Abstract
Conservative Indian political thought, in addition to being alive and well in contemporary discourse, has a long lineage. We explore the intellectual roots of this tradition by examining older and more contemporary writings ranging from the Manusmriti and the Ramayana to those of Gandhi and Maududi and place them in contrast to those of more liberal thinkers like Ambedkar and Nehru. We find that, in particular, the conservative idea of the ‘limited state’ has an extensive history embedded in sub-continental religions, religious practices and social norms. Central to the concept of the limited state is the belief that the state is subservient to society, the belief that dharma is ontological prior to the state, the belief that the king or leader must preserve the social order and the belief that individual reform is the primary source of social change. An understanding of this set of beliefs, and the idea of the limited state more generally, is important not only for understanding India’s past, but also for insight into contemporary politics. We demonstrate the continued vitality of these concepts through an examination of recent National Election Studies (NES) and World Values Survey (WVS) data.
Keywords
Introduction
Writing in 1978 Howard Erdman observed that Indian conservatism was a weak political force ‘despite the country’s well rooted traditions’ (Erdman, 1978, p. 791). This appears to no longer be the case. Conservative political ideas have found loud expression through the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). What, however, are the conservative ideas that have found place in contemporary political discourse? 4 In this article, we argue that, there are powerful intellectual currents in Indian political thinking that have argued for limits to the role and power of the state. 5 The Mansumriti, the Arthashastra and the Mahabharata offer clear guidelines to the limits of the role of the state. More contemporary manifestations, coming from Aurobindo, Gandhi, Karpatri Maharaj, Maududi or Rajagopalchari, offer similar views regarding the need to limit intervention by the state in social norms and in the redistribution of property. These ideas are echoed in citizen attitudes that too seek limits to the extent to which the state should intervene in social norms and practices and redistribute property.
The most striking aspect of this conservative tradition is that the state is subservient to society. 6 The king or the ruler has a far more limited role: he/she is the guardian and preserver of social order. The king or the state is not an agent of social change. If the state is not an agent of social change, how social change can be achieved, if at all? The conservative Indic tradition suggests that social change occurs not at the hands of the state but by the transformation of individuals, a view most cogently theorized and defended by Aurobindo and Gandhi. The state or the king, then, has one Raj Dharm, which, as in the Mahabharata, ‘attempts to relate kingship with a morality and duty that is peculiar to the political sphere’ (Singh, 2017, p. 75). The sources of ‘dharma include the Vedas, perception, and the conduct of wise men’ (ibid.). 7 Raj Dharm also requires the king to look after the poor and the infirm, and build the infrastructure necessary for economic activity and political order. 8 This view contrasts sharply with the writings of others such as Ambedkar and Nehru, who advocate using state power to remake society and the economy. 9
We first define conservatism and place this current of intellectual thinking in the twentieth century India. We then trace the origins of this thought. In turn, we emphasize three primary mandates of kingship, as first described in the Arthashastra, the Manusmriti, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, as well as writings by more contemporary figures. 10 The first mandate is that the state remain subservient to society, with its main task being to provide the preservation of the social order. The second mandate is that any social change or transformation must come from the individual and not the body politic. The third mandate is that the ruler must give alms to the poor and needy, introduce appropriate taxes and build appropriate infrastructure, but not redistribute private property. We situate these aspects of conservative Indian political thought in contrast to ideas espoused by the more, ‘liberal’, Indian political thinkers. Finally, we discuss the degree to which our findings match contemporary political divides based on an analysis of survey data. The article has one other aim: to shed light on a long and independent tradition of political thinking in India. This article owes a large intellectual debt to V. R. Mehta for his subtle but withering critiques of liberal political ideology in India.
Conservatism in the Twentieth Century India
Our understanding of conservatism largely draws upon Huntington’s (1957) formulation. Huntington wrote that conservatism is a ‘system of ideas employed to justify any established social order … against any fundamental challenge to its nature or being, no matter from what quarter… This does not mean that conservatism opposes all change’ (Huntington, 1957, p. 455). Conservative traditions, despite their differences, share some common elements, including the ideas that ‘Man is basically a religious animal, and religion is the foundation of civil society;’ that ‘society is the natural, organic product of slow historical growth’; ‘the community is superior to the individual. The rights of men derive from the duties. Evil is rooted in human nature, not in any particular social institutions;’ and that ‘men are unequal. Social organization is complex and always includes a variety of classes, orders, and groups. Differentiation, hierarchy, and leadership are the inevitable characteristics of any civil society’ (ibid., p. 456).
Who, then, were the carriers of such a thought in the twentieth century India? Jaffrelot (2017, pp. 208–209) writes that in the Hindu public sphere, three types of conservatives coexisted at the beginning of the twentieth century: the reformists–revivalists (like the Arya Samajis), the traditionalists (like the Tilakites) and the reactionaries (like the Sanatanists). 11 These conservative influences greatly shaped the thinking of multitude of politicians in pre-independence India, many of whom were part of the Congress ministries pre-independence, the Constituent Assembly and later part of various national and state level governments. Sanatanists (including Madan Mohan Malaviya), Arya Samajists (including Lala Lajpat Rai) and Tilakites (including M. S. Aney) were all part-and-parcel of the pre-independence Congress party.
These currents of thoughts also mixed and merged. 12 For instance, Arya Samajists of Punjab and Sanatanists of UP (United Provinces at that time) formed the Hindu Mahasabha in 1915 to oppose Muslims. The Mahasabha for a long time remained a shadow organization of the Congress, when in 1934, the Congress resolved to forbid any of its members to simultaneously belong to the Hindu Mahasabha, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) or the Muslim League. As Bruce Graham (1990) suggests, the Hindu conservative elements at the time of independence were concentrated mainly in three bodies: first of all, there was a large and influential group of Hindu traditionalists within the Congress; second, a mixture of Hindu traditionalists and Hindu nationalists within the Hindu Mahasabha and Ram Rajya Parishad (RRP); and finally, a contingent of militant Hindu nationalists within the RSS. 13 These conservatives, despite their differences on various issues, converged on one principle: they were simply not in favour of changes imposed from outside the society. In the next section, we describe these points of convergence in Indian conservative thinking.
The Limited Role of the State
Political conservatism, especially as far as the role of the state is concerned, has a long lineage and deep roots in Indian political thinking. Indic conservativism can be contrasted with some elements of Western political thinking and those in India who sought a more active role for the state. For many Western thinkers, the body politic is the source of ethics and/or law. Aristotle sees the polity as the supreme good, writing in the Nicomachean Ethics that
Even if the end is the same for an individual and for a city-state, that of the city-state seems at any rate greater and more complete to attain and preserve. For although it is worthy to attain it for only an individual, it is nobler and more divine to do so for a nation or city-state. (Nichomachean Ethics I.2.1094b7-10)
Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau argued that the theory of political rule arises from the need to maintain order, preserve life, liberty and property, and represent the general will. The socialist tradition turned to the state as a source of social and economic change and as the source of all law. Modern constitutionalists from Austin to Montesquieu take a similar position on the authority of the sovereign constitution. In India, Ambedkar and Nehru wanted an active role by the state to address social and economic inequalities.
In conservative Indian political thought, on the other hand, the role of the state is limited. Political order is achieved not by a state being the source of all laws, but by limiting the power of the state to that of an administrative body. The ‘king’ can establish political order by decentralizing, making use of spies, focusing on appropriate taxation, keeping up close relations with Brahmins (in ancient texts), etc., but the ‘king’ is not supposed to make social rules or be the source of all laws. To support this argument, we draw on the Manusmriti, Arthashastra, Mahabharata and the Ramayana, as well as on the writings of Aurobindo, Gandhi, Golwalkar, Karpatri Maharaj, Maulana Maududi, and critics such as Ambedkar and Nehru.
One thread that runs through all these writers is that the rule of the king and the idea of kingship is not and should not be disputed. Kingship is taken for granted, for only the king can use danda (the rod or punishment), which is regarded as essential for maintaining political order. This is the only justification for the rule of one man over all others in his domain. The main focus of the treatises is then on the exercise (emphasis added) of danda, that is, as an administrative tool. Danda—at least in the Mahabharata—is the ‘origin of kingship, and everything depends on it’ (Singh, 2017, p. 70). Once danda is given this power, the concern of political theorists is on how to effectively manage danda, and this is done, more often than not, by asking a king to follow dharma whose source is religion or social practices and norms. Then, Indian political thinkers generally recognized that there are good, administratively effective kings and bad, administratively ineffective kings. Commonalities amongst those who are good suggest that these kings seem to follow certain rules or guidelines. 14
In order to improve the administration of political power, which is used first and foremost to preserve the social order, it is suggested that the state must give alms to the poor and the needy, focus on reforming individuals and provide administrative remedies. Below, after articulating the close connection between religion and politics in the sub-continent that lends legitimacy to conservative political thought, we consider each of the above requirements in turn before evaluating the degree to which these ideas resonate today.
The State as Preserver of the Social Order
The focus on dharma as central to a king’s rule leads directly to a view among some conservative Hindu political thinkers, that a king’s primary task is to preserve the social order—an order that has religious sanction. Many of India’s foundational political/religious texts devote quite a bit of attention to the caste system before turning their attention to how a king should go about preserving it and why.
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The Manusmriti goes into great detail about the functional division of society into Brahmanas, Ksatriyas, Vaisyas and Sudras, arguing that men are not equal in their executive capacity, though they are in terms of their enjoyment of desires; it then details the hereditary aspects of this system (Chapter 10, verse 1–68). These ideas are echoed in the Arthashastra: ‘[t]he specific Law of a householder consists of obtaining his livelihood in accordance with the Law specific to him’ (p. 68). In the Ramayana, Valmiki argues that there should be a clear distinction between all castes:
To Brahmans, as the laws ordain, the Warrior caste were ever fain the reverence due to pay; and these the Vaisyas peaceful crowd who trade and toil for gain, were proud to honor and obey; and all were by the Sudras served, who never from their duty swerved. [canto VI, p. 41]
Valmiki’s caste distinctions hold even if movement between them is possible and depends upon one’s qualities (Mehta, 1992, pp. 38–39). Caste, then, or at the very least the functional division of society, is taken for granted in Indian political thought and thinkers instead turn their attention to the qualities of kingship that will preserve this system.
The Manusmriti suggests that Brahmanas and Ksatriyas must act in concert with one another to ensure order in society, with the king being subordinate to the authority of Brahmanas and loyalty to him always being conditional on his maintenance of the varna system (Chapter 9, verse 326–336). Valmiki makes a similar claim regarding the responsibilities of a king. Valmiki first states that ‘He guards mankind from scathe and wrong, and lends his aid and ne’er in vain, the cause of justice to maintain’. 16 Over time, and in the context of the larger poem, this has been interpreted to mean that the king is the protector of all and defender of religion and the caste system (Mehta, 1992, p. 34). Valmiki illustrates all that this role entails when he depicts Rama killing Shudra Shambuka for conducting a religious penance that was reserved for those of higher caste backgrounds. 17 This is, at least in part, why Mehta suggests that, in the Ramayana, the task of a good ruler is to discern the structure of the natural social order, relate it to human beings and enforce it with severity (ibid., p. 39). In other words, kings exist to preserve the social order. 18
Not only did Hindu political thinkers devote quite a bit of attention to the social order and how a king should maintain it, they also discussed why a king should do so. In the Mahabharata, Vyasa argues that too much intermingling of the castes is problematic for the state (the Mahabharata, Section 25). Dharma, Vyasa goes on, is necessary to create order in society, which is necessary for the sustenance of society and forms the basis of the welfare of all (Mehta, 1992, pp. 38–39). The Manusmriti states that a king’s power grows only when he maintains the caste system. Meanwhile, the Arthashastra justifies the king’s support for the social system with a religious argument: ‘the king should not permit people to violate the Law specific to each of them, for when they adhere to the Law specific to each of them they rejoice here and in the hereafter’. It also provides a practical distinction:
When among a people, the bounds of the Arya way of life are firmly fixed and the social classes and orders of life are firmly established, and when they are protected by the Triple (Sama, Rig, and Yajur Vedas) they prosper and do not perish.
Conservative Hindu political thinkers agree then, for the most part, that the king’s maintenance of the social order pays dividends to both the king and his subjects, both in this life and, perhaps, in the next.
Buddhist thinking on the role of state was similar (c. 500–525
Islamic thinking in India also argues for a limited role for the state. Even though conservative Islamic traditions took a decidedly different approach to the role of the state than either Hindu or Buddhist thinking, they argued for a state that conformed to Islamic Law. Mujaddid Ahmad Sirhnadi, writing in opposition to a more syncretic religion—Din-i Ilahi—that was proposed by the Emperor of India, Akbar, in 1582
Maududi (1960), a leading Islamic scholar of the subcontinent in the twentieth century, described Islamic thinking as being in opposition to those rulers who ‘are incapable of thinking except in terms of the nature and pattern of a state of the Western secular type’ (p. vi). For him, free will functions as ‘gifts from God’ (p. 48) and ‘independence of choice has been delegated to us by God’ (p. 48). The ‘harmonization of human life with the universe dictates the necessity of there being one Sovereign’ (p. 48)—this sovereign is God and God, not man, is the source of Law in Muslim society (p. 49). The law he was referring to was the Shariah—which is a ‘complete scheme of life and an all-embracing social order’ (p. 52) and ‘that the State, in exercising its powers, shall not be competent to transgress the limits laid down by Islam’ (p. 101).
For Maududi, the political problem of contemporary times is the domination of man over man (p. 133), so the first principle of Islamic political theory is ‘[n]one is entitled to make laws on his own authority and none is obliged to abide by them. This right vests in Allah alone’ (p. 137) ‘…Islam, speaking from the view-point of political philosophy, is the very antithesis of secular Western democracy’.
Despite appearances, however, his view was more subtle than a return to fundamentalism in two important ways. First, for Maududi, the political foundation of Western thinking is the ‘sovereignty of the people’ (p. 138). Islamic theocracy, however, has ruled differently from its Christian counterpart in Europe, where a priestly class exercised domination: the ‘theocracy built by Islam is not ruled by any particular religious class but by the whole community’ (p. 139) and hence, there was no need for conceiving of an independent sovereign people. He writes that Islam uses the term ‘vicegerency’ (khilafat) instead of sovereignty (the latter belongs to God alone) (p. 149) and this is given to the whole community—every believer is a Caliph of God. Maududi also advocates political pluralism. He writes that a ‘characteristic’ of the Islamic state is that it is an ‘ideological state’ (p. 146) and its objective is to establish that ideology; minorities should live according to their own cultures (p. 147). For him, ‘[t]he law with which we have been and are concerned is the law of the land and not the personal law of any community. In personal matters, every community is welcome to adopt its own personal law’ (p. 69).
Contemporary Views
Despite these differences the idea that a king is to preserve a social order resonates in more contemporary conservative Indian thinking. Singh (2017) concludes her masterful discussion of Ashoka and his legacy, the Mahabharata, and the Ramayana by observing that, despite some differences, these texts are ‘foundational to the way in which Indian political discourse evolved over the succeeding centuries’ (Singh, 2017, p. 91). These texts ‘recognize the king as a mediator between human society, nature, and the gods… But more important is the fact that they represent the earliest attempts to anchor kingship in a discourse of morality and duty…’ (ibid.).
These ideas are echoed Aurobindo’s writing who advises that a good king
will approach the zamindars, landholders and rich men generally, and endeavour—To promote sympathy between the zamindars and the peasants and heal all discords and to turn the minds of rich men to works of public beneficence and charity to those in their neighbourhood independent of the hope of reward and official distinction. (Aurobindo, 1905, Appendix, p. 91)
Writing much later in The Ideal of Human Unity, Aurobindo (1977, p. 339) defends a limited role for the state while criticizing the ossification of caste categories as a later development. He writes,
[w]e see a similar democratic equality, though of a different type, in the earlier records of Indian civilization. The rigid hierarchy of castes with the pretensions and arrogance of the caste spirit was a later development; in the simpler life of old, difference or even superiority of function did not carry with it a sense of personal or class superiority: at the beginning, the most sacred religious and social function, that of the Rishi and sacrificer, seems to have been open to men of all classes and occupations. Theocracy, caste and absolute kingship grew in force pari passu like the Church and the monarchical power in mediaeval Europe under the compulsion of the new circumstances created by the growth of large social and political aggregates.
Karpatri Maharaj—a monk in the Hindu dashnami monastic tradition, a teacher in the Advaita Vedanta tradition and founder of the RRP, an orthodox Hindu religious political party—suggests that dharma must guide the state’s actions. 20 Dharma, he suggests, permeates the entire universe, including geopolitical entities such as states. 21
Maharaj lays out this principal in great detail in his book ‘Marxvaad and Ramrajya’, 22 reflecting on Western political philosophy and writing in great detail about political thinkers (Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Rosseau, Locke, Hegel, Marx, Kant, Fichte, etc.) and political theories (Individualism, Utilitarianism, Liberalism, Communism, Majoritarianism, Fascism, Anarchy and others). He then contrasts these to analogs in Hindu political philosophy. 23
In Maharaj’s view, the theory of the state propagated by Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau is wrong (emphasis added). He argues that in ‘in Indian tradition the society is always supreme and … the ruler is accountable to dharma and society. The administrator and administration keep changing, but not the society and dharma. The laws of the state must always be favorable to religious texts’ (Maharaj, 2013, p. 88). He goes to say that the conception of the ‘state of nature’ in Hobbes and Rousseau are irrelevant in the Indic tradition, because, in India, morality and civilization preceded the development of the state. Since tradition was the only religion and the administration of the society was governed by dharma, he did not see any ‘conflict between individual and society’ (p. 91).
If dharma is ontologically prior to the state, why, then, do we still need a king? In answer, Maharaj relates a story about why citizens approached the gods to create political order and the basis of that order. He writes
Lord Brahma created a dandniti shastra of one hundred thousand chapters. This text was first ratified by Indra, Shiva and other deities and after that they went to Vishnu and asked him to give them a perfect king who could implement these codes. The king and after him his son, followed these codes and established order. However, the grandson became unbridled so the sages (protectors of the social order) dethroned him and then killed him. After this Prithu (the murdered king’s son) asked the sages what he should do. The sages asked him to promise that he would follow dharma. Prithu swore to follow everything and this was the social contract. (pp. 106–108)
In a compilation of his speeches, M. S. Golwalkar—the second Our philosophy pictures the highest state of society and offers a cogent explanation for it. There was no state, there was no king, there were no penalties, and there were no criminals. All protected one another by virtue of
In another passage, Golwalkar compares this system with governmental systems in other parts of the world:
The basis of our national existence was not political power. Otherwise, our fate would have been no better those of those nations, which remain today as only museum exhibits. The political rulers were never the standard bearers of our society. They were never taken as the props of our national life. Saints and sages, who had risen above the mundane temptations of self and power and had dedicated themselves wholly to establishing a happy, virtuous, and integrated state of society, were its constant torch bearers. They presented the
As we have noted earlier in the article there is a fundamental difference between Hindu traditionalists like Maharaj and Hindu nationalists like Golwalkar. Maharaj, commenting on the Ramayana, writes that ‘the state was created to protect disintegration of social order and the king was given only those powers that were required to do so. Thus, his powers were never like the “leviathan” as conceptualized in Hobbes’ (pp. 102–103). Maharaj, in another book, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh aur Hindu Rashtra, presented a scathing critique of RSS’s commitment to Hindu dharma because of the latters’ emphasis on the nation-state. In Vicharapiyusa, he further refuted the nationalist agenda of M. S. Golwalkar and V. D. Savarkar. In his view, the RSS and its allies were influenced by European nationalism and modernist ideas brought by western Orientalists.
Minoo Masani and C. Rajagopalachari (Rajaji), the two founders of the Swatantra Party, also echo the ideas behind the limited power of the state quite forcefully in a speech given in Bombay in 1965, Masani mentioned how Gandhi foresaw the power of state and then Masani went on to quote Gandhi: ‘I look upon an increase in the power of the State’, he said, ‘with the greatest fear because, although apparently doing good by minimizing exploitation, it does the greatest harm to mankind by destroying individuality, which lies at the root of all progress’.
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Rajaji echoed similar sentiments when he wrote:
The loosening of the religious impulse is the worst of the disservices rendered by the Congress [Party] to the nation. We must organize a new force and movement to replace the greed and the class hatred of Congress materialism with a renovated spiritual outlook emphasizing the restraints of good conduct as of greater importance than the triumphs of organized covetousness. Every effort should be made to foster and maintain spiritual values and preserve what is good in our national culture and tradition and avoid dominance of a purely material philosophy of life which thinks only in terms of the standard of life without any reference to its content or quality.
Rajaji linked progress in India ‘to the maintenance of
For Nehru and Ambedkar, as well as several other twentieth century Indian liberals, the state’s support for the existing social order benefits both the state itself and its most privileged subjects, but this does not justify the harm that such a system causes to those at the bottom of the social order. Nehru states the cases plainly as follows:
Social evils have a history and a background, roots in our past, and intimate connections with the economic structure under which we live. Many of them are indeed the direct products of that economic system, just as many others are of religious superstition and harmful custom. Any scientific consideration of the problem of social welfare must, therefore, inevitably go down to these roots and seek out the causes. It must have the courage to look deep down into the well of truth and to proclaim fearlessly what it finds there. If it avoids politics and economics, and all that goes by the name of religion, for fear of treading on dangerous ground, then it moves on the surface only and can neither command much respect, nor achieve results. (Agrawal & Aggarwal, 1989, pp. 206–207)
For Nehru, the caste system inextricably links social and economic status; it follows that attempts to change the economic welfare of many of India’s poor must, if they are to have any hope of success, also address these individuals’ low social standing. Ambedkar had a similar view. He wanted a far more expansive reading of rights into the Indian constitution that would make social discrimination, especially when any individual prevented another from equal access to and enjoyment of public places, an offence. To protect Dalits in particular, Ambedkar proposed that the state relocate them to separate villages, since he saw this as the only way that Dalits would be able to escape the social tyranny of the upper castes (Framing of India’s Constitution: 111).
Clearly, there is disagreement on the role of the state with respect to social norms. The conservative view is distinct from the liberal view, which sees the state as responsible for changing rather than preserving the social order.
Individual Reform as a Source of Social Change
If the role of the state is to preserve social order how can deep seated social inequalities be addressed? For conservative Indian political thinkers, social change begins with an individual changing her ideas and values, not the state changing the rules regarding the context in which she exists. In a similar vein, Aurobindo (1977, pp. 272–273) writes that
[o]n one side is the engrossing authority, perfection and development of the State, on the other the distinctive freedom, perfection and development of the individual man. The State idea, the small or the vast living machine, and the human idea, the more and more distinct and luminous Person, the increasing God, stand in perpetual opposition.
He further explains that the idea of the state is
the subordination of the individual to the good of all that is demanded; practically, it is his subordination to a collective egoism, political, military, economic, which seeks to satisfy certain collective aims and ambitions shaped and imposed on the great mass of the individuals by a smaller or larger number of ruling persons who are supposed in some way to represent the community. (ibid., p. 296)
The Arthshastra echoes this idea, that the path to change starts with the individual, and adds that those leaders who cannot reform individuals are not true kings or Brahmins (Mitra & Liebig, 2016; Liebig, 2014). Meanwhile Valmiki, in the Ramayana, illustrates a very similar principle through the character of Sita. Though Sita took no dishonorable action herself and indeed refuses Ravana’s attempts at seduction, Sita takes her own life to preserve her honor and reputation. The lesson being that the individual is the one who must take action to cure societal evils.
Gandhi (1909) too distrusts state-based change and focuses on the individual. In Hind Swaraj, he writes that,
Civilization is that mode of conduct which points out to man the path of duty. Performance of duty and observance of morality are convertible terms. To observe morality is to attain mastery over our mind and our passions. So doing, we know ourselves. The Gujarati equivalent for civilization means ‘good conduct’.
There are Indian political thinkers who part ways with conservative ones by suggesting that if the ideals of a state and society stand in opposition to one another and that the state must seek to transform society. This was most apparent in the debate on the Hindu Code Bill and the adoption of the Uniform Civil Code. Ambedkar was an advocate of reforming the Hindu code to give women equal rights. As Law Minster in Nehru’s cabinet he headed a Select Committee to look into the Hindu Code Bill. Ambedkar introduced several important changes in the Bill including equal property rights for women, abolition of customary law and specification of grounds for divorce. The Bill in its new form, however, created uproar in the Constituent Assembly. For Nehru, Ambedkar and many others, the underlying principle of Hindu law in the pre-independence era was inequality, the inferior position of the woman in all matters governing personal law, like marriage, maintenance, inheritance and guardianship (Derrett, 1957, p. 57). For Nehru in particular, thus codifying Hindu law was a necessary reform measure that fit into his plans for all-round national development. As he put it,
We talk about Five Year Plans, of economic progress, industrialization, political freedom and all that. They are all highly important. But I have no doubt in my mind that the real progress of the country means progress not only on the political plane, not only on the economic plane, but also on the social plane. They have to be integrated, all these, when the great nation goes forward (cited in Guha 2010).
Ambedkar too was an advocate of using state power to reform religious laws and norms. This was most apparent when he objected to some Muslim members of the Constituent Assembly who wanted to give personal laws constitutional status. In a lengthy statement, he said:
Sir, I am afraid I cannot accept the amendments which have been moved to this article. I think most of my friends who have spoken on this amendment have quite forgotten that up to 1935 the North-West Frontier Province was not subject to the Shariat Law. It followed the Hindu Law in the matter of succession and in other matters, so much so that it was in 1939 that the Central Legislature had to come into the field and to abrogate the application of the Hindu Law to the Muslims of the North-West Frontier Province and to apply the Shariat Law to them. That is not all. My honourable friends have forgotten, that, apart from the North-West Frontier Province, up till 1937 in the rest of India, in various parts, such as the United Provinces, the Central Provinces and Bombay, the Muslims to a large extent were governed by the Hindu Law in the matter of succession (..) I personally do not understand why religion should be given this vast, expansive jurisdiction so as to cover the whole of life and to prevent the legislature from encroaching upon that field. After all, what are we having this liberty for? We are having this liberty in order to reform our social system, which is so full of inequities, so full of inequalities, discriminations and other things, which conflict with our fundamental rights I should also like to point out that all that the State is claiming in this matter is a power to legislate.
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Ambedkar’s speech quite succinctly represents the central position of those who wanted the state to take it upon itself to reform society. Here the conservative and liberal divide largely matches that of its Western counterparts. By way of example, in the United States, liberals often see epidemic gun violence as a societal evil and believe that gun control and education are the proper ways to prevent or reduce it, while conservatives place the blame, and by extension the route towards reform, on individuals, arguing that ‘guns don’t kill people, people do’. This emphasis on individual-level reform—as opposed to state led reform—is a hallmark of the Indian conservative tradition.
The Economic Role of the State
Here there is little disagreement amongst Indian political thinkers: one of the most important tasks of the state is to provide for those who struggle to provide for themselves, presumably in exchange for continued support (otherwise known as patronage). As the primary role of the king is to preserve the social order, it follows that, to preserve political order, a secondary role of the king is to make up for the short-comings of the social order by distributing alms to the poor. There is variation amongst Indian political thinkers, however, in terms of what is meant by this prerogative.
For many, this role entails the state providing for people in need on an individual basis, supplying private rather than public or club goods. For instance, according to the Arthashastra, ‘[t]he king should … provide for children, old people, those fallen into misfortune, and the helpless, as also women who have not borne children and the sons of women who have borne children’ (p. 100). Valmiki, through his description of Rama, also goes on at length about the requirement that the state provide for the poor. The king, he suggests, ‘is the protector of all… the supporter of his kinsmen and friends… He always gives shelter to his devoted followers’ (Narad, Shastri Translation). Valmiki doesn’t stop with friends and devoted followers, however. He writes that the king should not ‘come into hostile contact with the weak… [and] should not regard the weak as always subject to humiliation’ (the Mahabharata, Sec. 34). Echoing these admonishments in more contemporary times, Aurobindo (1905, p. 198) writes, in Bhawani Mandir, that the chief work of the Sannyasis, religious ascetics, ‘will be that of mass instruction and help to the poor and ignorant, in the form of education and charity’. But perhaps more telling than any of these authors’ statements is the lack, at least in the foundational texts included in this article, of any countervailing sentiment. Welfare and distributive politics then, at least in the Indian context, is part and parcel of conservative Indian political thinking.
Interestingly, conservative political thinkers do not stop with what is customarily considered to be charity or the distribution of private goods on a patronage basis. For some authors, the state’s reach must extend further and involves supporting industry and providing infrastructure, by way of public or club goods, to alleviate societal needs. The Arthashastra suggests that the state should also help with infrastructure—by providing reservoirs and assisting agriculturalists with farm animals and money, should they fall on hard times, in addition to granting favours and exemptions (Arthashastra, p. 100). The Arthashastra also suggests that the state (i.e., the king), should safeguard agriculture, particularly when it is stressed by the hardship of fines, forced labour, and taxes, as well as by sickness, natural calamities, and war (p. 101). More contemporaneously, Gandhi, while generally opposed to a powerful state—wanted the government to actively ‘subsidize’ making khadi. He writes:
the Government should notify the villagers that they will be expected to manufacture Khaddar for the needs of their villages within a fixed date after which no cloth will be supplied to them. The Government in their turn will supply the villagers with cotton seed or cotton whenever required, at cost price and the tools of manufacture also at cost, to be recovered in easy installments payable in, say, five years or more. They will supply them with instructors wherever necessary and undertake to buy surplus stock of Khaddar, provided that the villagers in question have their cloth requirements supplied from their own manufacture. This should do away with cloth shortage without fuss and with very little overhead. (Harijan, 28 April 1946)
Similarly, Aurobindo suggests, in the Bhawani Mandir, that these types of projects are simply charity provided to the middle classes.
Why should the state provide for the needy? Manu and Vyasa, in the Manusmriti and the Mahabharata do provide a rationale for the obligation to provide for the poor and the needy, even if this rationale stops short of theorizing the underpinnings of the state and political power more generally. Manu, for instance, suggests that, without politics and kingship, the larger fish will swallow the smaller, and that this is a violation of dharma (Doniger & Smith 1991, pp. 53–54). In other words, government ensures that no one dominates all others, and, by virtue of this fact, the king is enjoined to protect the people and to prevent violations of dharma. The Mahabharata echoes these sentiments, stating that the state arises out of our desire to escape from natural anarchy, in which the strong eat the weak, as happens with fish living in the same pond with snakes (Mehta, 1992, p. 36). Thus, the state comes into being to protect the weak. According to the same logic, the state is only good so long as it does just that. And a ‘bad’ state is, at least according to Vyasa, is a potentially threatened one: ‘Take care that the eyes of the weak do not burn the race to its very roots. Weakness is more powerful that even the greatest power. Take care that the eyes of the weak do not burn like a blazing fire’ (the Mahabharata, Sec. 91). But Valmiki does not seem to suggest a threat of revolution or social unrest, but rather that a ‘bad’ king risks the wrath of the gods: ‘[w]hen a weak person fails to find a rescuer, the great rod of divine chastisement falls (upon the king)’ (the Mahabharata, Sec. 91).
Consistent with this line of thinking, Karpatri Maharaj opposed the redistributive emphasis of many of the framers of the Indian constitution—Ambedkar and Nehru especially—who argued for state redistribution of property. For Maharaj, in a society that is administered by dharma, the economic balance between individuals is guided by a redistributive framework that is generated by society itself. Therefore, there is no question of unemployment and hunger. Individuals are guided by the dharmic system are ‘providers of each other, not the exploiters’ (p. 89) Meanwhile, Maududi also argues that since ‘in a full-fledged Islamic society wherein the wealthy pay Zukat to the state’, the state ‘provides for the basic necessities of the needy and the destitute’ (pp. 53–54).
More recent anthropological research shows that there is a cultural or even ritualistic expectation of patronage (Piliavsky, 2014). As political giving—or the dispensation of patronage—is never only a matter of redistributing resources, it is also necessarily a rhetorical act that conveys information a politician’s largesse to his or her actual and/or potential supporters. Displays of this variety may indicate the degree to which a potential leader is ‘king-like’. Indeed, more than two decades ago Price (1989) argued that this idea is heir (emphasis added) to the persistent, historically embedded kingship model. To be a raja (king), one had to display one’s capacity to provide in grand spectacles of magnificence.
This view differs from that advocated by some within the liberal intellectual tradition. They argue that improvement of the material situation of the poor is not possible within the confines of India’s social structure. For instance, Nehru writes that:
[while] [t]here may be many who have the ordinary conveniences of life and are not hard put to it to find their daily bread… To the vast masses of our fellow countrymen present conditions spell hunger and deepest poverty, an empty stomach and a bare back… The most amazing and terrible thing about India is her poverty. It is not a dispensation from Providence or an inevitable condition of society. India has enough or can have enough for all her children if some of her own sons did not corner the good things and so deprive the masses of their dues. ‘Poverty’, said Ruskin, ‘is not due to natural inferiority of the poor or the inscrutable laws of God. Or drink, but because others have picked their pockets’… The control of wealthy by the few no only means the unhappiness of many, but it exercises a power over men’s minds… It is this mental outlook which paralyses the poor and the oppressed. (Agrawal & Aggarwal, 1989, p. 205)
These statements stand in contrast to those of conservative Indian political thinkers. Providing welfare, according to Nehru, is not just an economic or political problem, it is a social problem, and Indian society will have to break the social order in order to truly provide welfare.
Ambedkar’s views largely align with Nehru’s. In his ‘Memorandum and Draft Articles on the Rights of States and Minorities’, dated 24 March 1947, Ambedkar provides clear evidence that, in his opinion, the state must redress both economic and social inequality. In his rendition of a proposed Preamble to the Constitution, Ambedkar advocates that the United States of India will ‘remove social, political, and economic inequality by providing better opportunities to the submerged classes’ (Framing of India’s Constitution, p. 84). He also wanted a far greater role for the state in the economy. In his view India should declare ‘as a part of the law of its Constitution’ that industries which are key industries or basic industries will run by the state. Agriculture would be a state industry and Insurance a monopoly of the state (Framing of India’s Constitution, p. 89). For Ambedkar’s view, the state also has ‘an obligation to supply capital necessary for agriculture as well as industry’ (Framing of India’s Constitution, p. 99). He is far more explicit about the role of the state in the notes to the proposed articles of the constitution. He writes that his plan has
two special features. One is that it proposes State Socialism in important fields of economic life. The second special feature of the plan is that it does not leave the establishment of State Socialism to the will of the Legislature. It established State Socialism by the law of the constitution… (Framing of India’s Constitution, p. 99).
In Nehru’s and Ambedkar’s writings, we see the first evidence of the foundations of ideological politics in India today. For conservatives and liberals alike, welfare is par for the course. Where they differ is on whether charity will ever solve the ‘poverty problem’ in the absence of meaningful social reform.
Ambedkar and Nehru’s views contrast quite sharply with those of Gandhi, who believed in trusteeship and in a far more limited role for the state. He wrote that ‘[w]e have long been accustomed to think that power comes only through Legislative Assemblies. I have regarded this belief as a grave error brought about by inertia or hypnotism’. (Constructive Program, p. 5). This is not to say that he did not advocate for economic equality. He believed that economic equality was ‘the master key to non-violent Independence’, but for him the solution lay less in state power than in trusteeship. The core of trusteeship was individual self-awareness (Constructive Program, p. 20). Gandhi believed that the rich person
must know that all that wealth does not belong to me; what belongs to me is the right to an honourable livelihood, no better than that enjoyed by millions of others. The rest of my wealth belongs to the community and must be used for the welfare of the community. I enunciated this theory when the socialist theory was placed before the country in respect to the possessions held by zamindars and ruling chiefs. They would do away with these privileged classes. I want them to outgrow their greed and sense of possession, and to come down in spite of their wealth to the level of those who earn their bread by labour. (Harijan, 3 June 1939)
Here, as above, we see ideological disagreement about how, rather than whether, to deal with economic injustice. Conservative Indian political thinkers focus on providing alms to the poor, others seek state directed and state led solutions to the problem of social and economic inequality.
Conservatism in Contemporary Indian Society
The conservative tradition in Indic political thinking, as we have argued above, is sceptical of the role of the state in reforming the social and economic order. These ideas resonate in contemporary India. Many Indian citizens remain deeply sceptical of an expanded role for the state in managing social norms, with many believing that even if the state should not be involved in preserving the social order, it should not be responsible for changing it either. A large plurality (43%) of respondents to the 2004 National Election Studies (NES) survey conducted by Lokniti-CSDS favoured the idea that ‘every community should be allowed to have its own law to govern marriage and property rights’ (Table 1). There was no difference in the affirmative response to this question among the young or old, respondents of different castes, or level of education. It is only in large metro areas where respondents, when compared to those from small cities and villages, were less likely to agree that each community should have its own laws for marriage and property. Even among metro dwellers, the plurality views favoured community-based laws for marriage and property.
Support for Community Based Laws for Marriage and Property Rights
This is not a one-off finding. Chhibber and Verma (2018) using data from various rounds of NES surveys show that there is a substantial divide among Indian citizens on whether the state can intervene and redefine the contours of marital practice and inheritance. For example, the NES 2004 and 2009 surveys carried questions on the proper role of the state with respect to marriage norms. Voters were asked whether inter-caste (both 2004 and 2009) and inter-religious (only in 2004) marriage should be banned. The data presented in Table 2 shows that a large plurality of respondents would like the state to preserve the marital norms, rather than change it.
The State as a Guardian of Social Norms of Marriage (in %)
Citizen attitudes towards private wealth and accumulation are also similarly divided. The World Values Survey (WVS) 2005 asked respondents whether private ownership of businesses should be increased or government ownership of businesses should be increased. A quarter of the respondents to the question in India said that private ownership of businesses should be increased whereas one-third opted for increasing government ownership of businesses. The remaining respondents (40%) expressed views that were more balanced—asking for different mixes of increases in private and government ownership of businesses. Respondents were also asked whether people could only grow rich at the expense of others or whether wealth could grow so that there is enough for everyone. An almost identical percentage of the respondents (28% and 29%, respectively) said that people grew rich at the expense of others or that wealth could grow so that there is enough for everyone. The remaining respondents (40%) expressed opinions in the middle. Similarly, in the NES 2009 survey voters were asked whether they approve the idea that poor people with no land and property should occupy a part of land and property of those who have large amount of land and property. Only a quarter (25%) of the respondents approved of this idea, whereas a plurality disapproved of this method. Rest expressed no opinion on this question.
Conclusion
In this article, we have shown that conservative Indian political thought has a long lineage, in addition to being alive and well in contemporary discourse. Conservative political thinking in India, and the idea of the limited state, is rooted in elements of Indian religion, religious practices and social norms. In a deeply religious country conservative ideas about the state rooted in religious understandings resonate widely. This does not mean that contemporary Indian conservative thinking is simply a translation of more ancient thinking or that it is static. India is much more exposed to outside influence than before. It is changing socially and economically. With these changes the debates on the appropriate role of the state are more vigorous. As the number of Indians who are exposed to global forces and ideas grows and as democracy allows India’s political discourse to shift, we may witness the birth of very different ideas about the role of the state.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Amit Ahuja, Matt Baxter and Mark Bevir for their input and the helpful comments of discussants—Ananya Vajpeyi, Christopher Jaffrelot, Adnan Naseemullah and Francesca Jensenius. Comments by two anonymous reviewers helped improve the article.