The history of humanity spread over several millennia, from the cave man to the astronaut, has witnessed several transitions – from hunting-food gathering to food production; from pastoralism to settled agriculture; from mere subsistence economy to surplus generation; from a relatively egalitarian pre-class to an extremely stratified and complex class society; from simple nomadic bands and clans to tribes; and from tribal chiefdom to state formation. Which society of the world during these long histories of varied transitions has not witnessed wars, violence, pillage, plunder, killing (of both humans and animals) and torturous exploitation of human labour by humans? Our willful amnesia cannot wish them away.
The need to remind ourselves of such ghastly histories may perhaps be located only in some deliberate and motivated attempts to reconstruct them periodically, which have also been happening all through human history. The monograph under review is an exercise in setting the record straight. It begins in the twentieth century and ends in the twenty-first. The author shows how some of the makers of modern India such as Nehru, Gandhi, Ambedkar and Savarkar sought to search for its ancient roots and made a case for and against violence, drawing inspirations from Aśoka and Buddhism, the Bhagavadgītā, and Candragupta Maurya and Cāṇakya. Perhaps a better rationale for reminding us about the perils of amnesia would have been to extend the exploration backward into the reconstructions of Indian pasts in the nineteenth century, when James Mill, Max Mueller, and several others were busy in creating myths of the “Hindus” being peace loving, non-violent, compassionate, spiritual, tolerant, truthful and static (accounting for the later day “Hindu” rate of economic growth). Further, somewhat mischievously, this image was juxtaposed to that of the “Muslims” who were demonized as zealous bigots, violent, brutes, deceitful – a characterization that has persisted till this day in Savarkar's idea of India, which is now being enthusiastically pushed by chauvinists in the name of “Hindu” culture.
Of the five main chapters of the monograph, the first three titled “Foundation”, “Transition” and “Maturity” respectively and covering twelve centuries (circa 600 BCE–circa 600 CE) are chronologically stratified – the dividers being circa 200 BCE and circa 300 CE. Chapters 4 and 5 are somewhat thematic and captioned “War” and “The Wilderness” respectively. Texts forming bases for reconstruction of the themes comprise selections of inscriptions, some monumental and art remains, coins and literary compositions of different genres, but mostly in Sanskrit. Apart from the obvious preference for the Aśokan inscriptions, most of the dynastic inscriptions (of the Śakas, Sātavāhanas, Ikṣvākus, Vākāṭakas and Guptas – Kuṣāṇa inscriptions have been rarely invoked) selected may be classed as praśasti/s (Khāravela's Hathigumpha, Rudradāman's Junagadh/Girnar, Gautamīputra Śātakarṇi's Nasik and Samudragupta's Allahabad inscriptions).
As for the literary texts, the indispensability of the encyclopaedic Mahābhārata and the other epic, Rāmāyaṇa, and theoretical treatises such as the Arthaśāstra of Kauṭilya, the Manusmṛti and the Nītisāra attributed to Kāmandaka can be easily anticipated for a study on the history of ideas. Invocation of select canonical texts of the Buddhists and the Jains, particularly the Jātakas, also does not surprise. However, the focus on texts that would broadly be categorized as belles-lettres, viz., several plays of Bhāsa, Aśvaghoṣa's Buddhacarita, Aśokāvadāna, Kālidāsa's Abhijñānaśākuntala and Raghuvaṁśa, Viśākhadatta's Mudrārākṣasa, and Pañcatantra is innovative, add to the repertoire of texts useful for studying the political apparatus and, therefore, should be welcomed. But occasional sprinkling of Tamil Saṅgam texts (ch. 4) and Bhartṛhari's three śatakas (p. 237) do not contribute anything substantial. Though some inscriptions are in Prakrit, the bulk of aforesaid literary compositions are in Sanskrit. Overall, the study essentially remains a treatment of Sanskritik intellectual and cultural traditions of north India and the central Deccan.
The thesis of this 600-page tome is very simple. “This book is a history of ideas … (it) is also a political history in which political ideas are given central place”, claims the author (pp. 14–15). Out of seven constituents of the state (saptāṅga-rājya according to political theorists of twelve hundred years studied), its main focus remains only on kingship and its relationship with manifestations of violence – force, punishment, killing, and the royal hunt. Non-violence has never been absolute, not even for the Buddha and Mahāvīra for whom ahiṁsā was a matter of faith and constituted their cardinal doctrine. Their cakkavatti (cakravartin) king was expected to be a moral, righteous, kind and compassionate ruler and implement the dhamma, but deviants from such an ideal were also accepted as followers. The Bhagavadgītā has been invoked by both pacifists and warmongers. Kings battled between trappings of royalty as well as higher bliss promised for a renouncer. Force invoked by the king for the fulfillment of duty of protecting the Varṇa-Ãśrama dharmas constitutes the dharma view of politics. Contrarily, unscrupulous kings pursuing tricky and divisive methods (yes, divide and rule is not the British legacy) – the four upāyas (expedients), viz., sāma (conciliation), dāna (gifts), daṇḍa (force) and bheda (creating dissension) and aspiring to be Kauṭilya's vijigīṣu (king desirous of victory) through crafty strategies espoused what the author calls the artha view of politics and which finds more than adequate spaces in Sanskrit texts.
The relationship between kings and forest dwellers (both humans and animals) was simultaneously hot and cold. The royal hunt in these spaces was a fairly common pastime. This, as well as exploitation of economic resources of forests by the state, have been described in most of the Sanskrit texts enumerated above. Despite the strong indictment of war and declaration of its ultimate futility in the Mahābhārata, its aestheticization and celebration in belles-lettres makes interesting reading. No wonder that complete renunciation of war was never contemplated in such texts. In the long list of historical kings of ancient India, Aśoka Maurya stands alone for giving up war as an instrument of state policy. However, there is no mistaking that he was pragmatic enough to keep a close watch on the recalcitrant frontier and forest people and was ever ready to use force against them. The author is rightly enamoured of this emperor, who loved both humans and animals. However, since numerous disquisitions and varied Indian cultural traditions on the epistemology of the notions of truth, ethics and morality underline their relativity, a search for the absoluteness of issues discussed by her would be futile.
Defining the parameters of her methodological apparatus, the author has repeatedly underlined that the book “is a historical investigation … grounded in political history and … political processes”; that the political thought has to be “anchored to its historical context”; and that words and ideas related to violence and nonviolence cannot be divested from their “contextual analysis” (pp. 9–15). Confining the entire monograph to exploration of the questions about and debate over “one kind of violence – political violence” makes its claims of being an “historical investigation” suspect. How does one comprehend “political processes” when they are divorced from social structure and its processes, especially when the whole edifice is rooted in an iniquitous order; as well as from their material contexts? That lives of people are not compartmentalized was recognized by Kauṭilya (Arthaśāstra I.7.6) when he discussed statecraft from the specific perspective and goals of artha: “Artha [material well-being] is supreme because dharma [righteousness] and kāma [sensual pleasure] are dependent on it” (cited, p. 99). Even Vātsyāyana's Kāmasūtra concedes: “artha is the most important goal for the king and the prostitute, because it is the basis of social life” (cited, p. 507, n. 5). No discussion of any kind of “political violence” in ancient India can be complete unless it is “anchored to its historical context” of social violence ingrained in the fourfold varṇa order which had also sanctified economic violence manifested in coercive exploitation of human labour. It is, therefore, somewhat intriguing that even when “various kinds of violence” are listed, the conspectus does not go beyond “incessant inter-dynastic and intra-dynastic power struggles, warfare between states, and violent encounters between the state and forest people … celebration of the royal hunt …” (p. 11).
Another aspect of methodological apparatus that needs some reflection concerns the nature of texts invoked for reconstructing more than millennium-old debates on violence and non-violence. Despite recognizing that dates of most texts are matters of continuing debate and their composition often spilled across more than one phase, the author has candidly made her position on their temporal spread quite clear. Equally significant is her outstanding message that the brahmanical view of kingship embodied in most of the texts cannot be described as the “Indian view”. Indeed, she has even questioned if there ever was a single brahmanical view. She is acutely aware of several other limitations of the texts, viz., voices therein are largely those of upper-class males and, therefore, it is difficult to retrieve voices of others. And yet the overall exposition of all texts (primarily both epigraphic and literary) in the monograph rarely goes beyond being evocatively descriptive, almost in an anecdotal mode. Apparently, they have been taken at their face value and, at least in case of literary texts, even the line between myth and history has been blurred.
While discussing the semantics of violence and non-violence (pp. 6–9, terms such as hiṁsā, ahiṁsā, ānṛśaṁsya, avihiṁsā), the author refers to the “culture-specific set of epistemological and metaphysical ideas” forming bases of their numerous renderings in Sanskrit. Eschewing comparison between “Indian” and “western” perspectives, it makes a plea for a nuanced understanding of diverse and evolving terminology of political violence “on its own terms”. Point well taken, but then, (a) comparisons with other ancient societies have indeed been invoked at places, and (b) it stands oddly against the concept of circulation of ideas in the ancient world, which has been proudly illustrated to delineate and explain the wider travel of Indic ideas – both political and military, especially in Southeast Asia (pp. 473–80).
Showing awareness of anthropological models seeking to explain transition from tribes and chiefdoms to kingdoms and empires, the author promises to move beyond what she calls “the extremes of ‘statist’ and ‘non-statist’ histories” (p. 13). Falling for the new fanciful vocabulary of “political imagination” (à la Sheldon Pollock), she is enthusiastic about ignoring two indispensable constituents of the saptāṅga-rājya, viz., the army and treasury/taxation, both having great potential to unleash considerable violence affecting common people. After all, violence lies at the heart of the state. Also, the call for recognizing the existence of “autonomous spaces”, another newly packaged term, as a new way of thinking about ancient states, remains an idle promise. There is hardly any meaningful discussion on this and the thesis's main focus remains on just kingship.
The publication of this monograph in 2017 was received with great fanfare in India, both in the print and electronic media and the author has been hopeful “that a critical engagement with ancient Indian political thought can perhaps help us reflect on the problem of escalating political violence in our own time” (p. x). True, the contemporary milieu of India is marked by considerable violence. Political killings by ideology-driven political parties are rampant. Brute force and violence are also creeping into the thought, words and deeds of common people on the streets and giving a name to such violence is problematic. To illustrate, extreme violence, sometimes involving even physical death, is brazenly carried out by “Hindus” in the name of cow protection. Innocent victims are usually Muslims. This phenomenon has come to be known as “mob lynching”. The incidence of violence against women and socially downtrodden people is also on the rise. Do these constitute “political” or social or religious or even economic (beef trade) violence? The author may have an answer for these phenomena but we would find it difficult to classify them.
Even in its limited objective, this is not the first book on the history of political ideas. Yet, it should be welcomed by lay readers who may be curious to know about the ancient Indian pasts. Fortunately, the author has been questioning enough to refrain from dubbing these pasts as “glorious”. Apparently, this monograph is not meant for subject specialists for they are likely to be familiar with most of the contents and the overall narrative. Some of them, present reviewer included, may find it to be a product of new-fangled postmodern culturalism, which is often high on decibel level.
