Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c23.17

c23.17

§ 128. At the same time it cannot be asserted, as already stated, that no tribal element is to be found in any of the Hindu republics. Basis of every state has been in all ages and in all climes, to a great degree ethnic—tribal or national. The real question is whether a state-organization is yet tribal—primitive, habitual and customary, or it is the outcome of intelligent thinking, of theories, of conscious experience and experiments. The stage when State is felt to be based on contract and the ruler is regarded to be a servant of the ruled and when political loyalty (§ 118—119) is even open to strangers, is a high water-mark of constitutional development. Voting and ballot-voting, motion, resolution and legislation, legalism and formalism in procedure of deliberation, are other indices of that stage.