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The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c10.s1.t2: 2. Local Government in Southern India

The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c10.s1.t2

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2. Local Government in Southern India

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We know of forty villages during the reign of the Chola Emperor Râja-râja I (985—1013) in which the villagers as a body managed their own affairs.³ It was in public meetings that the business was conducted. Earlier, in Parântaka I's time (907—948) we hear of a "full meeting of the great assembly, including young and old". Evidently there was a General Assembly for the entire village and this central *panchâyat* seems to have been sub-divided into several committees or sub-*panchâyats*. There was an annual committee in addition to four separate committees on gardens, tanks, gold and justice. And finally there was a committee styled *pancha-vara*. It was intended most probably for general supervision or possibly for the collection of a special tax.⁴

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³ *Arch. Sur. Ann. Rept.*, 1904—05, pp. 130, 144, 145.

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⁴ *Madras Epigraphy, Ann. Rep.*, 1898—99, p. 23; 1915—1916, pp. 115, 116.

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The local self-government ordinances of Chola India provided that members of the committees must be below 75 and above 30 years of age. The property qualification for *panchâyat*-membership was twofold. First, the person must own more than a quarter *veli* (5 acres) i. e. 1¹/₄ acre of tax-paying land. Secondly, he must live in a house built on his own real estate.⁵ The village assembly was thus not a commonwealth of all men, but a really exclusive institution, an oligarchy.

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¹ *Early Hist. of the Dek.*, sec. VIII. Evidences of *smriti* and *nîti sâstras* have been generally avoided by the present author in the study of institutions. Majumdar's references (p. 60) to Visnu III, 7, 11 and Manu VII, 115, 116 are irrelevant. The village, of course, must always have been a territorial unit of administration. But the assembly of the village folk is an altogether different phenomenon which needs a separate evidence, such for instance as can be furnished from south Indian inscriptions. His references (p. 66) to Nârada X and Brihaspati XVII are not convincing, for nobody is entitled to postulate about the constitution of a rural assembly all that is known about the gild organization.

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⁵ *Ibid*, 1909—10, p. 98; Aiyangar 169, 170, 173.

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Two classes of persons were declared ineligible for membership on the committees. First are those who were members before but failed to render proper accounts. To the second class belonged those who were guilty of certain grave sins. And an important constitutional procedure excluded from membership those who had been on the committee for previous three years.

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Impressive were the methods of voting and election for the constitution of the central body. "The village with its twelve streets was divided into thirty wards (the number of members is thirty). Every one who lived in these wards wrote a name on a ticket. The tickets were first arranged in separate bundles representing the thirty wards. Each bundle bore the name to which it belonged. The bundles were then collected and put into a pot and placed before the general body of inhabitants both young and old in meeting assembled. All the priests were required to be present. The oldest priest among the present then took the pot, and looking upwards so as to be seen by all people, called one of the young boys standing close by who does not know what is inside to pick out one of the bundles. The tickets in this bundle were then removed to another pot. After it had been well shuffled, the boy took one ticket out of this bundle and handed it to an officer called the arbitrator, who received it in the palm of his hand with fingers open. He read out the name, and it was then shouted out by the priests." The village was governed in this way by popular "representatives".

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Offices seem to have been strictly annual, and the officials were appointed, as we see, both by election and lot. The rotation of offices, provided for thereby, served as a school of almost universal education in public life and citizenship. The committee of supervision could thus become efficient in its control of the smaller committees. It is interesting to observe that the female sex was not under any ban in rural civics. There was no absolute prohibition against women as such. Inscriptions furnish us with references to women members on village *sabhâs*.

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