Legal and Judicial Aspects of Guilds and Corporations
AS OUR GUILDS AND CORPORATIONS extended the ambit of their operations and swelled in influence, the society and legal system too, kept pace with them. The Dharmasastra literature over time, evolved to meet these changing circumstances. It contains copious rules relating to guilds, corporations, caravans and trading communities.
The prime feature of this politico-legal facet was the right of corporations to have their own rules, regulations and laws, which the Government not only recognized but the King was bound to consult them before taking any decision that impacted corporate bodies. In fact, as early as the fifth century BCE, this system had already been formalized. Here’s a verse from the Gautama Dharma-Sutra:
Cultivators, traders, herdsmen, money-lenders and artisans are authorized to lay down rules for their respective classes, and the king shall give the legal decision after having learned the (state of) affairs from those who have authority to speak on behalf of each class or guild.
Internally, guilds and corporations functioned strictly along democratic principles. The Buddhist period for example, furnishes us with extensive evidence for this fact.
A General Assembly—akin to modern-day board meetings—was vested with supreme authority to decide on all matters. The actual procedure for conducting these meetings was described down to the last detail. All members of the guild had a right to vote unless they were incapacitated in some way. No meeting was legal unless all the members entitled to vote were present. If a member was absent for some reason, he could formally declare his consent to vote, familiar in contemporary terminology as absentee voting. The formal consent of absentee members was known as Chhanda. The Mahavagga for example, contains elaborate rules formulated to constitute a quorum.
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