Discuss Kautilya's views on the elements of the State. (UPSC CSE Mains 2019 - Political Science and International Relations, Paper 1).
- Kautilyan concept of state is very broad. Kautilya being a practical and rational thinkers spent no time in discussing the origin of state and dealt directly with the concept of state. Kautilyan state is very exhaustive in its functions. It can be called as welfare state. The state of Kautilya also took the measures to provide avenues of employment to a large body of inhabitants.
- Kautilya on the one hand, accepts the joint family system and on the other hand, forced the individual’s responsibility towards his family. These views of Kautilya’s theory of state is very relevant in contemporary times. The fact that countries act in their own self-interest was a timeless principle of Kautilya’s Arthashastra.
- The Kautilyan theory of state is very Mesiculons exhaustive and comprehensive. It explains not only the Administration of the state but also explains the relationship with the foreign states. Arthashastra speaks less about the politics and deals with various aspects of administration of the state in detail, yet it provides necessary proposal and proposition for the removal of hindrances from the path of progress and development of the state.
Saptanga theory
- Kautilya’s saptanga (seven organs) theory of state illustrates a novel dimension of state power that dialectically engages political rationality and normativity; artha and dharma respectively. His theory borrows from the Ayurveda medical treatise which speaks of seven elements of the body. It echoes the ideas of health, disease and cure in the context of ‘body politic’.
- Drawing from a complex political life, Kautilya hand picks a set of seven key structural elements (prakritis) as ‘state factors’ which together constitute state power. The seven prakritis are constitutive of the state – swamin, the ruler; amatya, the ministers; janapada, territory and population; durga, fort/capital city; kosa: treasury; danda, coercive power of the state and mitra, ally.
- With this cluster of seven prakritis of the saptanga theory, the state is theorised.
- The prakritis are ordered according to the weight and importance Kautilya assigns to them, the ruler (swamin) being the most important state element, and the ally (mitra) being the least. The ordering represents a logical and substantive architecture. It is the ruler who appoints the ministers who, in turn, provide the institutional framework for the territorial state, which is constitutive of the people (janapada).
- The first three state factors contribute to the defence of the state (durga). The revenues collected feeds the state treasury (kosa) which maintains the armed forces (danda). The first six prakritis are the precondition for the conduct of a state’s foreign policy. It is the health of the first six that determines the use of ally. There is both a ‘logical verticality’ and a ‘horizontal entanglement’ between the state factors.
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