Evil Character

Lst night while surfing through the internet I came to a forum.There there was a question posted-name the most evil character of mahabharat.I was stumped.Evil character?Mahabharat is a long saga of valour,sacrifice,political games,strategies,but what I have liked the most about mahabharat is that the good and bad sides of every character there is shown.Even Krishna,the incarnation of God,loses his cool at one time and tries to break his oath.I have known its story since childhood,and never ever for a moment came to my mind that any character can be branded as good or evil.For me,all were mere pawns in the great political game where the primary goal of both the 'good' and 'bad' sides was to regain the kingdom.
But good or evil?

How do we define something as good or evil?How do we say that this particular action will give u salvation or send you to hell?Look at all the fictious evil characters like Darth Vader,Lord voldemort or Agent smith and True evil characters like Adolf Hitler.Look at this from their point of view.Darth Vader was only trying to crush rebels and maintain an empire.Agent smith was merely trying to save the matrix and do the job.And the matrix was the result of a power struggle between humans and machines.We can say that the matrix eas evil because it made humans slaves and threatened their survival.But suppose u were a machine.You wud say that matrix was good and Neo was evil because he was trying to destroy the matrix which was essential for machines' survival.Even if we take the case of Lord Voldemort or Adolf Hitler.They are accused of genocide.But what abt Harry Truman who ordered dropping 2 atom bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki and killed millions of civilians?What about George Bush who is waging a war over Iraq over some fictious weapons of mass destruction?Hitler and Saddam Hussein were merely trying to be in power politics as were Truman and Bush,the only difference is that they were branded evil by their respective victors and we have blindly accepted that.To the victor goes the spoils.

Good or evil is a relative term.What is good to me may not be good to you;same goes for evil.In India drinking wine and eatine beef for followers of Hinduism are considered sinful;but tell this to someone in europe and he will be surprised.Even the sinful task of killikg is not considered sinful in the remote,headhunting tribes of Africa.In India as in other countries,sex is taboo.But the fact is that sex is connected to genesis,which is the hallmark of God makes it divine.Everything we do is only a task;there is nothing good or evil attached to it.It is our perception,our blind acceptance of beliefs thrust upon us by the people in power or by the elders that make us think in terms of good and evil.Remember,evil cannot be there unless there is good,and evil and good are the two sides of life that make life so diverse,so colourful and so enigmatic.I personally believe that branding something only exposes as hypocrisy,and sadly,we humans have become super-hypocrites.We like to lecture others on how the model code of conduct should be,but how many of us follow them to the hilt?When we see somebody doing something we dont like,we brand him as bad;but if in life a situation comes when we have to do it ourselves,do we have compunction?Yes,thats it;we brand something as evil only because we dont like it;not because God told us.The thin line differentiating good and evil is only dependent on our likes and dislikes-the likes and dislikes of 'imperfect' human beings!

"There is nothing good,nothing evil;there is only power!"-JK Rowling

How true,how very true!