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The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c9.s4.t2: 2. Samûhas as "Group-Persons"

The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c9.s4.t2

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2. Samûhas as "Group-Persons"

c9.s4.t2.1

But not all unions, companies or associations are "corporations". How far, therefore, it may be asked, were these *śreṇîs* (often identified with *gaṇas* and *pûgas*) of the Indian socio-economic system real gilds? To what extent did these *samûha* organizations come to be conceived and recognized by Hindus themselves as "artificial civic bodies", i. e. "aggregate individuals" with "natural corporate existence"? The book of Brihaspati (Ch. XVII) furnishes an answer to these queries. The juridical concept of a corporate person or one-in-the-many as pertaining to *śreṇîs* is quite manifest in the particulars he lays down regarding the constitution and rights and duties of *samûhas*. The older Yâjna-valkya and his mediæval commentators also leave no doubt on the point.

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Gilds were governed by boards of two, three, or five persons.⁶ They conducted their business in a *sabhâ*, i. e. soviet or public assembly. As corporate bodies they could make *samaya*⁷ or compact with private individuals as well as among themselves, and the state had to see to it that gild compacts were enforced like all other compacts in the land.

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⁶ Brihaspati, XVII, 10.

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⁷ Nârada, X, 1—2; Brihaspati, VIII, 9; XVII, 5.

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The "power of attorney" could be conferred by them on some of their members, and these agents represented the associations in law courts or other public offices. Accordingly the funds donated by the government to a single member had to be deposited with the joint stock of the *samûha*.¹ In Yâjnavalkya's code anything acquired by a member of the gild while on gild business was to become common property. Eleven times the value of the acquisition was the penalty for wilful violation of this ruling.² According to Brihaspati any member who injured the joint stock might be punished with deportation.³

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¹ Brihaspati, XVII, 22, 24.

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² II, 180.

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³ XVII, 15.

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The agreement entered into by a gild was binding on each and all of the members. Anybody failing to perform the duties implied thereby was liable to be banished and have his property confiscated.⁴ All expenditures were treated as common charges.⁵ Responsibility for loans contracted by a member on behalf of the association was also common. Lastly, *śreṇîs* had the "right of joint action" in relation to the state, as we have noticed in the agreement of the south Indian shepherds,⁶ one of the privileges for which the European craft used to fight.

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⁴ *Ibid*, XVII, 13.

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⁵ *Ibid*, XVII, 24.

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⁶ Supra, p. 41.

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According to Kâtyâyana, an authority later than Brihaspati, cited in Mitra Miśra's *Vîra-mitrodaya*⁷ and Chaṇḍeśvara's *Vivâda-ratnâkara*,⁸ two commentaries on Yâjnavalkya and on other jurists new members were entitled to share equally with the old the properties of the established gild. Debts of the *samûha* were likewise to be shared by them as a matter of course. Nay, the spiritual merit, as says Mitra Miśra, accruing from charities and religious services that the gild may have undertaken in the past was believed to be beneficial to persons who were elected to membership long after the deeds had been performed. The usual mode of cooption was *sarva-sammati* i. e. unanimous approval.

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⁷ p. 432. For schools of Hindu Law see G. C. Sarkar, pp. 28—29, Jolly's *Recht*, 31—41, and Mitra, 61—69.

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⁸ p. 188 (chapter on *Sambid-vyatikrama*).

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Nothing illustrates better the "legal fiction" of corporations as "immortal persons" than these latter-day ideas in regard to *gaṇa*, *śreṇî*, and *varga*. It is clear, therefore, that Hindu *samûhas*, whether of capitalists, working men or peasants, and trade unions or commercial fraternities had the distinctive characteristics of a homogeneous "community" with common rights and common obligations, — the "real group-persons" of Gierke and Figgis.⁹

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⁹ cf. Barker's article on the "Discredited State" in the *Political Quarterly*, Feb. 1915, p. 111. The importance of this question has not been grasped by previous authors although some of them have cited the relevant passages in other contexts.

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