​When Karna was virtuous why did he suggest that Draupadi be disrobed?

Answer Podcast

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Yes. Question. Why did Karna suggest that Draupadi be disrobed when he was actually an honourable Kshatriya? When he was a virtuous hero? Answer.
Yes. That Karna’s terrible suggestion was the result of bad association. More specifically, it was the result of his attachment to bad association.
The association of Duryodhana. Karna was, relatively speaking, a virtuous person. He was charitable.
He was heroic. And initially, when he joined the side of the Kauravas, at that time, he fought, he wanted the Kauravas to fight against the Pandavas straight. And he opposed the various schemes that Shakuni was hatching to have the Pandavas dispossessed or killed.
So, when, say, the plan for the, for sending the Pandavas to Varanavarta came up and then the plan, the idea came up that they should be burned there. Karna opposed that. He said, why do you have to do such things? Let’s challenge them for a war.
But Shakuni called, dismissed the idea, saying that it was childish. And basically, by associating with them and because of his feeling obliged to Duryodhana and his wanting to please Duryodhana, he eventually abandoned his cruples and he became, at least for some time, he became immoral. He became viciously unethical and especially at the time of the Kuru Assembly, where the Pandavas had lost themselves and had lost Draupadi.
So, Karna had a right to feel insulted when he had not been allowed for whatever reason to compete in the assembly, compete in Draupadi’s So, that hurt could have, that hurt to his honour could have been there, but that is for a Kshatriya warrior to be not allowed to compete in a particular battle, a particular contest, it is a disgrace. But that is, that disgrace is nothing in comparison to the disgrace for a chaste woman to be dragged into an assembly and to be disrobed in public. So, the point here is that why did he do it? Because of this bad association of Duryodhana, his morals got blunted.
He lost his cruples and then in the heat of the movement, at that time when he wanted when he wanted to please Duryodhana and he wanted to avenge his dishonouring by Draupadi, he he viciously assassinated her character by calling her a prostitute. So, now, she was not at all a prostitute because there was no question because she was she had been officially married to the five Pandavas and their marriage had been sanctioned by an authority as great as Vyasadeva and it had been blessed by him and he had said that this had been ordained by Mahadeva in his previous life, in Draupadi’s previous life. So, there was no question at all of comparing Draupadi’s situation with that of a prostitute.
So, it was a grievous insult and on top of that, he suggested that she be disrobed. So, it was basically so that he could dishonour Draupadi He basically wanted to dishonour Draupadi and he wanted to please Duryodhana and that’s how he acted so heinously. So, basically, Karna’s actions at that time demonstrate how attachment to bad association can make even a good person bad.
Now, to his credit, Karna regretted his actions afterwards. Later on, he told Krishna and he told Bhishma also during the course of the war or just before the Kurukshetra war that it was only to please Duryodhana that he spoke those things and he bitterly regretted those and Duryodhana, there is no record of his ever having regretted what he did to the Pandavas. So, in that sense, Karna’s to some extent, his conscience did come back and he was not as deadened to morality as Duryodhana was but because he was attached to someone who was so deadened to morality, so for some time during the Kurukshetra war, his moral sense deserted him.
He cast away his moral sense and acted in a horrendously adharmic way. So, that demonstrates the perverting power of bad association how it can make a good person act in terrible ways. Thank you.