Karna-The legendary ruler

Division of Hastinapur

Hastinapur,

As Karna and Viswamitra predicted, Hastinapur had turned into chaos upon the arrival of Pandavas. Yudhisthir and his brothers were confident that once the citizens would come to know about their arrival, they would welcome them with great pomp and glory and Yudhistir would easily get his throne. But to their dismay when their chariot entered the kingdom, only a few Brahmins, soldiers and royal maids rained flowers on them and welcomed them. While the common citizens either had a neutral expression on their face or clear displeasure. Seeing this the Pandavas became angry and asked Vidur about the reason. 

Vidur, 'My sons, after you all left, Duryodhana tried to implement many reforms here. He was highly impressed with the administrations of Magadha and tries to remove all kinds of social discriminations. Though me, your pitamaha and kulguru protested and stop him from doing something so drastic and destroy our law and culture but still he managed to bring many changes. Due to that the common citizens especially the vaishyas and Shudras are very happy with him. In fact the common soldiers are also supporting him as he had started after death pension for them like Magadha.'

Nakul, 'What? He is giving pensions to the soldiers? But why? It will effect the royal treasuries. The soldiers should fight for their country and king, it is the dharma of a Kshatriya. They should not sell their dharma for money.'

Though Vidur knew that what Dury was doing was beneficial for the kingdom as it would boost up the morale of the soldiers and they would take more risks for their kingdom but seeing Pandavas reaction he did not say that aloud. He also did not want to admit that it was Dury who was taking wise decisions for the subjects. What he wanted that Yudhisthir should take all good decisions so that the subjects would love him. But he also knew that Yudhisthir would not do anything that was not a common social norm or not written in the vedas. But what he did not understand that whatever written in Vedas are the ways to make our life better, not worse. Ho0wever, Vidur would not let the bloodline of Ambika to reign for long. Yudhisthir blindly followed Kunti and Vidur would do anything to keep Kunti happy.

Bheesm was in a fix. Since the Pandavas left, he closely observed Dury and Kauravas. Though they always listened to their mama Shakuni but at least they were good administrators. During their reign Hastinapur made a good progress in economy, trade, defense, education. Though they did not reach their former glory, thanks to their unnecessary expenditure on donating the Brahmins, making huge palaces, temples and idols of royals and defeat in Magadha war, the condition of the royal treasury was really bad but Shakuni  and other Kauravas to some extent salvaged the situation. They tried to make new trade alliances, developed the cottage industries, started various vocational trainings to increase the qualities of their products. Bheesm did not admit it openly but in his mind he knew that Dury was a much better ruler than Yudhisthir. He also knew that some of the problems like the sabotaging their alliance and trade proposals, delaying in industrial development, were created by Vidur and some Pandava's loyal ministers. They deliberately tried to create problems in Dury's reign. In fact, these behavior of Vidur really disappointed Bheesm. He always supported Pandavas but his loyalty was mostly for the throne of HP. He wanted to make his kingdom the strongest and most prosperous in Aryavart. Personally he did not like many of the reforms that Dury tried to implement but when he observed that the trade and defense system was getting better, he was really impressed. But now the Pandavas was back and Vidur was the mastermind behind their disappearance. Bheesm really felt betrayed as Vidur did not even inform him about their survival. And now they were coming back and everything would be in chaos again. Bheesm did not understand what to do. And Magadha was raising their power. After knowing about Karna's identity, Bheesm understood that Karna's main goal was his destruction. Bheesm tried to create problems for Magadha by spreading false propaganda's, sending assassins to kill or kidnap Karna's family, attack on their trade convoys but he failed every time. Firstly Karna had such a strong spy network and his minister Vishnugupta was well aware of HP's every move. Also Vidur did not co operate with him. Bheesm really sometimes regret his decision to place that dasi putra in such a high position.