Republics in Ancient India, c. 1500 B.C.–500 B.C. c6.s2.35

c6.s2.35

The bulk of historical literature produced with this attitude in mind may be justifiable in the context of the times, but only if one accepts academic historical research as a tool for fostering patriotism and igniting revolutions in order to achieve national independence. However, an unbiased and methodical historical monograph of true scholarship cannot be produced with the purpose of proving that India has always been tyrannically ruled by “oriental despots”, and therefore still deserves to be governed by a superior power; neither can it be written to extol an almost perfect form of democracy that Āryavarta knew centuries ago when Britons were still living in caves, and thus prove that India is worthy of self-government. This feeling of patriotism has influenced almost all Indian historians writing on ancient Indian republican institutions to the extent that it has prevented them from appreciating the democratic and oligarchic experiments carried out in Greece and Rome. To this school of Indian historians the Athenian and Roman democracies were of the same type, whereas the study of any text-book would show that there was a world of difference between the two.¹ Athens in the 5th century had the most refined form of democracy possible in ancient times,² and Rome knew no true democracy, at best it had an oligarchy.³