The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c10.s1.t4.13

c10.s1.t4.13

⁴ Majumdar's reference (pp. 59, 63) to Kautilya (Book III, Ch. X) hardly indicates the existence of the assembly and proves the exact opposite of what he intends to demonstrate. The Kautilyan village-headman as a limb of the imperial civil service was eminently calculated, as Tocqueville would have remarked, to destroy village democracy and not conserve it. From the standpoint taken in the present treatise Mookerji's characterization of Indian rural institutions as *sui generis* (cf. *Local* pp. 5—10, 23—25) is questionable. See Gomme's *Principles of Local Government*, pp. 35—109. Indologists who are never tired of quoting Metcalfe should note Gomme's remark that in England also the "localities" have "survived all shocks, all revolutions, all changes, and their position on the map of England is as indestructible as the country itself" (pp. 39—40). The notion as to the distinctiveness of Hindu development is due to generalizations not sufficiently founded on Occidental data down to the industrial revolution. An intimate familiarity with Greek, Roman and mediaeval Europe will bring out the fact that East and West were replicas of each other. See the comparative study of "private law" in Gibelin's *Etudes*. cf. Asokawa's *Early Inst. Life of Japan*, pp. 2—3.