The concept of Dharma Rajya never discriminated against anyone on the basis of their faith and rulers never felt any need to explicitly state this. The Nehruvian secularism on the other hand proved to be a misnomer and led to the abuse of the category
Shaan Kashyap
Historically we have known that the Dharmik rajya was evidently secular. The State in its legal content never intervened in the religious and cultural life of the people without invitation or necessity. Moreover, the faith of the ruler was never superimposed on the subjects, with the later having the free-will and freedom of belief and faith. Unlike in early Modern Europe where a fine distinction had to be drawn between the areas of operation of the political state and religious everydayness, any such necessity was unwarranted in the Hindu state.
Except for Ashoka, no other Bhartiya monarch had to explicitly formulate and outline any defined Dharmik way for their subjects. Ashoka promulgated the policy of Dhamma. The word dhamma is the Prakrit form of the Sanskrit word dharma. As far as Ashoka’s policy of dhamma is concerned, it was non-ritualistic and non-doctrinaire. It was a synthesis of moral principles of all the religions and aimed at promoting moral and social consciousness among the people.
One of the doctrinal specialties of Ashoka’s dhamma was the principle of toleration. Though a Buddhist in his personal belief, he never imposed his religion on others. He never looked down upon other religions. However, one then needs to ask that why then toleration has to be manifested rather than acceptance and embrace. Why Ashoka had to erect pillars around his empire to propagate what he believed was Dharma? Were earlier monarchs were not Dharmik? What was the Raj Dharma? We must revisit the Bhartiya texts and theories to answer the questions without interpolating them in the Western political theories.
Theory of statecraft
The discovery and publication of Kautilya”s Arthasastra in 1906 by Shamashastri, gave the first shock to the complacent ignorance in which the western and eastern thinkers had buried it. The monumental text deals with the branches of Knowledge (Vidya), which were prevalent in ancient time. All human knowledge known to India was divided into four branches. They were Anvikshiki (Philosophy), Trayi (Theology), Varta (Economics), and Dandaniti (Polity), (Arthsastra, 1/2/4).
After Arthsastra and other similar texts we know that the Dharma Rajya never seek to crush the free initiative and spontaneous life of the various associations in society, is evident from the economic, social and religious freedom enjoyed by these bodies in their internal organisation. But, it does not follow that these groups and corporations were co-ordinate with the State. On the contrary, they appear to be under the definite control of the State. The king had the authority to inquire into the laws of the castes, of districts, of guilds, and of families and thus settle the peculiar law of each. Dr. Beni Prasad, in Theory of Government in Ancient India, observes, “the implied logic of the situation is that whatever remains free of the control of the State, remains so by its permission.”
Even before the epoch making work of Kautilya was brought to light, we had before us the treatise of Kamandaka called Nitisara which quoted the traditional view of the old authors of the Ancient Indian Polity regarding their idea of the state and politics. That the Ancient Indians, even in those early days of the Vedas the Samhitas and the Brahmans, were aware of important concepts relating to their Socio political life is proved by the existence of such terms like Rajya, Svaraya, Samrajya, Bahujya, Varajya, Maharaya and Adhipatya which are referred to in Ancient texts like Atharva Veda, Taittiriya Samhita, the Aitareya Brahman and the Jaiminiya Upanisad Brahman.
We are told that, it was the supreme function of the king to see that the various groups within the community observed their respective laws and discharged the necessary obligations arising there from. The State, thus, by its acceptance to maintain those obligations of the family, castes, Srenîs and ganas, imparted to these customs legal sanction. According to Yãjnavalkya, the king should discipline and establish again on the path of duty, all groups which have strayed from their laws, whether they be families, castes, guilds, associations or groups in districts.
The Divinity of the King
A.S. Altekar in an article on ‘The Divinity of the King’ has conclusively established the view that the Hindu-Kings though conceived of as divine with several functional resemblances, were actively human and responsible rulers -graciously following human conventions, as a great Samudra Gupta did, according to the opinion of that great emperor”s court-poet and panygerist Harisena. Hence it is a kind of qualified divinity that the Hindu political thought can accept under the circumstances, not the western idea of Divine Right, which was a justification for arbitrary rule and obedience of to even bad or wicked kings.
Yet we have to recognise that ancient Indian political ambition was not of a grabbing nature; this is sufficiently proved by the use of an expression in the Arthasastra “Chakravartikshetra” which according to Professor Nilankanta Sastri is an indication of the political unity of India, no idea of exploitation for empire and power must have entered the minds of the rulers of the age except perhaps the efficient working of an administration suited -to the requirements of an all India dominion. Professor Sastri quotes in this connection a statement of Arrian, which is illuminating viz., “that a sense of justice, they say, prevented any Indian king, from attempting conquests beyond the limits of India”. Hence Hindu polity works on the basis of a large dominion and its needs and requirements is monarchy, being the stabilised form of government, throughout the period of expansion and the organic growth of the state. It is indeed true, that, historically speaking, the social institutions like the family, the Srenî, the kula, and other religious fraternities were prior to the State. We may further concede as Sen Gupta has wrote in the Sources of Law and Society in Ancient India, “that these various societies, each representing a different principle or social force operating in society, grew up more or less independently or contemporaneously with the military organisation, or at any rate before the military organisation had grown into the homogeneous State.”
Conclusion
We must realise that the debate over secularism and its essential values in Contemporary India are not of much worth. Those who revel over Nehruvian secularism suggest that Nehru applied secularism in the development of the human spirit and nation. It has been claimed that he never used religion for votes. But was protruding secularism required when the kernel of Bharat’s civilisation was essentially secular. Then why it had to be stated out rightly and that too in a statist legal framework?
Nehru made the solecism in comprehending the grammar of the Dharma Rajya. He used to be
perturbed whenever the terminologies of it were placed ahead. He
misstated Dharma Rajya as a theocratic state and didn’t understand its implicit secular character. It now needs to be recognised that Hindu state was more secular in its spirit than modern Nehruvian misnomer which resulted in the binaries of minorities and majority. n
