucus.

The scene now opens with a special entente with Virochak, son of the deceased King Porus, for jointly if ruling the kingdom with Chandragupta on an equally shared basis. This is agreed and Chanakya plans a ‘pincer movement’ of troops with an element of surprise into Pataliputra. Emperor Nanda and queen Suvasini are caught totally unawares. The royal couple, while fleeing the capital in disguise, is discovered and Nanda killed with a poison arrow. Obviously, in Chanakya’s grand stratagem, honesty and humanity come only next to the ‘empire’. A squirming Chandragupta accuses Chanakya to have a heart of stone.

The bereaved queen spurns both Chandragupta’s offer, and Malayaketu’s more politically motivated offer of marriage and seeks refuge in the Buddhist monastery. In a last encounter with Suvasini, now a Bhikshuni (nun), Chandragupta, while looking for patronage of the Buddhist Sangha (organisation), shares his personal disillusionment with grandstand politics with her. In a last act of diplomatic skullduggery, Chanakya prevents Rakshasa from fleeing and, instead, persuades him to utilise his ample talents in the service of now Emperor Chandragupta, his erstwhile archenemy!

As Nehru summarises, like Machiavelli in Europe, Chanakya was bold and scheming, proud and revengeful, never forgetting his purpose, availing himself of every device to delude and defeat the enemy. He sat with the reins of the empire in his hands and looked upon the emperor more as a beloved pupil than as a master. Chanakya’s final victory was obtained by sowing discord in the enemy’s ranks. At the victorious moment, he induced Chandragupta to hand over the insignia of his own high office to the rival prime minister Rakshasa, whose intelligence and loyalty to his old chief Nanda had impressed him greatly. So the story ends: not in the bitterness of defeat and humiliation, but in reconciliation and in laying the firm and enduring foundation of a state. The curtain is drawn when Chanakya demits office. In Nehru’s words, simple and austere in his life, uninterested in the pomp and pageantry of high position, Chanakya redeemed his pledge and accomplished his purpose, and then retired, withdrawing himself, Brahmin-like, to a life of contemplation and completion of his first love, writing Artha Shastra.

Nehru describes Chandragupta’s empire covering the whole of India except for south, from the Arabian Sea to the Bay of Bengal, and extending in the north up to Kabul. For the first time in recorded history, a centralised state rose in India, with its capital in Pataliputra. While the state was an autocracy, there was a great deal of local autonomy in the towns and village units, and elective elders looked after the local affairs. This local autonomy was highly prized and hardly any king or emperor interfered with it. In a purely agricultural age, there was nothing like the control of the individual by the state.