No, betrayal is never normal

Thirukkural with the Times explores real-world lessons from the classic Tamil text ‘Thirukkural’. Written by Tamil poet and philosopher Thiruvalluvar, the Kural consists of 1,330 short couplets of seven words each. This text is divided into three books with teachings on virtue, wealth, and love and is considered one of the great works ever on ethics and morality. The Kural has influenced scholars and leaders across social, political, and philosophical spheres.Motivational speaker, author and diversity champion Bharathi Bhaskar explores the masterpiece.In the last few days, Tamil Nadu has witnessed a new beginning and also yet another season of shifting loyalties, hurried exits and sudden embraces between yesterday’s rivals. Leaders move camps overnight. Long-time associates discover “differences”. Parties that once spoke the language of ideology now talk numbers. What is perhaps more unsettling than the betrayal itself is the speed with which it happens and how society normalizes it.Political analysts discuss defections with clinical ease. Television debates reduce loyalty to strategy. “This is politics,” they shrug. “All is fair in love and war.” Psephologists who failed spectacularly in reading the public mood now comfortably explain why such betrayals are inevitable. Slowly, the normalization spreads beyond politics; Into business partnerships; friendships; marriages.Almost every great civilizational story carries within it the ache of treachery. Judas trading loyalty for 30 pieces of silver remains one of the most haunting symbols of human frailty. Brutus stabbing Julius Caesar in the name of preserving the Republic became, in Shakespeare’s words, “the unkindest cut of all.”Psychologists describe betrayal trauma – not in politics but in personal relationships; as a deeply destabilizing emotional injury. Recovery is rarely linear. Shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance arrive like unpredictable tides. Often, the betrayed person suffers more from the collapse of emotional certainty. An enemy’s attack is expected. A friend’s betrayal unsettles one’s faith in human bonds.Tamil literature too understood this complexity centuries ago. One of the great five epics of Tamil, Kundalakesi, revolves around betrayal and survival. Bhadra, the wealthy merchant’s daughter from Puhar, falls in love with Kaalan, a condemned thief. Blinded by affection, she persuades her father to save him from execution and marries him. But after a domestic quarrel where she mentions his past, Kaalan secretly decides to kill her and escape with her jewels. Pretending remorse, he invites her on a pilgrimage to a hilltop. There, he reveals his true intentions.Bhadra asks for one final wish — to circle her husband three times before death as a mark of respect. Kaalan, amused and confident, agrees. During the third round, standing behind him, she pushes him off the cliff in an extraordinary twist.Tamil literature gives the betrayed woman an instinct for survival. Later, Bhadra becomes Kundalakesi, renouncing worldly life by becoming a Buddhist monk. The story, later adapted by Kalaignar Karunanidhi in the film 'Manthiri Kumari', remains modern.But life is rarely so dramatic. Most betrayals do not arrive with warnings on hilltops. Many discover them too late — in abandoned friendships, broken partnerships, political desertions and silent disappearances during adversity.Ironically, failure and downfall often become the clearest mirrors in life. Prosperity attracts crowds; suffering reveals true companions. When institutions weaken, when leaders lose power, when individuals stumble, one silently learns who stays and who walks away.No one captured this more precisely than Thirukkural. Valluvar writes in Kural 799:Kedungaalai Kaividuvaar Kenmai AdungaalaiUllinum Ullam SudumIt haunts one till death; the thought of those friendswho deserted us in distress.Perhaps that is why societies must resist glorifying opportunism, even when politics treats it as routine. A civilization survives not merely through economic strength or electoral victories, but through the invisible moral agreements that hold human relationships together.When betrayal becomes entertainment, conscience slowly becomes negotiable.