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State and Government in Ancient India c11: Chapter IV: The State and the Citizen

State and Government in Ancient India c11

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Chapter IV: The State and the Citizen

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The question of the relationship between the state and the citizen is undoubtedly an important topic. It was discussed in ancient times only by very few western political thinkers like Aristotle. Since the rise of democracy during the last two centuries, modern writers have begun to devote considerable space to the discussion of the mutual rights and responsibilities of the state and the citizen in the different spheres of the individual and communal life, enquiring whether there is any real conflict between the interests of the two, and if so, how it can be resolved.

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Ancient Indian political thinkers have hardly devoted any space to the discussion of these problems, and no wonder. While discussing the relations between the state and the citizen the political science seeks mainly to define the mutual rights of the two parties. Hindu constitutional writers have approached the problem from quite a different point of view. They usually describe not the rights of the citizens, but the duties of the state; the former are to be inferred from the latter. Similarly they discuss the duties of the citizens, from which we are to indirectly infer the extent of the control the state could exercise over its subjects. In our ancient works, therefore, there is no systematic discussion of the problem from the point of view of the rights of either party.

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European writers, whether of the ancient or the modern times, further look at the question from a purely secular and constitutional point of view. They separate the civic and political life of the citizen from his religious and moral life, and define his rights as against the state, which is often assumed to be hostile to them. Ancient Hindu writers, on the other hand, considered the political duties of the citizen as part of his general duties (*dharma*) and assumed that normally there should be no conflict between the state and the citizen, necessitating a clear-cut definition of the rights and obligations of both. The very aim of the state was to promote the all-sided progress of the citizens both in this life and the life to come. If there is no state, there would prevail the law of the jungle. State is thus indispensable for the progress and happiness of the individual, and its main aim is to promote them. What is to be done if the state does not discharge its duties properly or the individuals do not carry out their obligations faithfully has received but scant attention from our ancient thinkers.¹ It was assumed that each party would normally abide by its own *dharma* or duty.

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¹ See Chap. VII.

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The ancient states in the west like those in Greece and Rome did not look upon all the inhabitants of the kingdom with the same eye. Those who had the right and privilege of actively participating in the government of the state and in making its laws and regulations were called citizens. They were sharply distinguished from the large body of inhabitants who were in a servile or semi-servile condition, hardly possessing any civic or political rights. Aliens formed another class, the members of which did, no doubt, not suffer from any disabilities, but nevertheless did not enjoy the privilege of participating in the constitutional life of the country.

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The constitutional writers of ancient India have not made any differentiation among the residents of the country based upon the possession of franchise. We are quite in the dark about the details of the political life in the Vedic period. At that time popular assemblies (*samitis*) existed and controlled the king's activity and powers to a great extent. It is quite possible that not all the inhabitants had the right to become the members of the *samiti*; only a small section of the population may have had this right, and it may have constituted a privileged class corresponding to the aristocratic order in the modern times or to that of the privileged class in ancient Greece. In the republican states, there existed a privileged aristocracy which appears to have been the custodian of the political rights.

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But as we have very little evidence to guide us, we can hardly say anything about the rights of this privileged class and its relation to the state on one side and the ordinary inhabitants on the other.

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When the curtain rises to reveal to us the historic period from *c.* 500 B. C., we find the *samitis* or the Central Assemblies disappearing from the scene. Our constitutional thinkers, therefore, do not divide the inhabitants into two classes, citizens who possessed franchise for Central Assemblies and others who did not enjoy it. The village councils, town committees and district boroughs, however, developed in a remarkable manner during this period, and their members are frequently referred to. It was however the status, experience and seniority which raised individuals to the executive committees of these bodies, and not a popular election in the modern sense of the term. In south India we definitely know that the members of the village Panchāyats were selected by lot from among people possessing high moral, literary and property qualifications. The villagers, however, had a general assembly which is described as *pūga* in the Smṛiti literature. It consisted of all the village elders, variously described as *mahattaras*, *mahājanas* or *perumāls* in the different parts of the country. This was a truly democratic body because all castes and professions were represented in it, including even the untouchables.¹ As there was no distinction between privileged and non-privileged class in the sphere of the local government, it is not referred to by our constitutional writers.

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¹ See Chap. XI.

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Distinction between citizens and aliens, which was almost universal in the past and is very prominent in modern times, has not been made by Hindu jurists. This need not surprise us. There was a pervading cultural unity among the different states in the sub-continent of India, and, therefore, a Gauḍa (Bengali) did not appear as an alien to a Lāṭa (Gujarati) or a Kashmirian to a Karnataki. Provincial differences were no doubt developing, but they had not yet become strong enough to induce the independent states in the different parts of the country to impose the restrictions and disabilities of aliens on the inhabitants of adjacent states. Brāhmaṇas from Mahārāshṭra received land grants from the rulers of Gujarat ; poets from Kashmir became court poets in the kingdom of Karnatak ; and soldiers from the Deccan often enlisted in the armies of the rulers of northern India. All this became possible owing to the realisation of the cultural unity of the country, inspite of its division into separate sovereign states.

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It is, however, interesting to note that no disabilities seem to have been imposed even upon foreigners as aliens. A Greek was serving as the viceroy of an important frontier province under Aśoka ; a Parthian was serving as a governor under the Śaka king Rudradāman I (*c.* 135 A. D.) and a Hūṇa officer was serving in an important post in the administration of king Yaśovarman (*c.* 725 A. D.) Muslims were permitted to settle down in Western India by the Rāshtrakūṭas and allowed to have their own officers to administer their personal law.

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The non-recognition of the aliens as a separate class was due partly to the catholic spirit of Hinduism and partly to its confidence of completely absorbing the foreigners in its body politic by means of its superior culture. The Greeks, the Scythians, the Kushāṇas and the Hūṇas were all absorbed into Hinduism, though they first came into the country as conquerors. Hindu constitutional writers, therefore, did not think it necessary to differentiate between citizens and aliens.

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The right to make the laws, or to elect representatives who will make them, is regarded as an important privilege of the citizens. This notion, however, was not possible in ancient India, because laws, if religious, were regarded as revealed, and if secular, were believed to be determined by customs and traditions. Legislature of the modern type to enact laws in the modern sense of the term did not exist.

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In modern times it is regarded as very essential that the state should afford equal opportunities to all its citizens. Very often, however, these opportunities are equal only in theory and rarely in practice. It is, however, contended that in ancient India the state failed to discharge this primary duty, because the different castes had no other alternative but to follow their predetermined professions. There was no doubt full freedom in the spiritual sphere ; everybody could attain spiritual summum bonum. But there was hardly any freedom of action in the social sphere or in the selection of professions. There were, therefore, no equal opportunities for all.

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This objection is, however, only partially true. The duties of the castes and the professions, which they had to follow, were determined not by the state but by social customs and traditions. When these were permitting full freedom in the choice of professions, as was the case down to *c.* 100 B. C., the state was not pinning down the different castes to certain predetermined professions. Even Kshatriyas and Vaiśyas could become teachers of the Vedas. Later on, however, professions became hereditary and the Smṛitis began to prescribe that the members of the different castes should normally restrict themselves to their ancestral professions. Smṛiti rules in this respect were based upon actual practice, and if there was an absence of equal opportunities to all, the blame lies not on the state, but on the society. It is possible to argue that the state should have carried on active propaganda against these restrictions, but that was hardly possible in an age which believed that they were based upon divine or semi-divine sanction. Epigraphical evidence, however, shows that in spite of the Smṛiti rules, there were many cases in actual practice, where individuals did not follow their hereditary professions ; it is to the credit of the state that it did not use its powers to stop such practices and render individual choice altogether impossible. It appears that it was only in the case of the priestly profession that the prohibition was real and effective. No non-Brāhmaṇa was ever permitted to officiate as a priest or to teach the Vedas in the post-Upanishadic times ; it is not unlikely that the state may have, on rare occasions, punished the delinquents in this connection. But it should not be forgotten that the privilege to become a priest or a Vedic teacher was really a privilege to beg ; the priest's profession no doubt enjoyed a high status but brought a very low and insufficient income. Society further believed that the rule which confined this profession to the Brāhmaṇa caste was divine and its infringement would lead to eternal hell. If the state, therefore, became a party to the enforcement of the rule, which made priestly duty a monopoly for the Brāhmaṇas, it took a step which was acquiesced in by more than 99 per cent of the non-Brāhmaṇas themselves.

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Equality of all citizens before the law is one of the fundamental features of a good state according to the modern notions. It has to be admitted that it did not exist in ancient India. Lighter punishments were recommended to the Brāhamaṇas in comparison to the other castes for the same offence. Smṛitis no doubt say that the sin of a guilty Brāhmaṇa is greater than that of a Śūdra and so its spiritual punishment in the other world would be heavier. Our respect for them, however, would have become greater, if they had laid down a heavier punishment for the Brāhmaṇa also in this life, proportionate to his higher sin. In fairness, however, it has to be admitted that this is too much to expect. Everywhere in the world till quite modern times, status determined the punishment of the culprit, if not in theory at least in practice. Only a nominal punishment was imposed on the citizen in ancient Greece and Rome for the murder of a slave. In the Anglo-Saxon times the *wergeld* for the murder of a serf was very small, as compared to that prescribed for the murder of a freeman or a knight. The legal inequalities in France down to the end of the 18th century were very glaring. It is, therefore, rather unreasonable to expect that equality of all before the law should have existed in ancient India in the full measure. Smṛitis have further exaggerated the picture to a great extent ; we know, for instance, that Brāhmaṇas were not in actual practice, exempt from the capital punishment, as Smṛiti-writers would like us to believe. The *Arthaśāstra* shows that they were executed by drowning, if found guilty of treason.

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The state ensures protection for the person and property of the citizens and seeks to promote their all round progress. It, therefore, naturally expects the citizens to cooperate with it wholeheartedly by obeying its orders and laws, Ancient Indian thinkers have naturally emphasised this duty. The state in modern time further expects its citizens to fight for it, and even to die for it, if necessary. The ancient Indian state entertained no such expectation with reference to all its citizens in historic times owing to the emergence of the caste system. It was the duty of the Kshatriya to fight and protect; it was an indelible stigma for him to run from the battle field to save his life. Other castes were to help the state not by fighting on the battlefield, but by providing the sinews of war by the fruits of their labour, trade and industry. The age did not believe in conscription, but in the division of labour.

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Village communities, however, inspired intense local patriotism, and scores of cases are on record of people of all classes and castes dying in the defence of the village or its cattle. Numerous *vīrgals* or hero-stones, that are particularly common in the Deccan and south India, show that when the safety of the village was threatened, people from all castes came forward to fight and die for the community; we sometimes find even women fighting and dying on such occasions.¹

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The normal type of government, envisaged by our constitutional writers, was monarchy. They, therefore, usually emphasise upon the duty of the soldier or the citizen to die for his king, rather than for his country. The same was the case in the west till the emergence of the national state in the modern period.

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What may be described as patriotism for the state in the abstract did not much develop in ancient India for obvious reasons.¹ The large number of states into which the country was divided did not usually differ from one another in religion, culture, and language. For instance, the kingdom of Kāśī (Banaras) could hardly be differentiated from that of Kośala (Oudh), or the kingdom of Aṅga (Bhagalpur) from that of Vaṅga (Bengal). There were hardly any natural boundaries dividing the Gāhadwāl, the Chandella and the Chāhamāna kingdoms of the 12th century. The absence of natural boundaries and the presence of a common homogenous culture did not foster any feeling of intense local patriotism. Wars that were taking place were due more to dynastic jealousies or ambitions than to narrow local patriotism. The conqueror moreover was expected to enthrone a relation of the defeated king and respect the local laws and customs. People in general therefore, apart from the ruling classes and the army, did not take keen interest in the fortunes of the wars. From one point of view, it may be argued that they lacked patriotism, but from another point of view, it may be pointed out that they did not develop narrow provincialism. Had the people of about a dozen states, into which India used to be usually divided, developed intense feeling of territorial patriotism, driving them to fly to the throats of one another with the intense hatred of deep-rooted enmity, the cultural unity, which pervades the country at present, would have become impossible.

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¹ *E. I.*, VI, 163; *S. I. E. R.*, 1921, No. 73; *E. C.*, I. No. 75.

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¹ It may be pointed out that the sentiment of national patriotism was practically unknown in Europe before the partition of Poland at the end of the 18th century. See Laski, *Grammar of Politics*, Chapter VI.

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For India or Bhāratavarsha as a whole Indians did feel a great love and patriotism and whenever its religion, culture and independence were at stake, they came forward to lay down their lives in its defence. No body, who studies the opposition offered to Alexander the Great, can deny the existence of true patriotism in the Indians of the age. Brāhamaṇa philosophers were the leaders of the patriotic movement in lower Sindh and were hanged by the score by Alexander, whose task was becoming more and more arduous on account of the patriotic movement inspired by them.¹ One of them, when taken prisoner and condemned to death, was asked just before his execution as to why he had incited the people and the king to revolt. He boldly replied, ‘Because I wished them to live with honour or to die with honour.’² Unfortunately we have no authentic account of the opposition offered to the Śakas, the Pahlavas and the Kushāṇas, but such scanty information as we possess shows that the states like those of the Kuṇindas, the Yaudheyas and the Mālavas continued their resistance movement for decades, till they were eventually able to regain ther independence. Important states in northern India joined their resources in order to oust the Hūṇas. When it became clear that the Muslim conquest was a serious threat to the culture and religion of the country, most of the important states in northern India made a common cause under the impulse of patriotism and offered a united front near Peshawar in 1008 A. D. 50,000 Hindus laid down their lives in the defence of the Somanātha temple before Mahmud of Ghazni could force his entry into it in 1024 A. D. Those who thus died for their religion and country no doubt believed intensely that Bhāratavarsha was so holy a land, that *svarga* and *moksha* is possible only by a birth in it and therefore even gods desire to be reborn within its territory.¹ A proverb states that the mother and the mother-country are even greater than heaven² and the history of the opposition to foreign aggression shows that Hindus did act up to it.

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¹ McCrindle, *Ancient India, its Invasion by Alexander the Great*, p. 159-160.

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² *Ibid* p. 314.

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¹ कर्मभूमिरियं स्वर्गमपवर्गं च गच्छताम् । तत्पुण्यभूमिर्नान्यत्र संप्राप्तिः पुण्यपापयोः ॥ गायन्ति देवाः किल गीतकानि धन्यास्तु ते भारतभूमिभागे । स्वर्गापवर्गस्य च हेतुभूतौ भवन्ति भूयः पुरुषाः सुरत्वात् । *Mārkandeya Purāṇa*

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² जननी जन्मभूमिश्च स्वर्गादपि गरीयसी ।

Grounds of Political Obligation

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The citizen is bound to the state by a number of political obligations and we shall briefly state the grounds which, according to the ancient Indian thinkers, justified their imposition. State was regarded as the only agency that stood between the citizen and the anarchy ; it was, therefore, but meet that he should lend all his support to it and carry out the obligations imposed by its rules and regulations. If the power and prestige of the state were not there, says Manu (VII. 20-24), the strong will fry the weak like fish on the oven, most people will give up their appointed duties, and even dogs will begin to lick the oblations intended for gods. Even gods discharge their divine functions because they are afraid of the punishment that would otherwise be imposed upon them by the Supreme Creator.

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State is thus a necessary institution if the individual is to live according to his Dharma; it is the coercive authority of the state which produces the automatic mental habit of following one's own Dharma. State in ancient India claimed absolute allegiance and there was no other civic corporate body to rival with it in this respect.

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The divinity of the king was also regarded as justifying the political obligations of the citizen. The king is a veritable divinity, says Manu (VII. 8), and should, therefore, be obeyed. It will be shown in the next chapter how this theory of kings' divinity did not, however, impose an absolute obligation to obey, and how citizens were permitted to depose and even to execute a king, if he becomes guilty of gross misbehaviour and misgovernment.

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Laws were also regarded as divine in origin and, therefore, the citizen was expected to obey the state which was an agency for their enforcement. The citizen, however, did not become a slave of antiquated laws, because the custom, if not the state, was permitted to change them in a gradual manner.

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We have already shown how some of the thinkers of ancient India have advanced the contract theory for the origin of state. People agreed to obey the king and pay him the taxes because he undertook to protect them. Political obligations would thus arise out of the initial contract, express or implied. It must, however, be noted that our constitutionalists have laid down that if the king is unwilling or unable to carry out his part of the contract by protecting the people and ensuring a prosperous government, they should forthwith kill him like a mad dog.¹

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¹ अहं वो रक्षितेत्युक्त्वा यो न रक्षति भूमिपः । स संहत्य निहंतव्यः श्वेव सोन्माद आतुरः ॥ *Mbh.*, XIII. 96. 35.

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The *saptāṅga* theory of the state, already explained before (in chap. II), gives a further ground for political obligations.

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Government and citizens are both limbs of the body politic; they can function only in cooperation with each other and will both perish if there is a conflict between the two. The state seeks to bring about the moral and material progress and prosperity of the citizens by its measures and efforts; it can succeed in its mission only if the latter offer it hearty cooperation by discharging their obligations to the state. Enlightened self-interest, therefore, demands that since the state is engaged in promoting the progress of its citizens in moral, economic and aesthetic spheres, the latter should make the state’s onerous task easy by their hearty cooperation in discharging all their political obligations.

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