Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-18T08:13:06.216Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Indian Machiavelli: Pragmatism versus morality, and the reception of the Arthasastra in India, 1905–2014

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 May 2015

MARIA MISRA
MARIA MISRA*
Affiliation:
Keble College, University of Oxford, United Kingdom Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article explores the ways in which the Arthasastra (The Science of Wealth or The Science of Power), an ancient text rediscovered in 1905, was interpreted by Indian politicians and commentators. It seeks to explain why the text's popularity changed so drastically over time, and why, despite the excitement about it in the first 20 years following its reappearance, it was largely ignored in the Gandhian and Nehruvian eras, until a striking revival of interest from the late 1980s onwards. It argues that these changes in the text's fortunes can be explained partly as a result of significant shifts in elite Indian political culture. It also suggests that we need to reassess our analysis of the fundamental fault-lines in Indian politics, questioning Chatterjee's and Nandy's argument on the centrality of tensions between Gandhian ‘indigenous’ thought and Nehruvian ‘Western’ modernity, and arguing for the importance of the conflict between a moral politics, endorsed by both Gandhi and Nehru, and a ‘pragmatic’ politics justified by the Arthasastra.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 50 , Issue 1 , January 2016 , pp. 310 - 344
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Ramaswamy Aiyangar, K. V. (1935). Considerations of Some Aspects of Ancient Indian Polity. Sir Subramanya Aiyar Lecture 1914, 2nd edition, University of Madras, Madras, pp. 11–12, 51–52Google Scholar.

2 Bhattacharya, R. (2012). ‘B-Schools Offer India Inc. Leaders Crash Course in Kalidasa, Arthasastra and The Gita’, Economic Times, Mumbai, 11 May; ‘Babus of India’ (2010). ‘10 Chanakya Quotes for Bureaucrats as Finance Minister Unveils Statue of Arthasastra Author in Gujarat I-T Office’, 17 June: http://www.babusofindia.com, [accessed 12 February 2015].

3 There is, however, a large corpus of analytical studies of the text by Sanskritists and ancient historians. See for example: Kangle, R. P. (1965). The Kautilya Arthasastra—Part III, a Study, Motilal Banarsidass, DelhiGoogle Scholar; Vigasin, A. A. and Samozventsev, A. M. (1985). Society, State and Law in Ancient India, Stirling Publishers, New DelhiGoogle Scholar; Olivelle, P. (1987). ‘King and Ascetic: State Control of Asceticism in the Arthasastra’, Festschrift Ludo Rocher, Adyar Library Bulletin, 50, pp. 39–59Google Scholar; Bronkhorst, J. (2007). Greater Magadha: Studies in the Culture of Early India, Brill, LeidenCrossRefGoogle Scholar; McClish, M. R. (2009). ‘Political Brahmanism and the State: A Compositional History of the Arthasastra’, PhD thesis, University of Texas at Austin; Olivelle, P. and McClish, M. (2012). The Arthasastra: Selections from the Classic Indian Work on Statecraft, Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis, pp. ix–lxxiiGoogle Scholar.

4 Basu, S. (2002). Religious Revivalism and Nationalist Discourse: Swami Vivekananda and the New Hinduism in Nineteenth-century Bengal, Oxford University Press, New DelhiGoogle Scholar; Chatterjee, P. (1986). Nationalist Thought in a Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse?, Zed Books, LondonGoogle Scholar; Dalmia, V. (1999). The Nationalization of Hindu Traditions: Bharatendu Harischandra and Nineteenth-Century Benaras, Oxford University Press, New DelhiGoogle Scholar; Kapila, S. and Devji, F. (2013). Political Thought in Action: The Bhagavad Gita and Modern India, Cambridge University Press, CambridgeCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 For this point, in the context of the novelist Bankim's use of Hindu ‘golden ages’ in order to avoid the use of either the British or the Muslim past to legitimize politics, see Kaviraj, S. (1995). The Unhappy Consciousness: Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay and the Formation of Nationalist Discourse in India, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, pp. 107–117Google Scholar.

6 Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought, pp. 1–36; Kaviraj, S. (1992). ‘The Imaginary Institution of India’ in Chatterjee, P. and Pandey, G.Subaltern Studies VII, Oxford University Press, New DelhiGoogle Scholar; Nandy, A. (1989). ‘The Political Culture of the Indian State’, Daedalus, 118:4, pp. 1–26Google Scholar.

7 Chatterjee, P. (1993). The Nation and its Fragments: Colonial and Post-Colonial Histories, Princeton University Press, PrincetonGoogle Scholar; Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought, p. 100.

8 Nandy, A. (1994). The Illegitimacy of Nationalism. Rabindranath Tagore and the Politics of Self, Oxford University Press, OxfordGoogle Scholar.

9 Bayly, C. A. (2012). Recovering Liberties. Indian Thought in the Age of Liberalism and Empire, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p. 22Google Scholar.

10 McClish, ‘Political Brahmanism’, pp. 49, 77, 89–90, 127, 155, 198–314.

11 Ibid, pp. 198–199, 239, 309–310. Bronkhorst, Greater Magadha, pp. 4–9.

12 Arthasastra, 7:3 in Shamasastry, R. (ed. and trans.) (1915). Arthasastra of Kautilya, University of Madras, MadrasGoogle Scholar.

13 Shamasastry, Arthasastra, 1:8–18.

14 Doniger, W. (2009). The Hindus: An Alternative History, Penguin Books, New York, p. 202Google Scholar; Shamasastry, Arthasastra, 13:1:3–8.

15 Shamasastry, Arthasastra, 1.11:17–18; 12:5: 1–5.

16 McClish, ‘Political Brahmanism’, p. 275.

17 Shamasastry, Arthasastra, 1. 7.6–7; McClish, ‘Political Brahmanism’, p. 243.

18 Shamasastry, Arthasastra, 3.3.16; 3.4.28, 3.13.1; Jaiswal, S. (2001). ‘Female Images in the Arthasastra of Kautilya’, Social Scientist, 29:3/4, p. 52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 McClish, ‘Political Brahmanism’, pp. 304, 311–312.

20 Ibid, pp. 269–296.

21 Ibid, p. 305.

22 Shamasastry, Arthasastra, 2:1.

23 Ibid, 2:1.

24 Ibid, 2:16.

25 Sharma, R. (1959). Aspects of Political Ideas and Institutions in Ancient India, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, pp. 4–5.

26 Law, N. N. (1921). Aspects of Ancient Indian Polity, Clarendon Press, Oxford, p. 218Google Scholar.

27 Ghoshal, U. N. (1923). A History of Hindu Political Theories: From the Earliest Times to the Ending of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century, Humphrey Milford Press, London, pp. 5–9Google Scholar.

28 Sarkar, B. K. (1922). The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics, Markart and Petters, Leipzig, p. viiiGoogle Scholar.

29 Sarkar, Political Institutions, pp. 9, 13.

30 Sarkar, B. K. (1922). The Futurism of Young Asia and other Essays on the Relations Between East and West, Julius Springer, Berlin, pp. 119–120Google Scholar.

31 Van Bijlert, V. A. (2003). ‘The Icon of Japan in Nationalist Revolutionary Discourse’, in Narangoa, L. and Cribb, R. B.Imperial Japan and National Identities in Asia, 1895–194, Routledge, London, pp. 23–43Google Scholar.

32 Sarkar, Futurism, p. 282.

33 Manjapra, K. (2012). ‘Knowledgeable Internationalism and the Swadeshi Movement, 1903–1921’, Economic and Political Weekly, 47:42, pp. 59–61Google Scholar.

34 Sarkar, Futurism, p. 151.

35 Shamasastry, R. B. (1920). Evolution of Indian Polity, Oriental Institute, MysoreGoogle Scholar.

36 Ghoshal, U. N. (1929). Contributions to the History of the Hindu Revenue System, University of Calcutta, Calcutta, pp. 14, 17Google Scholar.

37 Bandyopadhaya, N. C. (1927). Kautilya: Or An Exposition of his Social Ideal and Political Theory, R. Cambray, Calcutta, p. 296Google Scholar.

38 Sarkar, Futurism, p. 151.

39 Meyer, J. J. (1927). Über das Wesen altindischen Rechtsschriften und ihr Verhältnis zu einander und zu Kautilya, Harrassowitz, LeipzigGoogle Scholar.

40 B. G Tilak, cited in Wolpert, S. (1962). Tilak and Gokhale: Revolution and Reform in the Making of Modern India, University of California, Los Angeles, p. 78Google Scholar.

41 Gandhi, M. K. ‘A Vindication of Caste’, in Ambedkar, B. R. (1968). The Annihilation of Caste: with a Reply from M. K. Gandhi, 3rd edition, Bheem Patrika Publications, JullundurGoogle Scholar.

42 Gandhi, M. K. quoted in Srinivasaraju, S. (2009). ‘Year of the Guru: It's a hundred years since the discovery of Chanakya's great work from a manuscript’, Outlook, 27 July.

43 Gandhi, M. K. (1941). ‘Speech at All India Spinners’ Association, 7th October’, Collected Works of M. K. Gandhi, Vol. 74, Government of India, Delhi, p. 39Google Scholar. [Hereafter CWMKG.]

44 Gould, W. (2004). Hindu Nationalism and the Language of Politics in Late Colonial India, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 39, 48, 51–52Google Scholar.

45 Gandhi, M. K (1947). ‘Speech at Prayer Meeting, 19th April’, CWMKG, Vol. 87, p. 312.

46 See footnote 6.

47 Nehru, J. N. (1937). ‘Rashtrapati by “Chanakya”’, Modern Review, November, reprinted in Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Vol. 8, Orient Longman, New Delhi, pp. 520–523Google Scholar. [Hereafter SWJN.]

48 Nehru, J. N. (1999). The Discovery of India, 19th impression, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, p. 123Google Scholar.

49 Nehru, Discovery, p. 123.

50 Nehru, Discovery, p. 124.

51 Nehru, J. N. (1985). The Discovery of India, Centenary edition, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, pp. 28–29Google Scholar.

52 Nehru, Discovery, Centenary edition, pp. 29–30.

53 Nehru, J. N. (1950). ‘Destiny of Asia: Speech at 11th Conference on Indo-Pakistan Relations’, 3 October, in SWJN, Vol. 15, pp. 506–507.

54 Nehru, Discovery, p. 126.

55 Nehru, Discovery, p. 125.

56 Thapar, R. (1960). ‘Asoka and Buddhism’, Past and Present, 18, pp. 43–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

57 Nehru, Discovery, pp. 52, 132–135, 176.

58 Jah, S. (2008). ‘The Indian National Flag as a Daily Plebiscite’, Economic and Political Weekly, 43, pp. 43, 107Google Scholar.

59 Nehru, J. N. (1950). ‘Address at National Metallurgical Laboratory, Jamshedpur’, 26 November, SWJN, Vol. 16, pp. 75.

60 Wittfogel, K. (1958) cited in Peterson, W. ‘Oriental Despotism and Modern Totalitarianism’, The Antioch Review, 18:1, pp. 94–95Google Scholar.

61 Ambedkar, Annihilation of Caste.

62 Das, S. G. [translated from Hindi] (1949). ‘Debate on the Hindu Code Bill’, 25 February, Proceedings of the Lok Sabha, Government of India, New DelhiGoogle Scholar. [Hereafter PLS.]

63 Kamath, H. V. (1949). ‘Debate on the Hindu Code Bill’, 25 February, PLS.

64 Das, ‘Debate on Hindu Code Bill’, PLS.

65 Ambedkar, B. R. (1949). ‘Debate on the Hindu Code Bill’, 25 February, PLS.

66 Ambedkar, B. R. (2004). ‘Buddha and the Future of his Religion’, in Rodrigues, V., The Essential Writings of B. K. Ambedkar, Oxford University Press, New DelhiGoogle Scholar.

67 Basrur, R. (2001). ‘Nuclear Weapons and India's Strategic Culture’, Journal of Peace Research, 38:2, pp. 181–198CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

68 Mansingh, S. (1984). India's Search for Power: Indira Gandhi's Foreign Policy, 1966–82, Sage, New DelhiGoogle Scholar.

69 Gonda, J. (1967). ‘Review of The Kautilya Arthasastra by R. P. Kangle’, Oriens, 20, p. 321CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

70 Kangle, R. P. (1960–65). The Kautilya Arthasastra, Part I: A Critical Edition with Glossary; Part II: An English Translation with Critical and Explanatory Notes; Part III: A Study, University of Bombay, BombayGoogle Scholar.

71 Ibid.

72 Scharfe, H. (1968). Untersuchungen zur Staatsrechtslehre des Kautalya, Harrasowitz, Wiedbaden.

73 Burrow, T. (1968). ‘Chanakya and Kautalya’, Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 48/49, p. 17Google Scholar.

74 Trautmann, T. (1971). Kautilya and the Arthasastra: A Statistical Investigation of the Authorship and Evolution of the Text, Brill, LeidenGoogle Scholar.

75 Kane, P. V. (1960–75). History of Dharmasastra, 5 vols, Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, PoonaGoogle Scholar.

76 Dasgupta, S. and Cohen, S. (2010). Arming Without Aiming: India's Military Modernization, Brookings Institute Press, Washington DC, pp. 101–104Google Scholar.

77 Varshney, A. (1998). ‘Mass Politics or Elite Politics? India's Economic Reform in Comparative Perspective’, The Journal of Policy Reform, 2:4, pp. 301–335CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kohli, A. (2012). Poverty Amidst Plenty in the New India, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 38–39, 46–47, 59CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

78 Corbridge, S. (2013). ‘The Political Economy of Development in India since Independence’, in Brass, P.The Routledge Handbook of South Asian Politics, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 310–314Google Scholar.

79 Fourcade-Gourinchas, M. and Babb, S. (2002). ‘The Rebirth of the Liberal Creed: Paths to Neoliberalism in Four Countries’, American Journal of Sociology, 108:3, pp. 533–579CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Fourcade-Gourichas and Babb distinguish between a more radically laissez-faire model of neoliberalism (as seen in Britain and Chile), and a ‘latecomer’ model of neoliberalism in which the activist, technocratic state has a stronger role (as adopted by France and Mexico). India fits the second model.

80 Mukherjee, P. (2012). Quoted in the Indian Express, 16 March.

81 Mukherjee, Indian Express.

82 Mukherjee, Indian Express.

83 Babus of India, ‘10 Chanakya Quotes for Bureaucrats’.

84 Chowdhury, N. (2012). ‘Redefining the Presidency’, Times of India, 25 July.

85 Ramesh, J. (2002). Quoted in the Times of India, 4 October.

86 Ramesh, J. (2002). ‘Time to Sign Off’, India Today, 13 May.

87 Ibid.

88 Shouri, A. (2002). Quoted in the Times of India, 12 September.

89 Waldauer, C., Zahka, W. and Pal, S. (1996). ‘Kautilya's Arthasastra: A Neglected Precursor to Classical Economics’, Indian Economic Review, 31:1, p. 107Google Scholar.

90 Jha, K. N. (1996). Kautilya's Arthasastra and Social Welfare, Samitya Akadami, New DelhiGoogle Scholar.

91 Sen, A. (1993). ‘Money and Value: On the Ethics and Economics of Finance’, Economics and Philosophy, 9:2, pp. 203–227CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

92 Sen, ‘Money and Value’, p. 209.

93 Ibid.

94 Trautmann, T. (2012). Arthasastra: The Science of Wealth, Allen Lane, New DelhiGoogle Scholar.

95 Bhattacharya, A. (2012). ‘Review of T. Trautmann, Arthasastra: The Science of Wealth’, Business Standard, 19 May.

96 Bhattacharya, ‘B-Schools Offer India Inc. Leaders Crash Course in Kalidasa, Arthasastra and The Gita’.

97 Chakravarty, U. (2009). ‘Inventing Saffron History: A Celibate Hero Rescues an Emasculated Nation’, in Nair, J. and John, M., A Question of Silence: The Sexual Economics of Modern India, Zed Books, London, p. 247Google Scholar.

98 Hasan, Z. (2001). ‘Transfer of Power? Politics of Mass Mobilisation in UP’, Economic and Political Weekly, 36:46/47, p. 4404Google Scholar. ‘Other Backward Castes’ refers to lower caste groups, apart from Dalits and ‘Scheduled Tribes’ who already benefited from affirmative action under the terms of the Indian constitution.

99 Chakravarty, ‘Inventing Saffron History’.

100 Ibid.

101 Kumar, V. (2012). ‘Cartels in Kautilya's Arthasastra’, Czech Economic Review, 6, pp. 59–79Google Scholar; Bhattacharya, S. (2002). ‘From Kautilya to Benfold—Trends in Forensic and Investigative Accounting’, ePublications@Bond, School of Business, Bond University, 3.1Google Scholar.

102 For the Bharatiya Janata Party's dilution of pro-high caste, anti-reservation (affirmative action) rhetoric, see Chandra, K. (2005). ‘Ethnic Parties and Democratic Stability’, Perspectives on Politics, 3:2, pp. 235–252CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the rise of Other Backward Caste politics since the 1990s, see Jaffrelot, C. and Kumar, S. (2012), Rise of the Plebeians? The Changing Face of Indian Legislative Politics, London, RoutledgeGoogle Scholar.

103 Sanghi, A. (2010). Chanakya's Chant, Westland, New DelhiGoogle Scholar.

104 On new Other Backward Caste political identities, see Ilaiah, K. (2014), ‘Kautilya versus the King’, Asian Age, 10 October.

105 Narayan, B. (2014). ‘The Secret of BJP Success in Uttar Pradesh: Winning over Dalits and OBCs, and a dose of Hindutva’, 23 May: www.dnaindia.com/authors/badri-narayan, [accessed 12 February 2015].

106 On Gujarati political identities and the reaction against Gandhianism in the 1990s and 2000s, see Suhrud, T. (2008). ‘Modi and Gujarati “Asmita”’, Economic and Political Weekly, 43:1, pp. 11–13Google Scholar.

107 (2014). ‘PM says Mahatma Gandhi was Incomplete without Sardar Patel, Also Rakes up 1984 anti-Sikh Violence’, Times of India, 31 October.

108 Kumar, K. (2014), ‘The Untold Stories of Narendra Modi's Social Media Plan in Lok Sabha Polls’, The Economic Times, 5 August.