THE GENIUS OF SANATANA POLITY AND STATECRAFT: DECOLONISING INDIAN GOVERNANCE by SANDEEP BALAKRISHNA (Dharma Dispatch)

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s vision of and eulogy to the Indian Civil Services in his inspirational speech on April 21, 1947 to the first batch of the Indian Administrative Services needs repetition if only to underscore how farsighted he was: 

Your predecessors were brought up in the traditions in which they … kept themselves aloof from the common run of the people. It will be your bounden duty to treat the common men in India as your own. [Emphasis added] 

It was a truly rousing and heartfelt speech. It was also a challenge to the best men to see whether they could scale the Mount Everest or just Nandi Hills. Fortunately, a sizeable chunk took up the Sardar’s challenge and showed what the Sardar’s “steel frame” was really capable of contributing towards nation-building. Until at least the mid 1970s, there were any number of IAS officers who were also scholars and culturally learned. Fast forward, a decade later, the downward transformation was as swift as it was brutal and criminal. Recent history is witness to the undeniable living reality that the steel frame has transformed into a moth-eaten hollowness. Indeed, it is inconceivable that brazen “politicians” like Lalu Yadav, D.K. Shivakumar et al couldn’t have gotten away with their venal marauding of both the exchequer and public conscience without being ably assisted by the bureaucracy. 

Nirad C Chaudhuri echoed[i] Sardar Patel as recently as in 1997 when he remarked that

…what disappeared from India with the going away of the British had created remained, intact in all its features and above all in its spirit… The immense noisy crowds that greeted the end of British rule in India with deafening shouts of joy on August 15, 1947, did not recall the old saying: they thought nothing of British rule would survive in their country after the departure of the White men… They never perceived that British rule in India had created an impersonal structure…. a system of government for which there was no substitute. In this system, the actual work of government was carried on by a bureaucracy consisting of the highest British officials together with a hierarchy of officials whose lowest but the most numerous personnel was formed by the clerks. Actual initiation of government action was in the hands of the men in the lowest position, viz, the clerks… the basic character of the Indian bureaucracy as it is now: ‘Theirs is a solid, egocentric, and rootless order, which by its very nature, is not only uncreative, but even unproductive. Its only purpose is to perpetuate itself by inbreeding, and ensure its prosperity. Government by such a bureaucracy can by itself be regarded as a decisive sign of decadence of a people in their political life.

The common feature of both the Sardar and Nirad Chaudhuri’s observation is just one word: rootlessness; in other words, psychological and cultural colonization. In practical terms, if there’s any institution that needs to be urgently decolonized today, it is the Indian Administrative Services (I use this term in an all-encompassing sense to include all the Civil Services like IFS, IPS, etc). Many learned Civil Services officers have themselves written and spoken at length about the need for reform in the Civil Services. But the word they’re looking for is not “reform” but “decolonize.” I would also dare add the following to this: the state at which the Civil Services is currently in, reform is simply impossible.

We can also regard this issue with a bit of historical data pertaining to said colonization.

Rule by Theory

One significant consequence—indeed, a defining feature—since India became a democracy in name is something that I call Rule-by-Theory. Under Nawab Nehru’s extended dispensation of darkness, softcore Communism was the theory that ruled India. Till she lifted the Emergency, Indira Gandhi opted for a slightly hardcore version of the same Communism. And Rajiv Gandhi didn’t have a clue about anything. After his demise, the country was pretty much in free fall except for some breaths of fresh air under P.V. Narasimha Rao and Atal Bihari Vajpayee. 

But what has remained common for the last sixty-odd years is the selfsame Rule-by-Theory. Or to be more specific, Rule by Western Political Theories, which are completely at odds with the millennia-old genius of Sanatana polity, statecraft and governance. What has worsened the situation is the untested implementation of said Rule-by-Western-Theories. And nowhere is this defect more glaring than in the near-obliteration of the time-tested system of the Gram Panchayat, which had largely remained untouched even by the most oppressive Islamic tyranny. Although the Gram Panchayat system exists only in name, its original sturdiness has perhaps been irretrievably lost. In other words, the form of democracy that India adopted after 1947 centralized political power in New Delhi to such an appalling extent that even state governments were reduced to the status of supplicants. As an example, let’s look at an illuminating if not tragic account[ii] of the deliberations over the Panchayat Raj system in the Constituent Assembly.  

·       I want to ask whether there is any mention of villages and any place for them in the structure of this great Constitution. No, nowhere. The Constitution of a free country should be based on ‘local self-government’. We see nothing of local self-government anywhere in this Constitution. This Constitution as a whole, instead of being evolved from our life and reared from the bottom upwards is being imported from outside and built from above downwards. A Constitution which is not based on units and in the making of which they have no voice, in which there is not even a mention of thousands and lakhs of villages of India and in framing which they have had no hand—well you can give such a Constitution to the country but I very much doubt whether you would be able to keep it for long. 

·       We cannot have a strong Centre without strong limbs. If we can build the whole structure on the village panchayats, on the willing cooperation of the people, then I feel the Centre would automatically become strong. 

·       Dr Ambedkar boldly admitted, and the members of the Drafting Committee do concede that in this Constitution there is no provision for establishing Panchayat Raj…When there is no such provision, it can never be the Constitution of India… If the village is to be discarded, someone can also boldly demand that this Constitution be discarded.

Unprecedented Concentration of Political Power

Some conclusions are inescapable from this. At no other time in the millennia-old civilizational history of India—even under the vast and sweeping monarchies of the Mauryas, the Guptas and the Vijayangara Empire—was political power concentrated in the hands of a tiny minority in a single city: New Delhi. Such concentration of political power is not only alien to the Sanatana spirit, it is a crime against this spirit. Indeed, this centralization and concentration of power is the chief reason for the growth of regional and caste-based parties in just about thirty years after we attained freedom. For example, from the “Dravidian” parties up to say the Telugu Desam Party until recently, it was common to hear their leaders drop such grand public utterances about “taking our fight to Delhi.” Think about what that means. Think about what this kind of “democracy” has done to Bharatavarsha and her Sanatana civilisational continuity. 

Rajyashastra is Subservient to Dharmashastra

In the Sanatana tradition, what is known as politics was always subservient to Dharmashastra. In a way, Rajyashastra (polity, statecraft, governance, administration) was a mere subset of Dharmashastra and couldn’t be divorced or separated from it. Politics, economics, etc were worldly subjects to be regarded as mere tools and implements that facilitate a human being’s continuous quest to attain spiritual liberation. Which is why politics was constrained by the tenets of Dharma, and it is Dharma which guarantees spiritual freedom to the individual. All other freedoms are meaningless without spiritual freedom. In the Sanatana conception, this spiritual freedom of the individual received primacy because the collective actions and remembered traditions guided by this spiritual freedom is what gave us civilizational continuity. 

Consider these words[iii] by the iconic D.V.G.

no matter how far India progresses in the achievement of….material wealth, there will always be numerous other countries as competition… our desire…to be equal to England, Germany, America, and Russia in material acquisitions…is itself an adventure. It’s our duty to attempt such things so let’s do it.

But the one field which doesn’t present any such competition is culture: specifically, the spiritual culture of India. This spiritual culture is the best and the finest of India’s wealth. If we don’t account for or neglect this spiritual culture, there’s no other area which India can take pride in. Forget pride, there is indeed no area where India can become useful to the world.

But think about what these Western political theories, democracy etc have become today, in the lands of their origin: they have become instruments to manipulate the public mind. Indeed, even the notion of the term, “public conscience” has all but been eliminated in public discourse in the West.  

From the Vedic period up to the 18^th century, there was an intimate and a kind of deeply personal relationship between the ruler and the ruled. Indian polity represented perhaps the greatest lived example of what is today known as “last mile delivery of governance” and such other fashionable verbiage. The level of decentralization in governance was truly unparalleled. Every village, the last unit of administration was self-contained. Villagers really didn’t have a reason to step out of their confines for any matter concerning their daily needs. 

Genius of Decentralisation 

Indeed, history shows us that the genius of Indian polity can best be observed in our village setups. In a manner of speaking, the village was the physical manifestation of the proverb that “you can create your own world wherever you are.” 

Speaking at a very high level, what do institutions like Gram Panchayat, Sabha, Samiti, Mahanadu, Oor, Parishad etc really mean? For a fairly detailed treatment of this topic, refer to my essay on the Mackenzie Manuscripts. In any case, these institutions were later refinements of the original administrative and governance systems that existed in the Vedic period: Arajaka, Bhaujya, Vairajya, Samrajya, Maharajya, Swaarajya, etc. Roughly speaking, these refinements were brought in practice during the Mauryan rule and continued in a largely unbroken fashion until the Mughals. Thus, in Northern India, we had administrative units such as Rashtra, Ahara, Janapada, Desha, Vishaya, and Bhukti. Their equivalents in Southern India were Rajya, Pithika, Ventte, Vishaya, Seeme, Naadu, Hobli, Valanad, Mandalam, Naad, Aimbadin, Melagaram, Agaram, Chaturvedi, Mangalam, Kuttam, and Palayapattu. 

See another facet of the indivisibility and unity of India?   

But in the realm of practical life, these were intimate institutions that kept our extraordinary civilization alive and unbroken in the daily life, customs, festivals, and consciousness of Indians for hundreds of generations. Only in the rarest of rare cases was punishment actually enforced at the level of the village because there was an unspoken and interiorized understanding among people that even a minor disruption in these systems would bring down the whole edifice. The fabled inscription at Uttaramerur (near Kanchipuram) is one of the extant records that testify to this kind of near-perfect administrative decentralization. 

Maharaja, Samrat and Chakravartin

The Sanatana conception of a Maharaja, Samrat or Chakravartin also offers tremendous illumination. The Taittiriya Samhita, for example, lists what is known as the Dasharatni (Ten Gems). These were ten top administrative officials (Purohita, Rajanya, Senani, Suta, Gramani, Kshatriya, Sangruhitr, Bhagadhugh, Akshaavapa, and Parivrukti), whose permission was mandatory in order to ratify the King’s coronation. Only after the King took the following vow (Vrata): “I will protect Dharma,” was he pronounced as being officially coronated. But there was an even more practical and profound side to this. Let’s hear it in the words[iv] of the gem of a scholar, Dr. Srikanta Sastri: 

Because there is the Law of the Jungle [Matsya Nyaya] in this world, the [institution] of King was created in order to uphold and maintain peace. The King who enforces the power of punishment using Dharma as his guide is compared to Mahavishnu who preserves order in the world. However, it is completely in violation of the spirit of the Dharmashastra to regard the King as having the Divine Right to rule.

At once, the King was the combined embodiment of the following: he was the leader of the society, the commander-in-chief during wartime, the Chief Justice who would dispense justice after free, frank, and open consultation with wise men, and not folks who had risen to high rank owing to mere technical or subject competence. In the Sanatana conception, dispensing justice was to be done with an attitude of Soumanasya (Pleasantness of mind) as a verse of the Atharvaveda (30: 5-6) says beautifully. When we regard this from another perspective, the genius of Bharatavarsha becomes evident: this is an attitude, outlook, and temperament towards life juxtaposed on the complex tapestry of statecraft and polity. Which is why for the major part in its long history, Bharatavarsha had very few instances of dictators and tyrants. However, every Muslim Sultan or Nawab was a despot and tyrant almost without exception. 

One can cite examples of numerous such Samrats but I’ve considered Harshavardhana here. Harshavardhana divided the income derived from his personal landowning into four parts. He gave one part each to:

1.     Take care of Government expenses

2.     Fund the salaries of high-ranking Government officials

3.     Patronise scholars, Vidwans, Pandits, poets, artists etc.

4.     Charity

More than a thousand years later, the warrior-queen and Raja-Rishika, Ahalyabai Holkar followed the same tradition of Harshavardhana. Indeed, they followed the warning in the renowned aphorism, Rajaa Kaalasya Kaaranam, which simply means this: that political system is despicable which loots people without first solving their economic problems.

I leave the gentle reader to draw their own conclusions.  

Postscript

More fundamentally, recall how we address a long and distinguished line of luminaries – Manu, Brihaspati, Ushanas, Parashara, Bharadwaja, Vishalaksha, Vatavyadhi, Baahudantiiputra, Katyayana, and Chanakya – who first laid down the philosophy of Sanatana statecraft: as Rishis. 

Notes

[i] Nirad C Chaudhuri: Three Horsemen Of The New Apocalypse. Emphasis added.

[ii] Dharampal: Panchayat Raj And India’s Polity

[iii] D V Gundappa: Jnapaka Chitrashale: Vaidikadharma Sampradaayastharu: DVG Kruti Shreni: Volume 8: Nenapina Chitragalu – 2:  (Govt of Karnataka, 2013). Upasamhara. Emphasis added.

[iv] Dr. S. Srikanta Sastri: Bharatiya Samskruti. P. 203. Emphasis added. 

Courtesy: https://www.dharmadispatch.in/culture/the-genius-of-sanatana-polity-and-statecraft-decolonising-indian-governance

THE LOSS OF RASHTRA-RNA: THE TIGHTER WE EMBRACE WESTERN DEMOCRACY THE MORE CHRISTIANIZED OUR OUTLOOK BECOMES by SANDEEP BALAKRISHNA (Dharma Dispatch)

A cultural commentary on key civilisational lacunae in the Indian constitution and how they have played out in practice for seven decades

The profound and irreplaceable loss of spirituality is the cost that the experiment of democracy over the last five hundred years has unarguably extracted from us. It is not mere loss, but destruction, and emotional desolation is the logical consequence of this destruction whose logical consequence in turn is that democracy as it stands, has become deeply dehumanising. In the name of being elected from among the people, the elected representative maintains a big distance after electoral victory or sulks or simmers or plots after defeat. The warmth after electoral victory becomes a façade and people are left guessing about the real meaning of the whim and mood of the representative they elected. This is called political analysis. The dehumanisation is complete both on the part of both the representative and the voter. Let’s aside the realm of politics. At a very fundamental level, this state of being is no way to live.

Neither are these my words. They were uttered and written with unmatched sagacity and spiritual depth by Rishi D.V. Gundappa about a century ago in the repeated warnings he gave, cautioning an India then in a haste to adopt democracy.

It can be argued that another major reason democracy evolved in Europe was to facilitate global plunder under relatively stable conditions at home. European monarchies were essentially oppressive despotisms and the fledgling but ambitious global trading enterprises couldn’t forever remain beholden to the whim of the currently reigning monarch to sanction expensive overseas expeditions. Bloody palace intrigues and succession wars only added to this commercial risk. 

Democracy meant that it was better to have a first among equals than a despot who has no equal. The other major factor was the industrial revolution which pretty much sealed the fate of monarchies. These points become clearer when we note that by the time India formally became a British colony, democracy had been well-established in the UK. And it was the selfsame democracy that sanctioned not only this colonization but passed “laws” for more effectively plundering India. The same democracy also produced several generations of racist academics who in turn fed policy raw material to their political masters.

This cannot be seen in isolation because of a logical question: what was the fundamental character of Hindu monarchies? Short answer: they were largely in tune with millennia-old, established customs, traditions and practices of Raja Dharma which is anything but despotic. Western democracy killed Dharma and “independent” India largely imitated the same democracy. Rajarshis like the Mysore Wodeyars, the Maharaja of Baroda and other truly enlightened rulers had, overnight, become subservient to a faceless democracy which in practice meant that they had to bow down to Congress vermin whose only distinction was Gandhian opportunism.

Civilisational suicide was never embraced with greater fervour.

That said, western democracy has its own intrinsic strength, value, and virtue, and it has endured in the west for so long while it has wilted in most of its former colonies. This is because it evolved over several centuries and was entirely home grown, in tune with the national soil, temperament, and had unique and specific precedents. The European model of democracy requires the constant practice, correction and reform of centuries. This is how DVG puts it:

The strength to govern effectively is a great strength in itself. It requires experience and practice to percolate in the administrative staff. The opportunity for both will be available only when a nation becomes truly independent. A people who are merely clerks cannot develop grand, noble, and lofty ideas and a sturdy work ethic.

This is perhaps the greatest indictment of the IAS. 

India had none of these western precedents and the manner in which we adopted democracy is the reason for the chaotic state we are today in: which writer of the Indian constitution could envisage that in less than seventy years, members of their own party would wage war not just against the constitution but the country itself? The basic trait of Bharatavarsha is Sattva to protect which Rajas is required, the absolute opposite of the west whose basic trait is an unhinged Rajas as a constant whose end goal is the uninhibited enjoyment of Tamas. You cannot outwardly adopt the temperament and tactics of a wolf and pretend that a cow is a wolf.

The other important reason for the chaos-seeded democracy we adopted was the background of the authors of our constitution. In DVG’s words, they were extraordinary scholars endowed with piercing intellect, erudition, logic, and were highly educated. But they were also great theory masters. The overall consequence was the untested imposition of theories like freedom, democracy, liberty, and federalism fashioned in the west on an entire people who lived their lives for more than three millennia based on a thoroughly divergent political, cultural and social inheritance. To put it bluntly, an all-encompassing and far-reaching change for the worse was thrust upon the entire population of the seventh largest country in the world without their consent. From being a duty-bound, participatory “Praja,” the Indian citizen became a mere voter. 

This is civilisational wrecking beyond comparison.

It was the constitution of an ill-informed elite whose outlook was barely Indian, a point which was repeatedly hammered with phenomenal foresight during the Constituent Assembly debates by Damodar Swaroop Seth:

this Constitution as a whole, instead of being evolved from our life and reared from the bottom upwards is being imported from outside and built from above downwards. A Constitution…in which there is not even a mention of thousands and lakhs of villages of India and in framing which they have had no hand, well you can give such a Constitution to the Country but I very much doubt whether you would be able to keep it long.

And Sri Damodar Swaroop ji was right. After a lapse of seventy-three years, we have a mutilated, defaced constitution, worse than just merely keeping it. What Damodar Swaroop meant was the following in practice. Of asking a few simple, rudimentary, every day questions before force feeding the constitution down our throats back then:

1. What are the food habits and diet of these proverbial villagers?

2. What are the unique local/village customs related to worship, traditions, rituals, marriage, death, etc, which they have inherited from time immemorial? 

3. What is their typical daily life?

4. How are disputes resolved at the local level so that satisfactory justice is delivered in the shortest possible time?

5. How do they spend their spare time? What are their typical modes of recreation, sports, etc?

These are the most accurate yardsticks that provide an almost unerring raw material for what is known as policymaking today. Doing this requires the old-fashioned Indian way: of spending time with these real people, eating with them, going to their temples, playing their games, interacting with their kids…But what do our policymakers who go to these criminally expensive schools learn? Numbers. Statistics. Graphs that only a student who pays ₹ 70 lakhs can decipher. But more dangerously, psyche-altering theories that have impoverished entire societies. The more insane the theory, the greater the chances of getting a Nobel. Ask Amartya Sen.

Needless, such warnings by enlightened minds like P.V. Kane, DVG and other such eminences went unheeded.

One fails to understand the meaning of the words, ‘fundamental rights’ in a constitution which took over two years of deliberations, if they could be changed within a year and a half.

P.V. Kane

But the damage had already occurred at the root level. Take the case of the cliché that several folks find it fashionable to utter today: that our constitution has no provision for Dharma, and merely stop at that, not bothering to actually study the details, which is where the real story lies. This is because investigating these details will reveal uncomfortable truths some of which are politically incorrect.

For example, all Dharmasastra texts unambiguously say that the king had no authority to meddle with Sastric rules governing local customs, which were invariably rooted in our conception of Varna. Does any public person today have the guts to call for a thorough rethinking of this fundamental point? The answer is no because the word “honesty” is inseparable from “guts.” What is the bedrock of these local customs, indeed the bedrock of Sanatana civilisation itself? Dharma. Which in daily life also means “duty,” which is what kept our civilisation alive, thriving and resilient for millennia. 

Now, where is the chapter on fundamental duties in our constitution, which has been made out to be some kind of sacrosanct document higher than Dharma itself? The simplest definition of duty is this: it is an attitude of inner life that makes most laws unnecessary because it is distilled spirituality applied in practical life. Because the simplest definition of law is that it is a barbed-wire fence that restrains base human passions. When Dharma is intrinsic to our inner life, we need no outer barbed wires. And an innate sense of duty keeps people from creating mischief in society. 

The Sanatana civilisation until the framing of this constitution was the most glorious, unbroken, glimmering, living jewel of this fact. Instead, by an unthinking emphasis on rights, we gave birth to a political system, which can most appropriately be called Rule by Factions.

At any rate, the injurious consequences were evident almost immediately owing to a rather common sense reason. After India attained “independence” – rather, after the British left in haste – we lacked sufficient numbers of elected representatives who had any degree of competence, capability, wisdom, erudition, and even plain guts to deserve such high offices. Instead of questioning this crater-like deficit, we embraced democracy as a universal good and magic pill. One outcome was that these representatives, deeply aware of their own incompetence began succumbing to mob blackmail. Panicked moves and appeasement replaced decision, the primary function of the elected representative and government. The most representative human specimen who made the most number of panicked moves was Jawaharlal Nehru whose knees turned to jelly at the mob-demand for linguistic statehood. It was all downhill after that.

Indeed, it is noteworthy that there are reams of provisions and directions in our constitution regarding the economic and social aspects of the country but not a word about the key foundations of the Sanatana civilisation: Rna, Rta, Dharma, Yajna, Svadhyaya, Lokasangraha, etc. Almost ninety per cent of urban Hindus wouldn’t have even heard of these terms. As the luminaries of our modern renaissance observed, a secular state cannot and should not mean a godless state.

One can list hundreds of such examples but the summary is this: our constitution is the very antithesis of the civilisation it was supposedly meant to protect. And with the benefit of hindsight, we can make a valid case that the farther we travel down the path of western notions of democracy, the more Christianized will our outlook become...has become.

One inescapable conclusion is that the Indian state, set up after 1947 is fundamentally designed to be an inside ally of a civilisational war against Sanatana Dharma than began a thousand years ago.

Think about something you see every day, something that has become a way of life of Indian politics and politicians. Take a person who is culturally a deep-rooted Hindu. He contests elections, gets into Parliament and almost overnight becomes an alien to his own former self. What remains of his deep roots become mere outward finery now meant to be worn during the five-year circus show called elections because the very constitution upon which he took oath constrains him from discharging a Rashtra-Rna for which the constitution has no provision.

When this happens over more than seven decades, the fault is fundamental: it could be that our political system at its core is still that craven Nehruvian conveyor belt that sucks in the best of people, sucks out the last atom of Dharma in their atma and spits them out after hacking their roots.

|| ॐ तत् सत् ||

Courtesy: https://www.dharmadispatch.in/culture/the-loss-of-rashtra-rna-the-tighter-we-embrace-western-democracy-the-more-christianized-our-outlook-becomes

THE COSMIC SWEEP OF SANATANA STATECRAFT AND POLITY: AN INTRODUCTION by SANDEEP BALAKRISHNA

The luminous hallmark that reveals itself even in a preliminary study is the remarkable antiquity, unrivalled continuity, sturdy endurance and intrepid resilience of Sanatana statecraft and polity. With a recorded history of over two thousand years—dating back to at least the 4^th century BCE—this tradition endured and retained the core elements of its original glory till the downfall of the Maratha Empire. The full text of Chhatrapati Shivaji’s coronation offers a panoramic delineation of the glory of a true Sanatana Samrajya ruled by an uncompromising, rock-solid Kshatriya.

However, the full fiendish disgrace for wiping out the last vestiges and even the living memory and traces of Sanatana statecraft and polity undoubtedly goes to Indira Gandhi who abolished privy purses and criminally betrayed Sardar Patel’s trust. As a rough history experiment, one can consider the regions ruled by the (nominal) Hindu princes from the British colonial period up to the abolition of the privy purses. The conclusion is inescapable: it was in these regions that age-old Hindu customs, traditions, and festivals were preserved largely in their original forms. The last surviving element of this historical fact is visible in Mysore Dussehra, which is a Hindu festival, not a tourist attraction.

The primary and recommended approach for studying Sanatana statecraft and polity is to desist the invariable urge to compare it with western democracy for three important reasons.

The first is the selfsame antiquity; that is, Indian polity and statecraft evolved gradually over more than a millennium. By the time Europe emerged from its soul-eroding Christian Darkness, Bharatavarsha already had a well-rooted and firmly established political tradition which did not rely on One Holy Book to deliver justice in the material world. Above all, this political tradition had inbuilt mechanisms for safeguarding and ensuring cultural continuity. Throughout its evolution, the Sanatana political system faced ebbs and tides but never abandoned its foundational ideals, aims, and retained its core strength till the time of the Marathas and Maharaja Ranjit Singh.

The second is the fact that research done by early Western scholars in this field is winnowed with defective scholarship. Writers like Max Mueller, Weber and Roth ignored or were unaware of or casually bypassed the mind-blowing corpus of literature on statecraft in Sanskrit, Pali and most major Bharatiya Bhashas. We highly recommend reading the introduction in R. Shama Sastry’s classic Arthashastra in which he performs a thorough surgery of such Western scholarship by naming and shaming the scholars.

The third reason relates to the spirit. There is no realistic reason Indians should feel inferior to or ashamed of a comparison between Sanatana and Western political systems. On the contrary, we should welcome it provided truth is the only yardstick of this comparison. Let’s not forget that democracy was “granted” to India in two major phases: first by a pitiless commercial exploitation, and then by military and political colonisation. The sham democracy India experienced roughly beginning in the 1920s up to 1947 was primarily subject to England’s whim and not to its supposed civilised benevolence.

This backdrop is essential for a standalone study and assessment of Sanatana polity and statecraft from the earliest times.

For a start, we can’t find a more illustrious sage than D.V. Gundappa who drank deeply from the profound fount of the founding ideals of Sanatana ethos of whose infinite bounty polity was just one of the outward expressions. His treasure-trove of writing repeatedly invokes the Ashwamedha Yaga portion of the Taittiriya Brahmana of the Yajur Veda, which he correctly calls as the National Anthem of the Rishis.

Let us be bestowed with auspiciousness, safety, security, and abundance. Through this Yagna, may the citizens be blessed with unity and peace.

And DVG was our contemporary colossus (he passed away in 1975). The fact that he regarded this Vedic hymn as one of his primary political ideals in the 20^th century is Proof #97348937479324732932 of the aforementioned sturdy endurance. Neither does he stop at that. Even as Nawab Nehru was thundering his fatuous nonsense at midnight in Delhi about an alleged tryst, in faraway Basavanagudi in Bangalore, DVG penned an inspirational, moving poem in the quietude of his room: alone, elated but anxious for the future of an “independent” India.

His worst fears have come true in a nightmarish fashion.

In the Sanatana annals, polity and statecraft in both theory and practice is familiar by the terms, Rajyasastra or Rajadharma. However, other synonyms—some well-known—exist: Arthasastra, Dandaniti, Nitisastra, Rajaniti, Rajanitisastra, and so on. Indeed, Arthasastra has been synonymous with Dandaniti from the earliest times. This then is the other blight. The calculated destruction of Sanskrit in “independent India” has rendered us inaccessible to ourselves, an unforgivable self-inflicted cultural holocaust that is both unprecedented and unparalleled. One vainly hunts for words to describe the phenomenon where a vote is taken to decide whether we must preserve our own culture and language.

According to the Sanatana tradition, Saraswati Devi gave Danda Niti to this world, which is quite befitting when we think about it.

Keshava [Vishnu] armed with an enormous Sula [spear], created his own self into a form of chastisement. From that form, having Righteousness for its legs, the goddess Saraswati created Danda-niti (Science of Chastisement) which very soon became celebrated over the world… Chastisement should be inflicted with discrimination, guided by righteousness and not by caprice. It is intended for restraining the wicked. Fines and forfeitures are intended for striking alarm, and not for filling the king's treasury.

Mahabharata: Shanti Parva: Section 122

The primary goal and function of Danda Niti is that it should act as the “support of the world” by establishing order and checking and punishing evil. The Raja or king is the upholder of Danda Niti. It is his primary Dharma.

At the broadest level, Raja Dharma has a twofold goal:

1. The Ultimate: As a means of attaining Moksha through virtuous deeds, etc.

2. The Proximate: To create and maintain a condition of sustained peace, safety, stability and ensure the freedom of vocation, right to enjoy personal property, to safeguard the traditions, customs, etc of every clan, guild and sect, and to deliver speedy justice.

Technically speaking, although the king was the master of all land in his domain, he was merely a trustee, and individuals had full property rights. The Nanda dynasty violated precisely this sacred tenet, a crime that deserved the severest punishment. The classic TV series, Chanakya powerfully describes the nature of this violation in this pithy dialogue: “iss dharaa ko apne daasi samajh baite hai” (these people have treated this sacred Mother Earth as their personal maidservant).

The implication is clear: it is only in Bharatavarsha that Arthasastra is subservient to Dharmasastra. Indeed, Arthasastra texts and commentaries unequivocally state that Dharma is the highest goal, a constant theme constant. For example, the Kamasutra says that Kama is the lowest of the three Purusharthas and Dharma the highest.

Invariably, every exponent, scholar, writer and commentator on Arthasastra sounds this refrain: when clashes or conflicts in worldly [Artha]transactions cannot be resolved by law, custom or usage, the verdict of the Dharmasastra prevails. This timeless and perennial primacy of Dharma is what preserved our civilisation. Innumerable Hindu Empires flourished and fell but the Sanatana civilisational spirit has survived. To that proportional extent, our culture and traditions have been preserved.

On a very profound plane, Dharma exists not for its own sake; in fact, such a notion is itself absurd. Dharma achieves nothing by serving itself akin to light illuminating itself. Its presence is intangible and therefore unenforceable by the writ of a king or president. Dharma is both an ideal to be realised and a value to be cultivated in our inner lives and pursued in the outer. There’s a reason Dharma is the first Purushartha, and blessed is the person who realises the straight line leading from Dharma to Moksha by bypassing the avoidable tumults of Artha and Kama.

Without realizing Dharma in both its changeless and dynamic states, we will get the Western (or Islamic) political and social condition of constant one-upmanship and endless strife. Political life or politics is merely an instrument (Sadhana) to attain a higher state of life, and not an end in itself. We shall examine this theme in the next part of this series.

There was a reason our great Hindu Empires survived unbroken for five, six and even seven generations: by realising Dharma in the realm of statecraft, they ensured stability and bloodless succession. The point becomes crystal clear when we contrast it with Muslim dynasties which were as strong as their strongest sultan. The sickening motif of a sultan’s son murdering his own father only to capture political power is more a rule than an exception in the Muslim history of India.

Courtesy: https://www.dharmadispatch.in/culture/the-cosmic-sweep-of-sanatana-statecraft-and-polity-an-introduction

KAUTILYA'S ARTHASASTRA AS A MANUAL OF EMPIRE-BUILDING by SANDEEP BALAKRISHNA (Dharma Dispatch)

A Manual of Empire-Building

One of the glorious parts of the Arthasastra is section dealing with the education of princes. A prince who undergoes this rigorous education becomes a king fit to rule the “whole earth.”

We notice the practical application of this Kautilyan foundation in almost all our great Hindu emperors. The historical accounts of how these emperors were educated, their daily routine, and their command over an astonishing range of subjects are thrilling and inspirational. Without exception, all great Hindu monarchs were primarily, extraordinary warriors, well-versed in wielding a number of dangerous weapons and masters in hand-to-hand combat. Sri Krishnadevaraya would wake up early in the morning, apply oil all over his body and perform vigorous exercises for about two or three hours. He was also a powerful and distinguished wrestler and became one of the greatest royal patrons of this art. And then, his linguistic and literary accomplishments are best reflected in his epic Amuktamalyada. The very fact of that the Vijayanagara Empire attained its loftiest peak of economic prosperity during his reign is itself a huge testimony to his grasp of economics. This list can be expanded with any number of such accomplishments in other spheres.

Broadly speaking, the extraordinary legacy of Chanakya and his work is its inherent capacity to produce powerful conquerors, emperors and administrators from the scratch. Indeed, Kautilya himself cemented this royal path by taking a boy of humble origins and transforming him into Chandragupta Maurya, Bharatavarsha’s first national monarch.

The Sanatana Ideal of Chakravartin

This capacity for creating emperors originates in the theory and practice of the ancient Sanatana ideal of a Chakravartin. In turn, the Vedic conception of the Ashwamedha Yajna inspired and fueled the real-life attainment of this powerful title and throne.

Like his predecessors, Kautilya too, regarded Bharatavarsha as a Chakravarti-Kshetra, i.e., the land spreading towards the Himalaya from the southern sea.

The importance of this ideal cannot be underestimated because of the central role it played throughout the Hindu civilizational history. All our great kings took it seriously, akin to a Raja-Mantra. We must remember that every Hindu king who embarked on a political career ultimately aspired to become a Chakravarti. The extent of the king’s final success in this endeavor is immaterial here.

But the list of Hindu emperors who did attain this exalted status and title of Chakravartin is truly impressive. Spread over 2500 years, this is the (partial) list: Chandragupta Maurya, Ashoka, Pushyamitra Sunga, Bhavanaga, Pravarasena, Chandragupta I, Samudragupta, Chandragupta Vikramaditya, Harshavardhana, Pulikeshi II, Amoghavarsha, Krishna III, Rajaraja Chola, Rajendra Chola, Sri Krishnadevaraya, Shivaji, and Maharaja Ranjit Singh.

 

When we think about it for a moment, we understand the real impact of Chanakya. He is indeed the unrivalled, inspirational, and later, the invisible Director of grand Hindu Empires—director in the sense that his Arthasastra is a detailed manual of military strategy, administration, national security and economic prosperity.

On the other side, Kautilya’s rules for dealing with bad and errant princes, ambitious relatives and scheming vassals are also reflected in our political history.

The Chalukya emperor Pulikeshi II first defeated his rebellious younger brother, Kubja Vishnuvardhana, pardoned him and sent him to rule distant Vengi (near Warangal).

Most Vijayanagara rulers made their family members and close relatives as governors and viceroys of distant provinces to keep them away from palace conspiracies and attempted coups. In spite of such stringent measures, they were not always successful. The subordinate ruler, Saluva Nrsimharaya I managed to usurp the throne from the previous dynasty to which he had sworn loyalty.

Perhaps an overlooked part of the Kautilyan political tenet is the manner in which it places restraints and checks and balances on the king by stressing on Dharma. Even here, Kautilya adhered to the wisdom of his predecessors. Thus, a Hindu king could never become an unchecked despot like a Sultan or a medieval Christian king for precisely this reason. As we never tire of repeating, the fundamental difference between Sanatana and non-Sanatana statecraft is Dharma.

This profound principle had a lasting impact not only on kings but even village heads. For example, if a king had imposed a heavy tax and people complained, he would give them a remission. Which also reveals the historical truth that even the ordinary citizen could make direct appeals to the king.

We have hundreds of such examples in Hindu history.

In the reign of the Vijayanagara king, Devaraya I, tax remission was granted to all the weavers in Chandragiri when the governor found that excess tax was being collected so far.

Similarly, in 1473, in the Gandikota Province, all the Kurubaru or shepherds were completely exempted from the tax they were paying so far.

In 1086, Kulothunga Chola I conducted an extensive land survey throughout his kingdom, and after reading the findings, he ordered the remission of all customs duties. This singular act had a profound impact on his citizens. These overjoyed masses gave him the title, Sungadavirta Chola: “the Chola who exempted Sunkas(tax).” At the heart of such munificence was the desire of the king to be seen as an upholder of Dharma and as a Praja-Vatsala: affectionate to the citizens.

Pioneer of Shasana-Writing

Another important area of Hindu civilizational history where we notice Chanakya’s pronounced influence is his elaborate and fine section on drawing up Shasanas or inscriptions. Kautilya stresses on elegant handwriting, linguistic eloquence, clarity, and etiquette.

In fact, writing Shasanas eventually evolved into a separate art form and became a highly lucrative profession. The better part of Hindu history reveals an array of truly celebrated ­Shasana-writers, and several Shasana-poems can be regarded as brilliant literary feats. Some of these Shasana-writers enjoyed celebrity status rivalling that of the braindead film and fashion celebrities of our time enjoy.

Ravikeerti, for example, was one such celebrity Shasana-writer who gives us impressive details of the early Chalukyan period. In fact, Ravikeerti’s inscriptions still form the primary source for understanding Chalukya history. Next, we have the celebrated Old-Kannada (Halagannada) poet Ranna—whose family profession was a bangle-making and selling—who began his initial career as a Shasana-writer.

Then we have a remarkable 15^th century inscription found in the Anantapur district. This Shasana gives an elaborate tutorial on how to write the perfect Shasana-padya (poem).

There is also a delightful Daana-Shasasana (donation grant) belonging to the Vijayanagara period which praises the donor, the Shasana-writer and the Shasana-engraver as follows:

May prosperity accrue to the writer and engraver of this Shasana and may the auspicious Sri Venkateshwara Swami of Tirumala bless their entire lineage.

 Courtesy: https://www.dharmadispatch.in/history/kautilyas-arthasastra-as-a-manual-of-empire-building

KAUTILYA'S RAJADHARMA CULMINATES IN RASHTRADHARMA by SANDEEP BALAKRISHNA (Dharma Dispatch)

All-Encompassing

An unfortunate phenomenon that has crept into and accelerated over the years in public discourse especially after “independence,” is the exclusive emphasis on specialization. When we study the Sanatana tradition and practice of statecraft, it becomes clear that our ancients had an all-encompassing view of the world. This among others, is one of the roots of the evolution of the profound concept of Rta or the invisible Cosmic Order. Its offshoots in practical life include Dharma, Satya, Yajna, Dana and Tapas. This is the innate reason the term “Dharma” has been used as a suffix to almost every conceivable area of human activity: profession, education, marriage, social relationships, and statecraft.

There is an ocean of difference between “politics” and Rajadharma. Bharatavarsha is the only civilization that has evolved a lovely seamlessness between Rajadharma and Rashtradharma: when Rajadharma is fulfilled in a profound manner, it automatically culminates in and upholds Rashtradharma.

This is also one of the immortal messages of Kautilya.

When we talk about a country’s politics, it includes virtually all domains: wars, empires, military, economics, administration, religion, society, customs, culture and traditions.

With this backgrounder, we’ll try and explore Kautilya’s direct and indirect impact on most of these areas throughout Bharatavarsha’s long civilisational history.

The Arthasastra in Action

To begin with, let’s look at these famous verses from the Arthasastra:

आन्वीक्षिकी त्रयी वारतनां योगक्षेमसधनो दण्डः |

तस्य नितिर्दण्डनीतिः ||

अलब्ध लाभार्था लब्ध परिरक्षणी |

रक्षितविवर्धिनी वृद्धस्य तीर्येषु प्रतिपदानि च ||

Which means, “Danda (punishment or the scepter of the ruler) is the means of the stability and welfare of Anvikshiki, Trayi and Vaarta. The rules that deal with Danda are called Dandaniti. Dandaniti is the means for acquiring that which is not acquired; it safeguards what has been acquired; it increases what is being safeguarded and it distributes this ever-increasing wealth and prosperity among the deserving.”

From one perspective, Kautilya’s enduring impact on India’s civilisational and political history is basically a real-life, practical exposition of these two verses. And this impact begins right from the dynasty he inspired and founded: the Mauryan dynasty. In fact, the Mauryan dynasty was Arthasastra in action.

The political history of Bharatavarsha’s civilization history is the history of its great empires including but not limited to the following:

1. Mauryan

2. Satavahana

3. Sunga

4. Gupta

5. Chalukya – Pallava

6. Chola

7. Rashtrakuta

8. Gurjara-Pratihara

9. Pala

10. Hoysala

11. Vijayanagara

12. Maratha

13. Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s magnificent Sikh Empire

Now we can explore Kautilya’s influence on India’s history based on this classification.

Emphasis on Dharma

While the Arthasastra places the greatest emphasis on Dharma, on the practical side of things, it is inherently imbued with the realization of the practical side of Dharma—that Dharma cannot be sustained by sweet-talk or Gandhian appeals to the “goodness of the heart” and phony universal brotherhood.

Thus, on the practical side, the Arthasastra it is mainly concerned with everyday realities like central and local administration, taxation, police, diplomacy, security, wars, army, bureaucracy and justice. Taken together, the Dharma aspect in all these realms reflects in its practical application as we shall see. In passing, this focus on practical realities is most visible while deciding on justice. Thus, Kautilya clearly says that if there is a conflict between Arthasastra and Dharmasastra, Dharmasastra should always prevail.

Another area in which this pragmatism is visible might sound harsh today. Chanakya advocates the use of temple funds in order to fill the empty treasury of the kingdom. In fact, we notice almost a photocopy of this practice in the Vijayangara Empire in which all the temples were directly under State control. Its funds closely scrutinized, accounted for, and were used for welfare activities, commerce, and in some cases, to fund war.

Deciding Royal Succession

First, we can trace the direct and indirect impact of Kautilya on Indian history in his rules for royal or political succession. Here, we see his imprint in almost all of our great Hindu dynasties.

We have the case of the celebrated Samudragupta. The younger son of Chandragupta I, the father spotted his talent, competence, valour and acumen at an early age and nominated him as the successor, setting aside his eldest son. The fact that his succession caused no royal split or war is remarkable.

Next, we have Harihara I, the founding monarch of the Vijayanagara Empire who nominated his younger brother Bukkaraya, instead of his eldest son.

Even as recent as the 17^th century, the Tanjavur Nayaka, Venkata II nominated his nephew Chikka Raya as the king, choosing him over his incompetent sons.

There’s another facet of this Kautilyan precept: we have the great example of the young boy Sri Harsha who was elected as King after his brother Rajyavardhana was murdered. Likewise, after Pallava Parameshwaravarman was killed in battle, the new king Nandivarman II was elected. Finally, we have the brilliant example of the bloodless transfer of power from the Hoysalas to the sons of Sangama who founded the Vijayangara Empire.

The oceanic contrast between this noble—even virtuous—tradition of deciding political succession in Hindu Empires becomes immediately evident when we notice the fact that royal succession in Muslim dynasties was synonymous with patricide and fratricide.

Literature

To a smaller extent, literature is another area where notice Kautilya’s influence. Chapter 8 of Dandin’s great work, Dashakumara-carita shows how solidly he had grasped the Arthasastra. Scholar-poets like Dandin were also advisers and counsels to the king.

Then we have Vishakhadatta’s Mudrarakshasa, a play whose subject is Chanakya himself.

This is the other vehicle through which Kautilya’s legacy was transmitted throughout Bharatavarsha.

Tragically, the new breed of scholars, writers and poets that had emerged after the Gupta Empire had imploded, began to condemn the Arthasastra as a “wicked book.” Thus, as early as the seventh century CE, this is what the celebrated Sanskrit Kavi Banabhatta says:

Is there anything that is righteous for those for whom the science of Kautilya is an authority? It is merciless in its precepts, rich in cruelty. Its teachers are habitually hard-hearted with the practice of witchcraft. Its ministers are always inclined to deceive others. They are the counsels of the king. Their constant desire is always for the Goddess of Wealth [Lakshmi] that has been cast away by thousands of kings.

Evidently, this was a subconscious manifestation of the debilitating and long-term influence of Buddhism that had corroded the psyche of both Buddhist and Hindu kings of Bharatavarsha. In a classic case of misapplication, here, Bana confounds the virtue of renouncing wealth: that which is a virtue in the ordinary individual becomes fatal when the king embraces it.

And so, by the 12^th or 13^th century, when most of north and all of northwestern India had lost its freedom, we still notice many replicas of Banabhatta who actively dissuaded people from reading the Arthasastra. Needless, this faint-hearted phenomenon was a great mirror to the early stages of Sanatana Bharata’s downfall.

  

Courtesy: https://www.dharmadispatch.in/history/kautilyas-rajadharma-culminates-in-rashtradharma#:~:text=Bharatavarsha%20is%20the%20only%20civilization,the%20immortal%20messages%20of%20Kautilya.

Kautilya’s Eternal Imprint on the History of Bharatavarsha: An Introduction by Sandeep Balakrishnan

Without doubt, Kautilya’s Arthasastra is one of the readily-available magic keys to understand the civilizational history of Bharatavarsha. However, it is not merely limited to either our civilization or history. The study of the Arthasastra which has to be concomitant with the study of Kautilya himself, is a profound penance of Hindu civilizational rediscovery and of our own self-discovery.

When we wake up to the dawn of our Sanatana civilization, we clearly notice only a handful of works, which akin to the reddish-orange-tinged Sun, rose on the sky of this sacred geography. And like the Sun, they have remained eternal, showering resplendence and they continue to guide us with that unsetting brilliance. And because they first saw this Sun, their authors—rather, these Tapasvins—have become the epoch-makers of the Sanatana civilization and culture. They are the builders who laid the unshakeable foundation stones of our civilization, the architects who gave it its timeless design, and the sculptors who breathed immortal beauty into it. Which is why they have been exalted and emulated throughout our tradition as Rishis, Munis, and celebrated as Avataras.

And the spheres in which they worked are fundamental in all respects. Thus,

1. In the realm of Darshana, we have phenomenal Rishis including but not limited to Yajnavalkya, Nachiketa, Vasistha, Vishwamitra, Jabali etc.

2. In language, we have Maharshi Panini. For a moment, think about Sanskrit minusPanini to understand the full significance of his contribution. In fact, think of the origin or the fate of other Bharatiya Bhasha sans Sanskrit.

3. In the Arts, we have Bharatamuni’s Natyasastra.

In literature, we have Valmiki Maharshi and Bhagavan Veda Vyasa. The gift of this duo is indeed immeasurable. It is the Ramayana and the Mahabharata that have truly shaped Bharatavarsha, more than any philosophical treatise.

And in the realm of politics and statecraft, Vishnugupta, Chanakya or Kautilya belongs to this same rank of Rishis.

We can think about this in another way. What all of these immortal civilizational geniuses and cultural lodestars did was irreversible. For example, it is possible to undo our Vedantic darshana? Can we…umm...reverse the Natyasastra? Can someone “write” another “original” Ramayana and the Mahabharata? Likewise, can we pretend that the Arthasastra does not exist and conclude that the tapestry of our rich, expansive, and noble political legacy is not shaped by it? In fact, a bunch of half-baked and ill-informed German Indologists did make such attempts in the wake of the rediscovery of the Arthasastra in the beginning of the twentieth century. Some of them argued that the Arthasastra was not a single work but a compilation. Others tried to “prove” that Chanakya never existed. Still others went so far as to compare the Arthasastra with the Mein Kampf and equated Chandragupta Maurya to Hitler! These semi-brains were awarded PhDs for this sort of “research.”

Study of the Arthasastra

Let it be said that any serious study of the Arthasastra must be done with the conscious realization that it is a phenomenal work of the philosophical genius of a detached Rishi who sought nothing for himself but birthed and chiseled an entire epoch whose legacy lasted for more than two thousand years.

 

The Arthasastra became epochal because it was also foundational in the sense that Chanakya built upon the older traditions of Sanatana statecraft when he charted a fresh course on the strength of this traditional heritage to which he added his original genius. The result is that he gave Bharatavarsha a grand vision and practical methods to achieve lasting and sturdy civilizational outcomes.

The fact that he is being studied even today by Governments and other institutions throughout the world is another brilliant testimony to this one-man epoch-maker.

Loss of Independence

Bharatavarsha lost her freedom the day her kings forgot Chanakya. In fact, in Chanakya’s own time, Bharatavarsha stood on the brink of losing her freedom to the Greeks. It was precisely this reality that Chanakya realized and inspired the foundation of the Mauryan Empire, Bharatavarsha’s first truly National Empire.

And when later Hindu kings forgot this Chanakyan edifice, they lost their freedom to desert barbarians motivated by an alleged religion.

However, the ironical fact is that even during the 800-year-long Islamic rule over parts of Hindustan, Hindus still managed to resist, and Hindu Empires continued to exist because Kautilya’s tenets were inextricably embedded in their DNA. Sadly, they failed to re-manifest it in their active life.

The other important fact that we must remember while studying Kautilya is that the Arthasastra is not a book for the faint-hearted. More importantly, no Hindu should be ashamed of it or feel apologetic. On the contrary, we should constantly celebrate it in both our private lives and public spaces because it has ensured that we have still remained Hindus.

The Arthasastra is also unique in the realm of world’s political literature because it is characterized by completeness and integrity as an entire system incorporating public and private law. Like all the Arthasastras that came before Kautilya, his Arthasastra is also a Dharmasastra, and this is what makes the Indian political and legal system unique from the rest of the world. It simultaneously reveals that all-important difference between Bharatavarsha and the rest of the world. Sanatana polity and statecraft is distinguished by Dharma and the rest of the world is distinguished by its absence.

Likewise, we can gauge its importance and impact on our civilizational and political history from what is known as the “relativity” of the work - i.e., how the Arthasastra can be related to a particular region or Empire or historical period. This relativity also helps us gain a genuine and well-rounded understanding of the various currents of political, social and cultural developments throughout the history of India.

Courtesy: https://www.dharmadispatch.in/history/kautilyas-eternal-imprint-on-the-history-of-bharatavarsha-an-introduction