The Mauryan Polity c6.s3.t9: Relation of the central states to provinces
The Mauryan Polity c6.s3.t9
- Language
- English
Relation of the central states to provinces
c6.s3.t9.1
A province can be likened to a colony which is “at the outset no state. It is a local Government with perhaps more or less of local autonomy.”[¹] The separate organisation is only a form of Government, and not a state, for if we subject this case to a rigid scientific test, the moment a province becomes a state it ceases to be a part of the empire. The constitution was, therefore, a confederation of a number of states effected not necessarily by a treaty but with the express consent of the parties themselves. It was a sort of interstate agreement by which the Imperial Government or the Emperor representing that Government, introduced a sort of governmental organisation which consisted of a Viceroy and his Council of Ministers. The provinces which were in the nature of different states agreed to abide by the recommendations of this body. This agreement, it is reasonable to infer, must have been “for the accomplishment of certain limited and restricted purposes”. This system may, perhaps, roughly answer to what Burgess conceives to be a simple state of wider organisation.[²] Viewed in terms of modern political science it may not be right to style these provinces as states though in fact some continued as subordinate states. It is true that imperial officers were stationed at the provincial headquarters. But our contention is that these imperial officers at the provincial capitals were there to suppress any political rising against the Imperial Power and to see that these states did not wilfully evade the payment of tribute or presents to be paid to the emperor according to the original agreement with him. Nothing more was executed by this body. But it can be asserted with reasonable confidence that these imperial officers at the provincial headquarters aided the provincial or state authorities in the conduct of their government, without any interference in the details of internal administration. They seem to have occupied a position that can be compared to that of the representatives of the central government in the Native States of Modern India. The states, loosely called provinces, continued to be precisely the same from the standpoint of law and custom.
c6.s3.t9.2
¹ Burgess, *Political Science and Constitutional Law*, Vol. I, pp. 77-78.
c6.s3.t9.3
² *Ibid.*, p. 79.