Adharma (adharma)

Adharma is the negation of dharma: conduct that violates order, duty and right relation, whether by open wrongdoing or by silent complicity. The Mahabharata is emphatic that the second kind is the more dangerous, and its worst scene is not a murder but an assembly hall in which learned men say nothing while a queen is dragged in by her hair. Duryodhana is its usual face, but the epic insists that Bhishma, Drona and Dhritarashtra each fed it by choosing loyalty, comfort or affection over speaking out.