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State and Government in Ancient India c11.s1: Grounds of Political Obligation

State and Government in Ancient India c11.s1

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Grounds of Political Obligation

c11.s1.1

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.

c11.s1.2

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.

c11.s1.3

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.

c11.s1.4

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.

c11.s1.5

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

c11.s1.6

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

c11.s1.7

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

c11.s1.8

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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