State and Government in Ancient India c12.s8.12

c12.s8.12

Our ancient thinkers, however, do not contemplate that the subjects should take oppression lying down. It is recommended that they should threaten the tyrant that they would migrate from the country and go to another, which was better governed;¹ it was probably hoped that the prospective loss of the revenue may bring the king to his senses. If this did not produce any effect, the subjects were to dethrone the king and enthrone a relative of his, who may appear to them as suitable.² This is not all; the *Mahābhārata* expressly recognises subjects' right to tyrannicide, if there was no other remedy left to them.³ Our works on polity carefully record the names of the tyrants who had thus lost their lives. Veṇa was one of them; though he pleaded the inviolability of his person on account of his divinity, the sages, who were exasperated by his wickedness and tyranny, immediately killed him. Nahusha, Sudāsa, Sumukha and Nimi were other tyrants who lost their lives through the fury of their people, and it is interesting to note that this fact is pointedly brought to the notice of the king even by Manu, who subscribed to his divinity. Jātakas also record a number of cases of subjects killing wicked kings as a punishment for their tyranny.¹