Ancient India Government

The word `governance' has been used with different meanings in different parts of India during different times. Ancient India had seen many forms of governance and government during different periods in the region. Even within a given territory there were many kingdoms with different ways of governance.

Archaeological excavations have brought to light the remains of a highly developed urban civilization in ancient India, that stretched across approximately 1520 kilometres, extending from the area on the upper Sutlaj in contemporary Punjab to Lothal in Gujarat. Historians are of the view that this civilization flourished in the third millennium before the birth of Christ. The Harappa and Mohanjodaro perhaps had democratic government setup with no evidence of monarchy being found.

The decline of the Indus Valley civilization saw the arrival of Aryans in India. From their original settlements in the Punjab region, they gradually began to penetrate eastward, clearing dense forests and establishing "tribal" settlements along the Ganga & Yamuna plains between 1500 and ca. 800 B.C. By around 500 B.C., most of northern India was inhabited and had been brought under cultivation, facilitating the increasing knowledge of the use of iron implements, including ox-drawn plows, and spurred by the growing population that provided voluntary and forced labor. As riverine and inland trade flourished, many towns along the Ganga became centers of trade, culture, and luxurious living. Increasing population and surplus production provided the bases for the emergence of independent states with fluid territorial boundaries over which disputes frequently arose.

The rudimentary administrative system headed by tribal chieftains was transformed by a number of regional republics or hereditary monarchies that devised ways to appropriate revenue and to conscript labor for expanding the areas of settlement and agriculture farther east and south, beyond the Narmada River. These emergent state governments collected revenue through officials, maintained armies, and built new cities and highways. By 600 B.C., sixteen such territorial powers--including the Magadha, Kosala, Kuru, and Gandhara--stretched across the North India plains from modern-day Afghanistan to Bangladesh.

However the kingdom of Magadh one of the 16 great janapadas - polities - had established paramountcy over other kingdoms of the Ganges Valley. The fluid political situation, made it possible for Chandragupta Maurya (reign - 322 - 298 B.C.) to oust the oppressive ruler of Magadh and found his own dynasty. India attained political unity for the first time under him. According to folklore Chandragupta Maurya laid the foundations of a powerful empire assisted by a Brahmin called Vishnugupta, also known as Kautilya or Chanakya,who wrote the Arthasastra. His treatise on art of governance became very famous. The Arthashatra is the epitome of ancient india government.

One of the eminent historians of Indian History, D D Kosambi, has observed that the title Arthasastra means `the science of material gain for a very special type of state, not for the individual. The end was always crystal clear. Means used to attain it needed no justification. There is not the least pretence of morality or altruism. In the Arhtasastra the only difficulties ever discussed, no matter how gruesome and treacherous the methods, are practical, with due consideration to costs and possible effects... The Arthasastra recommends espionage and the constant use of agent provocateurs on a massive and universal scale. The sole purpose of every action was safety and profit of the state. Abstract questions of ethics are never raised or discussed in the whole book. Murder, poison, subversion was used at need by the king's secret agents, methodically and without a qualm... Chanakya treats strife for the throne as a minor occupational hazard. No regard to morality or filial piety is ever questioned. He quotes a predecessor's axiom; `Princes, like crabs, are father eaters. The eleventh book of the Arthasastra is devoted to the methods of systematically breaking up free, powerful, armed tribes of food producers that had not yet degenerated into absolute kingdoms. The main technique was to soften them up for disintegration from within, to convert the tribesmen into members of class society based upon individual private property. The right of a king to his throne, no matter how it was gained, was usually legitimized through elaborate sacrifice rituals and genealogies concocted by priests who ascribed to the king divine or superhuman origins. The use of absolute power grew even worse under the caste system, which classified people into separate categories on the basis of birth.

The most famous of the Mauryan dynasty is Ashoka the Great. He extended the boundaries of his empire considerably - stretching from Kashmir and Peshawar in the North and Northwest to Mysore in the South and Orissa in the East - but his fame rests not so much on military conquests as on his celebrated renunciation of war. After witnessing the carnage at the battlefield of Kalinga (269 B.C.) in Orissa, Ashoka resolved to dedicate himself to Dhamma - or righteousness. With Asoka, the social philosophy expressed in the sixth-century Magadhan religions had at last penetrated the state mechanism. The king himself would now make a complete tour of inspection throughout his domains every five years. Such a tour must have taken up a good part of the five years, which implies constant traveling except in the rains. All previous royal journeys of the sort had been for personal pleasure such as hunting, or on military campaigns. Every high administrative official was likewise ordered to make a similar quinquennial tour through the entire territory under his own jurisdiction. In addition, there was created a new class of plenipotentiary supervisors with control over officials and special funds. The title was Dharma-mahamatra, which can be translated `minister of morality', and would later be `senior regulator of charity and religious affairs'. The correct translation at the Asokan stage is `High Commissioner of Equity'. Equity is the principle beyond formal codified law and common law upon which both law and justice are supposedly based. Ashoka died around 232 B.C. and the empire began to disintegrate under weak successors.

Pushyamitra Shunga, a Brahmin general usurped the throne after slaying the last Maurya king and presided over a loosely federal polity. In subsequent centuries India suffered a series of invasions, and in the absence of a strong central authority, often fell under the spell of foreign rulers - Indo Bactrians, the Sakas and others. For the next four hundred years, India remained politically disunited and weak. It was repeatedly raided and plundered by foreigners. The Guptas restored stability. It was Chandragupta II- Samudra Gupta's successor - who finally defeated the Sakas and re-established a strong central authorityor government as we term it today. His reign registered the high watermark in Indian culture. His accomplishments in war and peace were glorious enough for him to claim the title Vikramaditya - the resplendent, great and good king of legends. Fa-hien, a Chinese traveller who was in India from 399 - 414 A.D. has left an interesting account of contemporary India. This age of peace and prosperity witnessed an unprecedented flowering of art, literature and the sciences. The twilight of the Gupta Empire saw the setting in of decay. Powerful feudal governors in the provinces declared their independence. Trade and commerce suffered and social evils crept in. There was only a brief afterglow in the time of Harshavardhan (reign - 604 - 647 A.D.) - of Kannauj - who is famous for his philanthropy and patronage of Buddhism. A Chinese traveller Huen-tsang visited India from (629 - 645 A.D.) during the rule of Harshavardhan. The caste system became even more draconian by about the eight century AD, with the introduction of the Law of Manu, one of the worst forms of repressive governance ever known to humanity. The historical beneficiaries of this model of governance were the upper castes, led by the Brahmin caste. The system that they developed over thousands of years is known as Brahmanism: a collection of social regulations that amounted to the world's most comprehensive system of repression. Through a small percentage of the population being able to gain total control of the vast majority, Brahmanism was able to create extreme self-contempt among the larger part of the population, and extreme self-confidence among the ruling minority. The millions of tricks the Brahmins put together to achieve this system were called `religious rituals'. No religious ritual was too mundane and hypocritical. Brahmins gave prescriptions about eating, sitting, drinking water, use of toilets, marriage, reading, dress, and everything that is possible for a human being to do. Without a place for morality, ideas of transparency and accountability were alien to this system of governance.

The medieval period saw the advent of Islam in India and rule of absolute monarchy replaced all earlier forms of governance or government prevalent in ancient India. The Muslim rulers tried to enforce their laws and ideas on the general population and some of the features of their government is prevelant even today like taxation and land reforms.