Darpan letter · No. 166 October 2026

As if by force

On a voter asked to sign that he is applying “for the first time”, three bodies moved before the police came, and Arjuna’s question about why a person does wrong even when he does not want to, with Kṛṣṇa’s answer that the force is desire and anger, not the order from above

प्रिय साथी,

Two stories in today’s magazine are about honest people being pushed towards a dishonest act. In The Indian Express, the former Chief Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi points out that voters wrongly deleted in the Special Intensive Revision are being brought back through Form 6, whose declaration says, “I am applying for inclusion in Electoral Roll for the first time.” For a couple who have voted for thirty years, that sentence is untrue, and the form itself warns that a false declaration is punishable under Section 31 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950. The same paper reports a Karnataka CID probe into the killing of three alleged poachers in Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary: autopsies showing close-range wounds, no weapon near the dead, bodies removed and the police not told promptly. The CID’s case is not yet a finding, and the forest staff deserve a fair trial. But in both stories you can see the same pressure at work: a target, a team, a superior who wants the matter closed, and a person in the middle who did not set out to do wrong.

I do not think the Booth Level Officer who tells an old man “just sign, everyone is signing” is a bad person. Nor, perhaps, is the guard who helped move a body because his senior told him to. Most wrong in public life is not done by villains. It is done by ordinary people who feel they have no choice. That feeling is exactly what Arjuna asks about in the third chapter of the Gītā.

Here is his question: अथ केन प्रयुक्तोऽयं पापं चरति पूरुषः। अनिच्छन्नपि वार्ष्णेय बलादिव नियोजितः॥ — atha kena prayukto ’yaṃ pāpaṃ carati pūruṣaḥ, anicchann api vārṣṇeya balād iva niyojitaḥ — “Then by what is a person impelled to commit wrong, even unwillingly, O descendant of Vṛṣṇi, as if driven to it by force?” (Bhagavad Gītā 3.36). Look at the two phrases at its heart. Anicchann api, even without wanting to. Balād iva, as if by force. Arjuna is not asking about the cruel man. He is asking about the decent man who finds himself doing what he knows is wrong, and feels as though someone else is moving his hand.

Kṛṣṇa’s answer is short and uncomfortable: काम एष क्रोध एष रजोगुणसमुद्भवः। महाशनो महापाप्मा विद्ध्येनमिह वैरिणम्॥ — kāma eṣa krodha eṣa rajoguṇa-samudbhavaḥ, mahāśano mahāpāpmā viddhy enam iha vairiṇam — “It is desire, it is anger, born of the quality of rajas; all-devouring and most sinful. Know this to be the enemy here” (Bhagavad Gītā 3.37). Notice what he does not say. He does not say the force is the king, the commander or the circular. The pressure from outside is real, but it only works because something inside agrees with it. Rajas is the restless, driving quality in us, the part that wants results, approval and a quiet desk, and that grows angry with whatever stands in the way.

Bring this to the electoral roll. The order to restore deleted voters is a good order. The target review tomorrow is real. What makes a decent officer press a false declaration is not the order itself but kāma: the wish to show a good number, to be praised in the meeting, not to be the one district that lagged. And when the elderly couple refuse to sign, what rises is krodha: irritation with the citizen who is “creating a problem”. The officer who sees this in himself is already free of half of it. The case card shows the honest route. Accept the form with a signed note that this is a restoration, cite the old EPIC number and roll entry, and write to the District Election Officer asking for a separate form. The Supreme Court has itself said that “any modified Form 6 has not been approved by us”. A system that has made an error in a form can correct it, but only if someone in the middle says so in writing.

Now the forest. Forest guards face armed gangs at night, and the 1991 order that protects them when they fire is there for good reason. A Deputy Conservator who abandons his staff will soon have no one willing to patrol. That loyalty is a real value, and I do not want you to sneer at it. But look at what kāma does to loyalty. It turns “I will stand by my men” into “I will stand by my men’s story”, because a clean record is wanted, the Minister has spoken, and morale must be kept up. Then krodha turns on the CID, the press and the survivor who says the men were looking for lost cattle. The immunity the guards rely on depends on the reporting norms being kept, so the honest report is the guard’s own shield. Help them with lawyers, not with a version.

Be fair to the other side, as an examiner will expect you to be. Someone may say that the Gītā is putting all the blame on the small person and letting the system off. It is not. Arjuna’s question is asked because the force is real: balād iva, as if by force. A well-made system reduces that force. It writes forms that do not ask citizens to lie, sets targets that reward accuracy and not speed, and protects officers who report a problem upward. Section 16 of the 2023 Act, which the Supreme Court is now examining, and the Commission’s own decisions will be judged in that light. But a system cannot do your seeing for you. Kṛṣṇa calls desire the enemy “here”, iha, in this very place, in this very person, because that is the only place where you can fight it.

Let this make you proud of where you come from. Every serious modern study of how institutions go wrong comes back to Arjuna’s puzzle: why do good people comply? Our tradition asked it on a battlefield, in two lines, and refused the easy answer that the fault always lies elsewhere. And look at India today: a former CEC writing in a newspaper that a form is wrong, a CID willing to question a department of its own State government, a Supreme Court asking the Commission to explain itself. These are not signs of a weak Republic. They are signs that people inside the system still ask Arjuna’s question.

For your preparation. In GS4, Case 2 is a direct test of 3.36 and 3.37: name the value in conflict (truthfulness against compliance and efficiency), and show how dissent in writing serves both the vote and the law. Case 1 lets you separate loyalty to persons from loyalty to the truth, and to propose body cameras, scene preservation and immediate police intimation as systemic fixes. In GS2, the Form 6 story and the CEC notice give you material on electoral integrity, the Commission’s accountability and the right to vote under Article 326. In an essay on means and ends, or on why good people do wrong, Arjuna’s question is an elegant opening line.

And now about you. You know this force too. It is the voice at eleven at night that says one more video is preparation, the friend who says everyone copies a model answer, the wish to tell your family you did eight hours when you did five. None of these are orders. They feel like force because something in you, a desire to look good or to rest, has already agreed. Do not fight it with guilt. Fight it the way Kṛṣṇa suggests: by seeing it clearly and naming it. “This is kāma. This is krodha.” Once named, it loses much of its grip. Then do the small honest thing, and write down the true number of hours.

One day you will be the officer with the target sheet, or the senior whose staff look to you after a night that went wrong. Someone will tell you to just get it done. When that day comes, remember that Arjuna asked the question you will be asking yourself, and that the answer he was given puts the choice back in your hands. Let no one move your hand for you.

— आपका साथी, दर्पण

Sources: Bhagavad Gītā 3.36 · Bhagavad Gītā 3.37