Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c46.22

c46.22

§ 338. The theory that the taxes were wages for protection was so ingrained in the constitution that even partial failure of protection was deemed to entitle the subject to claim refund of wages in proportion to the loss. And those claims, as we have seen, had to be allowed either in the shape of concessions or actual payment (§ 281). The subject thought that the servant-king was not fulfilling his obligation. He thought that the compact was not fully kept and he threatened, as the *Artha-Śāstra* says (XIII. 1, p. 394), to migrate to the enemy country. In other words, the subject threatened to transfer allegiance. The Mahā-Bhārata says the same thing when it sanctions the a b a n d o n - m e n t o f t h a t k i n g w h o f a i l s t o p r o t e c t.¹ He is like a ship which leaks, that is, dangerous to remain with; and he is like the barber who wishes to go to the forest, evidently to become an ascetic. The barber has left his clientele and master, and broken his contract of service. He is fit to be given up and another barber is to be appointed to the household. Similarly the king who failed in his duty was worthless, fit to be given up. The relation between the king and the subject is proved to have ended by the very fact of the former's incapacity. The tie of allegiance is deemed dissolved the moment the king failed to fulfil his duty of protection, and the subject was free to employ