2KYOT - C88 - Knowing the Enemy - K875

2000 Years Old Tweets - Swamy's Thirukkural blog series
Chapter 88 - Knowing the Enemy

The embers of Bihar election heat wave have started cooling down, coinciding with the arrival of monsoon, which as always has inundated most of Chennai. It was a decisive victory for an unlikely coalition of 2 sworn rivals - Nitish & Lalu (both former CMs of the state), who started out in politics together, under a common umbrella & leader, against an autocratic ruler at the centre and the atrocity of that rule called Emergency.

It was also a blow to the ambitious new BJP regime headed by the charismatic leader Modi, who genuinely wants to make this once-great nation great again and his party leader Shah, known for his organizational prowess that brought their party to power at the centre - considered impossible in this nation dotted with selective secularist leaders misleading voters all the time - not too long ago.

Since the threadbare analysis of the viciously fought election is being done by all kinds of glitterati - including the selective secularist elite - on many television channels (most of which spectacularly failed to predict the eventual victory), let's spend our valuable time in understanding what Valluvar has got to say about this kind of scenario, in his epic Thirukkural, a book of 1330 couplets that amazingly are like tweets, written over two millennia ago!

Kural 875
தன்துணை இன்றால் பகையிரண்டால் தானொருவன் 
இன்துணையாக் கொள்வற்றின் ஒன்று.

When you're alone and face two enemies (or opponents), it's better to offer truce to one of them (or make one of them your ally).

Nitish was smart enough to do just that and allied with Lalu, against whom he has fought and won elections in the past. Lalu too was smart enough to accept the truce offered by his rival who took the kursi away from him (& his wife). No one knows how long this uneasy alliance will last (considering the more vocal & naturally dominant Lalu has won more seats than Nitish, whose cleaner image helped him not only win the election but also will ensure his continuity as Bihar CM, as Lalu is barred from contesting elections for a few more years), but pretty much everyone knows how the Bihari bhais got the math right - irrespective of whether either of them even know about Thirukkural or not!

@PrakashSwamy
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Note: This post is part of Swamy's blog series on the epic book of Tamil poetry Thirukkural, thought to be written over 2000 years ago by the poet ThiruValluvar, in an enchanting Tweet long couplet format, which is amazingly relevant even in the digital space of today!
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Be Joyful & Spread the Cheer :)

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