The Political Future of India

by Lala Lajpat Rai

(3) Even when kingship became an established institution the idea that the King was only a servant of the people survived for a long time. His “remuneration” was fixed at one-sixth of the produce. His subjects had the right to depose him or to turn him out if he failed in his duty. The authorities on these points are collected by Mr. Banerjea on pp. 72 and 73 of his book.

(4) Similarly many authorities are quoted by Mr. Banerjea on pp. 74 and 75 of his learned work showing that, according to Hindu ideals practised in ancient times, the king was not above the law. He was not an autocrat. He was as much bound by the law as his subjects. Laws were not made by kings. “Legislation was not among the powers entrusted to a king,” says Mr. Banerjea. “There is no reference in early Vedic literature to the exercise of legislative authority by the king, though later it is an essential part of his duties,” says Prof. Macdonell.[10]

(5) Assemblies and councils are quite frequently mentioned both in the Rig and the Atharva Vedas. “The popular assembly was a regular institution in the early years of the Buddhistic age (500 to 300 B.C.)” Chanakya mentions that in the King’s Council the decision of the majority should prevail.[11] Sukraniti lays down elaborate rules of procedure for the conduct of business in these assemblies. “The Council was the chief administrative authority in the kingdom. The King was supposed not to do anything without the consent of the Council.”[12] In Kerala State, South India, during the first and second centuries of the Christian Era, there were five assemblies one of which consisted of “representatives of the people summoned from various parts of the State.”[13] “From the Ceylon inscriptions we learn that in that island all measures were enacted by the King in Council, and all orders were issued by and under the authority of the Council.”

While all this is true of Ancient India, we cannot claim the existence of the same system of Government for mediæval India. Even as regards Ancient India, all that is claimed is that it possessed as much democracy, if not more, as Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome. The non-existence of slavery in Northern India gives it therefore a superior character to that of the Ancient republics of Greece and Rome. In the South, it is believed slavery did exist. Coming to mediæval times generally known as the Mohammedan period of Indian History consisting of two epochs, from 400 to 1200 A.D. and from 1200 to 1800 A.D., we notice that the country enjoyed a durable kind of government, cities under absolute rule, and villages, as before, self-governed. The absolute rule was a benevolent or malevolent despotism according to the character of the Hindu or Moslem sovereign who reigned. But in the villages India maintained a democratic form of government right up to the beginning of British rule; and though under British rule, it has been practically superseded by the rule of the officials, yet in some parts of the country the spirit is still alive, as will appear from the following testimony recorded by Mr. Sidney Webb in his Preface to Mr. John Matthai’s volume, Village Government in British India:

“One able collector of long service in Central India informed me that he had been, until a few months before, totally unaware that anything of the sort existed in any of the villages over which he ruled. But being led to make specific inquiries on the subject, he had just discovered, in village after village, a distinctly effective if somewhat shadowy, local organization, in one or other form of panchayat, which was, in fact, now and then giving decisions on matters of communal concern, adjudicating civil disputes, and even condemning offenders to reparation and fine. Such a Local Government organization is, of course, ‘extra-legal’ and has no statutory warrant, and, in the eyes of the British tribunals, possesses no authority whatever. But it has gone on silently existing, possibly for longer than the British Empire itself, and is still effectively functioning, merely by common consent and with the very real sanction of the local public opinion.”

Mr. Matthai has also made a similar remark in Paragraph 22 of his book (Introductory).

Village councils ordinarily called village panchayats have often been confounded with caste panchayats and that fact has been emphasised to prove that these Indian panchayats were or are anything but democratic. Mr. Sidney Webb and Mr. John Matthai both have controverted that position and upon good evidence. Says Mr. Webb:

“One suggestion that these fragments of indigenous Indian Local Government seem to afford is that we sometimes tend to exaggerate the extent to which the cleavages of caste have prevailed over the community of neighbourhood. How often is one informed, ‘with authority,’ that the panchayat of which we catch glimpses must be only a caste panchayat! It is plain, on the evidence, that however frequent and potent may be the panchayat of a caste, there have been and still are panchayats of men of different castes, exercising the functions of a Village Council over villagers of different castes. How widely prevalent these may be not even the Government of India can yet inform us. But if people would only look for traces of Village Government, instead of mainly for evidences of caste dominance, we might learn more on the subject.”

Later on in the same paragraph Mr. Webb remarks that, even where caste exists it has, in fact, permitted a great deal of common life, and that it is compatible with active village councils.