Hindu Civilisational ReDiscovery through Institutions

The first episode of a detailed essay delving into the history of Hindu Political, Administrative and Legal Institutions

Preface

AT THE VERY LEAST, the topic of this essay series is akin to one more step in our journey of Hindu civilizational self-discovery. It is the understanding of the Sanatana civilisation through a study of the institutions it germinated, evolved, nurtured and managed in an unbroken fashion all the way up to the British colonisation of India.

Taking the Vedic civilisation as our starting point, we’re looking at a period of a minimum of 7000 years spread over the nooks and corners of Bharatavarsha. This duration is more than all the ancient Western civilisations combined and then some more.

I have given it the generic title, Hindu Civilisational Self-Discovery through Political, Administrative and Legal Institutions to make it as comprehensive as possible. In truth, this attempt is just a high-level survey of a subject that deserves a multi-volume exposition. Several past masters have indeed authored such exhaustive volumes and my attempt here is only a distillation of the essence of their legacy.

This topic is more relevant — urgent in fact — today more than ever before given the ongoing rampage of Adharma throughout the world. Even a superficial glance shows that nations which evolved democracy as we know it are faced with existential crisis. Their administrative institutions have all but collapsed. And India, which aped these nations is especially precarious today. The long-term consequence of this imitation is evident: we have the most voluminous and chaotic Constitution, the unwieldiest bureaucracy and a whimsical judiciary which doesn’t know what to do with itself.

We can begin on this depressing note. And we have no better pilot than Sri Dharampal, one of the Adi Gurus of decolonisation to guide us on this journey.

Among other things, this legendary researcher studied the history of Hindu institutions in a comprehensive and purposeful fashion. To find out ways to decolonise all areas of the Hindu society, politics and public life with the final aim of reclaiming our civilizational heritage. In an interview in 1990, Sri Dharampal gave some truly brilliant insights in which he traced India’s colonisation not to the British but all the way back to the post-Gupta period.

‘I became acquainted with a 93-year-old man named Kubool Singh in Muzzafarpur, Uttar Pradesh…He said: “After the regime of the Guptas, there occurred a revolution of sorts. Following this, our people’s mental strength declined. Harshavardhana tried to reform this state of affairs. Yet, a feeling of insecurity continued to grow. Still, from time to time, our country’s original spirt and energy did renew itself. The first war of independence in 1857 was once such epoch. That war was far more crucial and important than the freedom struggle of our own century. Its foundational inspiration was more natural. However, after 1857, our society’s collective mindset began to steadily decline.

‘It is true that in the pre-Independence period, there was the “tyranny” of the wealthy landowners in some regions of India. However, we must grasp its underlying reality. Yes, these wealthy people did say, “You must do what I say.” However, none of them said, “You must eat less than I do.” In fact, we find absolutely no evidence for the spurious arguments that say “we always had class conflict in India” in any records of the period.’

Indeed, the aforementioned Kubool Singh gave a profound secret of our civilizational and social heritage when he said that none of our kings or zamindars told the poorest of people: “you must eat less than I do.”

Food as a Fundamental Sacred Institution

In fact, the opposite is actually true. That old society made sure that nobody went hungry. Bharatavarsha is the only civilisation in which food is a sacred institution in itself. The roots of this sublime conception date back for example, to the Taittiriya Upanishad which has an eternal command: Annam Brahmheti Vyajaanaat…annam bahukurvita… annam na nindyaat…tad vratam. In other words, food itself is Brahman and one must not treat food with contempt; food, in all its dimensions, must be treated as a Vrata. We see this even today in all our temples and Mathas in which Annadaanam is a mandatory organ of their spiritual and devotional service.

In the West and in non-Hindu societies, we see an exact inversion of this. There, food is meant for sensual enjoyment and no higher value is attached to it. It is thus unsurprising that the United States is the largest abuser of food in the world just as it is the world’s largest consumer of fossil fuel. Even in this area, India has blindly aped the US, joyously imbibing all its worst elements while discarding the best of our cultural inheritance. It is hard to believe that we live in the same country which regarded wasting food as a grave Paapa, a crime, whereas the West does not even have this notion. Dr. S.L. Bhyrappa brings out this contrast in a very powerful manner in his classic works, Tabbaliyu Neenaade Magane, Jalapata and Tantu.

In fact, if we pursue an honest study of only the institution of food, the whole Hindu civilisation opens up to us. One such profound attempt has been made by Dr. J.K. Bajaj and M.D. Srinivas in their work, Annam Bahukurvita, which is a classic in that genre.

I deliberately cited the Hindu institution of food because no life exists without it, and thus it is the most appropriate starting point to begin this essay series. It harks back to this command of the Bhagavad Gita:

annād bhavanti bhūtāni parjanyād anna-sambhavaḥ |

yajñād bhavati parjanyo yajñaḥ karma-samudbhavaḥ ||

All living beings subsist on food, and food is produced by rains. Rains come from the performance of Yajna, and Yajna is the result of the performance of the prescribed duties.

This exploration of life and philosophy by contemplating upon its most atomic fundamentals is seen in the vast universe of Hindu political, administrative, legal and social institutions. It is instructive to note the words of the encyclopedic scholar Sri B.A. Saletore:

‘The history of ancient Indian political thought is the story of great minds that evolved political institutions and guided Hindu society for nearly three millenniums. Its significance lies also in the fact that it deals with a vast country which has had a civilization that goes back to at least 5,000 years…in which the roots of Indian political thought and institutions may be said to have been laid. Because of their practical utility and service to the community, the ancient Indian political institutions were carefully fostered and maintained for well-nigh three thousand years. This by itself entitles our study to considerable respect at our hands, especially when we compare the longevity and stability of our institutions with those of the great countries of antiquity like Babylonia and Egypt.’

The history of all these institutions is marked by three central features:

1. Its roots in Darshana (philosophy) or broadly speaking, a pursuit of ideals

2. Its antiquity

3. Its longevity and unbroken continuity across space and time

The Second Class of Colonised Indian Minds

Before we proceed, we need to examine two major elements related to the far-reaching consequences of the British colonisation of India.

1. How India’s traditional intellectual and scholarly class became indifferent to its own society.

2. And how, as a result, the British created a new “elite” Indian class almost from the scratch.

This second class became progressively dominant, influential and acquired a decisive status in our public life especially after Independence. However, the numerically larger traditional Indian society remained outside the influence of this class. What this traditional society considered as values, morals, ethics and justice were entirely divergent from the fast-emerging colonised Indian elite. Their values were subconsciously rooted in our spiritual civilisation. Values such as reverence for nature, harmony, peaceful coexistence, acceptance of inequality, truthfulness, plain-speaking, guilelessness, contentment, simple living, frugality, etc.

Another great value is central to the context of this essay: from time immemorial, our common people had an intrinsic belief that their ruler was always a man who adhered to Dharma and it was because of this that they had an unquestioning obedience to authority. Ananda K. Coomaraswamy memorably describes the mettle of the character of such people:

Take a ploughman from the plough and wash off his dirt, and he is fit to rule a kingdom.

But thanks to British colonisation, two completely divergent societies emerged within the same Indian society and for the first time, they had no common unifying element. If the second society did not exist, India would’ve never been partitioned. As I’ve mentioned numerous times, Indian Communists (a majority of them, Hindus) were the greatest friends of the Muslim League.

To a limited extent, it was only our Sadhus and Sants who had maintained a fragile link between these two societies. That link no longer exists and Sadhus are being murdered in broad daylight without any fear of consequences.

Today, less than a lakh of people occupy decisive positions in public life (lawmakers, IAS, IPS, IRS & IFS officers, judges, etc) and most of them are totally cut off from this link. And if some among them took the time out to read this essay, they would barely be able to comprehend its content. I’m neither being supercilious nor blaming them. Their inability has been deliberately inculcated and nurtured since their primary education. And later, their later professional training teaches them to use the same methods and worldview to understand their own society. Needless, this is specifically the British or generally, the Western worldview.

And what is this worldview?

To put it in simple words, rank materialism was the only yardstick that the British had used in order to assess Bharatavarsha’s spiritual civilisation. It was assessment and not understanding. It is the contrast between a real estate developer who assesses land and a traditional farmer who regards land as sacred.

With that longish introduction, let’s actually begin.

To be continued

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