Local Government in Ancient India c6.s2: § 2
Local Government in Ancient India c6.s2
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§ 2
c6.s2.1
The subject of Local Self-Government in ancient India, besides its historical interest, is also possessed of an eminently practical interest. There are at present in India two contending schools of political thought proposing two different principles of administrative reform. One of these seeks to introduce self-government ‘from above’ and the other ‘from below’. The truth perhaps lies in a duly combined application of both the principles, but, whatever may be the truth of the matter, it may, perhaps, be pertinent to point out that no form of provincial or central government which is organized merely ‘from above’, however mechanically and ideally perfect, can be a living and healthy growth unless it can draw its sustenance from the congenial subsoil of a people’s political instincts, habits, and traditions as expressed in the indigenous local bodies, the natural foundations of *all* government. Political reconstruction must recognize its limiting conditions. The local bodies are the outcome of natural groupings and associations which should be cherished and given a fuller scope in any scheme of genuinely national self-government. After all, it is the efficiency of the local institutions which matters most to the major part of the people, and, if self-government is the road to that efficiency, it should certainly be applied first to a sphere which directly touches the daily interests of popular life and its real welfare. It is, indeed, a mistaken judgement that seeks to associate self-government in India exclusively with that part of government which concerns India as a whole, for a people cannot be deemed to be essentially self-governing and enjoying the blessings of free institutions if they are without the right of administering themselves their local affairs and interests, on which their daily well-being depends. Besides, local government is itself the best school of political training for the masses living in the villages who cannot take part in the provincial or the central government except through their few representatives, and it is also to be cherished as a school of social service and a most efficient factor of social progress. Viewed in this light, the study of the ancient Indian local institutions will be interesting both to the government and to the people. The government, which has already committed itself in several resolutions and minutes to the task of developing local government on the indigenous basis as far as possible, will find from such study materials and the lines on which the reconstruction should proceed. To the people it will bring a new inspiration, a fresh stimulus to national self-respect that will look back with pride upon the record of institutions which gave them at once the blessings of self-rule and a means of self-preservation amidst adverse political conditions.
c6.s2.2
The sphere of local government also exhibits a noteworthy democratic development in ancient India. A study of the institutions reflecting that development will throw considerable clear light not only on our early economic history, now shrouded in obscurity, but also on some of the basal factors of ancient Hindu culture and civilization. Respect for tradition and authority and a blind faith, rather than discriminating judgement, are generally supposed to be the primary formative factors of early Hindu society, despite the many manifestations of the democratic principle in such characteristically Hindu institutions as the joint family, the communal holding of land in the typical village community, and the like, as well as in the numerous self-governing, ‘kingless’ states in ancient India, the existence of which is attested by sober history.
c6.s2.3
It is too often forgotten that a great deal of socialism and communism (representing advanced democratic ideals of the modern age) is held in solution in the Indian social system. It finds appropriate expression through various institutions which all imply strong collectivistic or communistic sense and intuitions in the people, combined with a due restraint of that aggressive individualism and keen proprietary instinct which, under the influence of the Roman Jurisprudence, emphasizing private property and the sacredness of creditors’ rights over those of debtors, have given, in the opinion of the most thoughtful sociologists and political philosophers, a somewhat wrong direction to the development of nations and states in Europe.
c6.s2.4
Thus these local institutions have a place all their own in the life of a people which the process of political integration can never affect. The continuity of such institutions—which, as will appear, are yet in a sense functioning in different parts of the country as regards local justice, the organization of rural service, the employment of communal labour, the care of the village common and burial-ground, of the school and shrine, of tanks and irrigation channels, of feeding-houses and hospitals, and the like—is a matter of special concern to India with her particular need of the kind of ‘social tissues’ they develop. It is also necessary to preserve a type of communalist experiments in politics which, though specially Indian, have yet their uses and lessons for the state-constructions of the future.