State and Government in Ancient India c24.19

c24.19

The ideals of the ancient Indian state were undoubtedly very high and all comprehensive. It sought to promote the moral, material, aesthetic and spiritual progress of the whole community. Human ideas about the progress in these different spheres go on changing from age to age, and it is no wonder that we may not be able to agree with all that the state in ancient India did or countenanced in order to achieve progress in this fourfold field. For instance, it gave a general support to the *varṇāśramadharma*, which was undoubtedly iniquitous, especially to the Śūdras and untouchables. We must not, however, forget that a state is but the spokesman of the society it represents ; if certain iniquitous practices were tolerated by the state in ancient India, the society is as much to blame as the state. We should not judge ancient customs and institutions by modern standards and ideals. People in those days had a burning and living faith in the doctrine of Karma. Even the Śūdras and untouchables believed that they were born in their particular caste as a natural result of certain sins committed by them in past lives. As a further consequence of the same, some classes have certain religious and social disabilities imposed upon them in this life as well, under the sanction of the divine *śāstra*. It was impossible for the ancient Indian state even to think of disallowing these disabilities, much less of removing them. Equality of all citizens before the law, therefore, did not exist in ancient India to a great extent. It is no doubt a sad spectacle. We would all have felt prouder of our civilisation if the Smṛiti writers had imposed a higher punishment on the Brāhmaṇa culprit than on the Śūdra one, since they recognised the sin of the former to be greater than that of the latter We should, however, not forget that such iniquities and inequalities existed in all civilisations, eastern and western, and have not completely disappeared even in modern times. If the fine for murdering a Śūdra is lighter than that for murdering a Brāhmaṇa, we should not forget that the wergeld for the head of a slave or a serf was much smaller in Europe than that for the head of a knight or a landlord. Limited exemption from taxation sometimes sanctioned by the ancient Indian state to the Brāhmaṇas had its counter part in the European polity, where the church and nobility enjoyed many unjust exemptions down to the 18th century. Ancient Indian state did no doubt not belive in affording opportunities to the son of a cobbler to become a premier ; but such a phenomenon rarely occurred in ancient times, both in the West and the East. It will have to be admitted, however, by every impartial critic that the ancient Indian state was not solicitous only for the interests of the Brāhmaṇas ; it tried to promote the material and moral interests of all the castes; only it did not encourage one profession to trespass on the field of another ; for society honestly believed that these fields were predetermined by birth.