GJH Final-Vol 5, Issue 3

Ghadar Jari Hai
The Revolt Continues
Vol. V, No. 3, July-September 2011
Need for a
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Modern Indian Theory
of Governance
All opinions expressed in this issue are those of the author (s) and do
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this issue may be translated or reprinted with due acknowledgement to
Ghadar Jari Hai.
Address all your editorial correspondence to: S Raghavan
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Editor:
S Raghavan
Layout and Design:
Surkhraj Kaur, Santosh, Anand
Cover:
Panju Ganguli
Our Website:
www.ghadar.in
Editorial Policy
Ghadar Jari Hai is a platform for discussing Indian solutions to problems facing India. It
is focused on understanding Indian history, philosophy and economic, political and other
fields of knowledge, without the jaundiced eye of Eurocentrism.
All serious views, of whatever hue, are welcome as long as the author substantiates his
or her argument and does not indulge in labeling, name calling and ridicule. We are
particularly interested in unraveling pre-British India and the changes brought about
through British rule, since the colonial legacy continues to bear great significance for
present-day Indian society. We believe that no shade of opinion has a monopoly over the
truth and that if we all collaborate in this endeavour, we are quite capable of arriving at
insights and solutions to our problems, much as our ancestors did. We seek to publish
well researched articles in various fields, which at the same time are communicative
and do not indulge in excessive technical jargon.
Contents
Letters to the Editor
2
Editorial
3
Cover Story
Need for a Modern Indian Theory of Governance
S. Udayan
5
S. Gautham
9
M.M. Kalaburgi
Excerpts from Arthashastra
12
15
Sanskriti
NINASAM: A Temple to the Commons
Perspectives
Basavanna and the Royal Treasury
Chanakya on Corruption
Books
An ode to Kalki – A reconstructor of ancient Tamil culture
by S. Raghavan
19
Ghadar Jari Hai, Vol. V No. 3, 2011
1
Letters to the Editor
Dear Editor,
I have just recently been introduced to your magazine. I spotted the issue on Archeo-metallurgy at my
friends place on campus. Once I began to read she informed me that you also have a website where I could
read the earlier issues and other articles by prominent authors. I must say I was very happy to have
stumbled upon your magazine. You can be sure that
I’ll be visiting the website and will be an avid reader
of your magazine.
Shewta, Delhi University
garding our present condition, unless we are equipped
with the knowledge that enables us to articulate a different shared story of our past, explain the present and
envision a different future. GJH, aage badho.
S Sharma, Bengaluru
Dear Sir,
I have recently come across your magazine. The topics discussed are very interesting and one cannot
wonder and marvel at the history of such a great nation. Please continue publishing such good articles.
Sameer, Maharashtra
Dear Editor,
I have been receiving and reading your magazine for the last 2 years now. I have seen that you
announce events around the topic of 1857 and other
events relating to our history. Do you also organise
events at your end? It would be nice if you could also
organise discussions and seminars.
I must congratulate you and your team on the effort that you all put into the magazine issue after issue.
Sangram Singh, Bhatinda, Punjab
The writings of Macaulay make it easy to understand
the strategies of the British colonizers with regard to
‘the empires of the mind’. But that would remain an
impotent anger and leave us trying to solve riddles re-
2
Ghadar Jari Hai, Vol. V No. 3, 2011
Dear Editor,
I really enjoyed the review of the book ‘1857 – the
real story of the great uprising’ by Kannan Kasturi.
The writer has beautifully brought out the essence
of what the book is trying to achieve. He is right in
saying that “writer Mrinal Pande has performed a
valuable service” by making Bhatt’s Marathi work
available to a wider readership. The more we delve
into our past the more we find that there are things
we can learn and that the search and fight for truth
is the rightful path.
I wish you and your team a very happy festive season and all the best with the magazine.
Kapil S, Maharashtra
Editorial
Our readers will be pleasantly surprised to receive
another issue so soon after the last one. As promised we
are doing our best to give you four issues of decent quality in a year. Before we comment on the contents of this
issue we would like to welcome another inquirer as one of
our distinguished editorial advisors. He is a well-known
nuclear scientist and metallurgist of international fame,
who has also applied his scientific knowledge and methods to unravel the history that is hidden in the material
artefacts of ancient India. Welcome Dr Baldev Raj.
Corruption, its causes and remedies, have been much
in the news recently. People who are seeing the state not
fulfilling its Raja Dharma of providing sukh and suraksha while the treasury is being looted by members of
the state apparatus and unscrupulous businessmen are
expressing mass outrage about it in the streets of India.
We have seen this happening periodically in the last
six decades of independent India, each time more vigorously than the previous. But what is the remedy? Does
a civilisation that is more than 5000 years old have any
theory and prescription for that? Today there are many
prescriptions being given about good governance, transparency and accountability, etc. Unfortunately we see
them mostly originating and articulated in the think
tanks and academia of North America and Europe. As
Frantz Fannon once remarked, they are then “repeated like an echo” in the former colonies, without much
thought about their relevance or correctness.
Does pre-colonial Indian statecraft have no well-constructed theory and practice of Raja Dharma as well as
remedial measures if the Raja does not follow his dharma but insists on adharma? These are the important
questions raised by a number of contributions in this
issue. Udayan’s cover story raises them and urges all of
us to strive to construct a modern Indian theory of Raja
Dharma. We hope there will be sufficient response to
this anguished call of the author from our readers and
well-wishers.
We have reproduced excerpts from Chanakya’s
Arthashastra that deal with forms of corruption engaged by state functionaries and remedial measures
proposed by him in those days of Magadha empire. They
are remarkable for their detail and clarity.
We have also reproduced excerpts of a paper by
Prof M M Kalaburgi a highly respected researcher and
scholar of ancient Kannada culture about an important
articulation of Bhakti Movement in Karnataka in the 12th
century. He has discussed the attitude of Basavanna and
his band of radical Bhaktas towards state treasury and
how it should be used. It is an significant contribution
to our understanding of Bhakti movement. Since Bhakti
has been seen as a largely spiritual reformist movement
by many scholars and followers, its social, political and
economic aspects have been little studied. These studies
cast a new light on it as a radical reformist movement
that had unprecedented impact at the ground level all
over India through 11th to 19th centuries and even earlier. Increasingly, what were considered by many as dark
ages of India are, on deeper investigation, turning out to
be renaissance of India! Perhaps the colonial times were
in many respects the dark ages of India, while our eurocentric education is still to accept its full impact on our
minds and on our body politic.
We have two interesting contributions in the cultural section. One is a report by S Gautham on an experiment to bring modern theatre and film appreciation to
a village, Heggodu in Karnataka by the late K V Subbanna. The other is an appreciation of the much loved
“Kalki” who provoked the interests of millions of Tamil
youth in ancient Tamil culture and polity through his
historical fiction.
To our last page on poetry we bring another doyen
of the eastern and western Banga, the evergreen and
popular Qazi Nazrul Islam. A poet who stood with the
oppressed and exploited in eastern India just as Faiz
Ahmed Faiz did in North Western India.
Ghadar Jari Hai, Vol. V No. 3, 2011
3
Cover Story
Need for a Modern Indian Theory of
Governance
By S. Udayan
Discussing and debating
governance and corruption is a
widespread activity in our country
these days. The topic is of hot
interest. However, there is an
absence of an agreed conceptual
framework to diagnose and
tackle corruption in its myriad
forms, which is a symptom of a
governance system in decay.
The government’s Lokpal Bill
is meant to cover only the seniormost officials and not the junior
officers and functionaries that
the vast majority of people have
to deal with every day. This
shows that the government is
concerned only about one form
of corruption, which affects the
competition among capitalist
investors, while the people are
angry about other forms that
affect all of them.
I
n the absence of a home-grown
theory of governance and conceptual framework to tackle
corruption, Indian brains tend to
come under the pressure of adopting the imported European outlook
and concepts of governance, based
on liberal or social-democratic ideology. Some who are thus influenced
assume that wherever Indian society does not function like in Europe
and North America, it is corrupt.
Good governance becomes equated
with the European definition and
institutional framework, focused
on the defence and enforcement of
private property rights.
One kind of transaction that is
fairly common in our country is that
you pay a tout, also called a dalal,
some fixed amount at the driving license authority, or some other arm
of the government machinery. In
such cases it could be argued that
the middleman is only charging you
for services rendered. But there is
a vital element which is not an exchange but extortion. A portion of
the amount he collects is shared
with officials and clerks, to oil the
machinery.
Those who are privileged to be
part of the machinery of officialdom have the power to delay and
deprive you of your entitlement, for
an indefinite period. So here there
is corruption, however petty it may
be, resulting in deprivation of basic
rights. A public employee, who is
supposed to be paid to deliver a service to the public, is making money by
obstructing the delivery of the said
service in time. The citizen is being
deprived of what he or she is entitled to as a matter of right.
This character of government
machinery, as an institution that
is designed to obstruct, to delay, to
deprive and to facilitate plunder by
greedy private interests, has its origin in the character of the political
power established for the colonial
plunder of India.
The discussion and theorizing
on governance in this subcontinent
prior to the colonial conquest was
grounded in the concept of a State
whose duty was to provide prosperity
(sukh) and protection (suraksha) to
all members of society. Every member of society could expect this as a
matter of right and was duty bound
to contribute to such a system and
defend such a state that provides
prosperity and protection. Rights
were conceived of as the rights of an
individual within society, in inseparable connection with duty.
Along with the kingdoms and
state institutions, the colonialists
also destroyed the theories and concepts of governance that prevailed.
An alien concept and reality was imposed – namely, a State that will be
an instrument for maximum plunder of India by English capital.
The Constitution of 1950 adopted
the political theory and institutional
Ghadar Jari Hai, Vol. V No. 3, 2011
5
Cover Story
foundations of state implicit in the
Government of India Act of 1935.
The communally organised Army
was retained, as also the colonial
Indian Civil Service (ICS), whose
name was only changed, to Indian
Administrative Service (IAS).
Those who are part of the government machinery, whether in a high
or low position, consider it more as
a privilege than as an employment
contract. This is a factor that generates a lot of corruption through
obstruction, delays and harassment.
The functionaries of state are not
trained to treat all citizens equally,
but rather to maintain social hierarchy on the basis of caste, class and
membership of political elite.
The system of justice – whether it is a matter of land dispute or
crime and punishment – follows the
norms and procedures of 19th century English concept of “rule of law”
as adapted to serve colonial rule. It
legitimises plunder and criminalises
dissent, with a narrow elite enjoying
unlimited rights and the majority
saddled only with duties.
The continuation of the colonial
legacy in post-colonial India has created the terrain for myriad forms of
corruption to thrive. At the same
time, the increasing scale and concentration of production, and of the
resources needed to finance mega investments, along with increasing international investor interest in the
Indian market, have all combined to
raise the stakes involved. Hence the
size of potential bribes in big-ticket
contracts in our country has reached
astronomical proportions.
Eurocentrism versus Indian approach
The concept of governance emanating from Europe does not shed
any light on the specific forms of
6
Ghadar Jari Hai, Vol. V No. 3, 2011
corruption that prevail in a complex
country like ours, a country that is
both modern and backward at the
same time, a global emerging big
power that is still to rid itself of the
colonial legacy.
Ignoring the specificity of historical circumstances governing social
relations in a particular country,
international think tanks promote
various standard prescriptions,
which they call “global best practice”. The pre-colonial experience
and practices in Asia and other continents do not find due recognition
in this cosmopolitan concept.
The international literature distinguishes between large-scale or big
time corruption and retail or petty
corruption. When you pass on a few
hundred rupee notes to a cop on the
road, it is called petty; when corporate agents pass on tens of crores to
ministers, it is big time corruption,
and when hundreds or thousands
of crores are involved it is a mega
scandal. This is a one-dimensional
classification, focusing purely on
the quantity of rupees or dollars involved. The quality of the transaction involved also needs attention,
and when you look at quality you get
a myriad set of categories
Indian political theorist and royal adviser Kautilya, also known as
Chanakya, enumerated the numerous forms of depriving the state of
its legitimate revenue, and discussed
the principles of determining the
punishment for each type and level
of misconduct in public affairs. He
wrote in his famous treatise called
the Arthashastra:
“A government officer … may
occasion loss of revenue to the government owing to his ignorance, or
owing to his idleness when he is too
weak to endure the trouble of activity,
or due to inadvertence in perceiving
sound and other objects of sense, or
by being timid when he is afraid of
clamour, unrighteousness, and untoward results, or owing to selfish desire when he is favourably disposed
towards those who are desirous to
achieve their own selfish ends, or by
cruelty due to anger, or by lack of dignity when he is surrounded by a host
of learned and needy sycophants, or
by making use of false balance, false
measures, and false calculation owing to greediness.”
The conditions of society in those
times were obviously very different
from the conditions that prevail today. It seems strange to us living
in early 21st century that he should
list “selfish desire when he is favourably disposed towards those who are
desirous to achieve their own selfish
ends” as only one among numerous
factors, and not at all near the top
of the list. It is even more striking
that “making use of false balance,
false measures, and false calculation
owing to greediness” is the last mentioned form in the list.
Having enumerated the various
forms of misuse of public authority
leading to loss of public funds, Kautilya wrote, “The school of Manu hold
that a fine equal to the loss of revenue
and multiplied by the serial number
of the circumstances of the guilt just
narrated in order shall be imposed
upon him.The school of Parásara
hold that the fine in all the cases
shall be eight times the amount lost.
The school of Brihaspathisay that it
shall be ten times the amount.The
school of Usanas say that it shall be
twenty times the amount.But Kautilya says that it shall be proportional
to the guilt.”
He further elaborates this principle of punishment being proportional to the guilt through detailed
prescriptions:
Cover Story
“Failure to start an undertaking
or to realise its results, or to credit
its profits (to the treasury) is known
as obstruction. Herein a fine of ten
times the amount in question shall
be imposed. … Whoever lessens a
fixed amount of income or enhances
the expenditure is guilty of causing
the loss of revenue. Herein a fine of
four times the loss shall be imposed.
Whoever enjoys himself or causes
others to enjoy whatever belongs
to the king is guilty of self-enjoyment. Herein death-sentence shall
be passed for enjoying gems, middlemost amercement (punishment
or penalty applied at the discretion
of a court or other authority, as
contrasted with a penalty predetermined by statute.—Ed) for enjoying valuable articles, and restoration of the articles together with a
fine equal to their value shall be the
punishment for enjoying articles of
inferior value.”
If one were to apply this principle today with respect to the 2G
spectrum allocation scam, one wonders how many death sentences it
would lead to!
Are Giver and Taker equally to
blame?
Many of us have heard various moralising voices mouthing the
mantra that both the giver and taker
of a bribe are equally to blame. If
corruption is abstracted from its specific form, then such absurd statements sound as if they are true.
Let us consider a small individual vendor on the street, who sells
his wares on a push-cart. He or she
pays a monthly bribe to the policeman on duty in order to conduct the
tiny business that feeds his or her
family. There is a huge variety of
such cases and a massive number of
1
them all over the cities and towns in
our country.
In this particular form of corruption, a relatively weak and poor individual faces the might of an official
police force. One is a victim. The
other is the extortionist, the armed
rent collector. Is it not absurd to
suggest that the two sides in this
unequal relationship are equally to
blame?
Let us consider a case at the
other extreme of the spectrum of Indian corruption. One or more large
corporate houses reward, in cash or
kind, high level politicians so as to
influence what policy action he will
take in a particularly lucrative sector, such as energy or telecom or
mining.
The Minister or official gets to
pocket massive private gain in cash
and kind. The corporate house gets
to shape public policy in its private interest, to reap thousands of
crores as super-profits. Both sides
are guilty of serious crimes against
society, of private appropriation of
public wealth. It could be argued in
such cases that the giver of the bribe
is even more to blame and deserves
a higher order of punishment for
subverting the public interest.
There are numerous official departments where people know that
their work will not get done, or will
become longwinded and costly, until and unless some cash is passed
on under the table. If the cash remains in the pockets of the “public servant” who is supposed to be
delivering a public service, then it
is one kind or level of crime. If a
certain percentage of all bribes collected finds its way regularly into
the hands of a Minister or treasurer
of a political party, then it is of a
higher level.
There was a time in the nineties
when the Power Minister in Uttar
Pradesh, heading a small breakaway party which saved the government of the day from a no-confidence motion, was rumoured to be
collecting Rupees One Crore every
day through the corruption network
in the State Electricity Board. It
was said that he had struck a good
bargain with the ruling party and
this one portfolio was adequate to
finance his newly formed party plus
personal greed.
Limitations of World Bank’s approach
The World Bank promotes a
“framework for service provision”
– which is made up of four actors:
(1) citizens, (2) politicians, (3) senior
bureaucrats in specific ministries
and departments, and (4) frontline
providers, meaning doctors and
nurses, teachers and others engaged
in delivering public services.1 The
framework posits four relationships
of accountability:

Of politicians to citizens;

Of bureaucrats to the politicians;

Of frontline providers to the senior bureaucrats; and

Of the frontline provider to the
citizens.
The public is supposed to hold
service
providers
accountable
through a long-term and a shortterm route, the first and the fourth
relationship.
The long-term route of accountability, called “voice”, refers to the
influence the people are presumed
to exercise on the political leaders,
through the political process.
The short-term route, called “client power" refers to the people directly influencing frontline provid-
Making Services work for Poor People, World Development Report 2004, Oxford University Press.
Ghadar Jari Hai, Vol. V No. 3, 2011
7
Cover Story
ers like government teachers, doctors and nurses.
What happens when there is no
voice excepting for a tiny elite faction? This is called “elite capture”
of the political process. It is recognized as a serious problem by World
Bank specialists, but only at the
level of state or local governments.
They are taught to have implicit
faith that the central government is
representative of the people. There
is no recognition, not even discussion, of elite capture of the central
state.
The World Bank is an official
multilateral institution, sponsored
by governments of many countries,
to lend money and spread ideas to
the official authorities in its client
countries. Its thinking is bound by
acceptance of the legitimacy of the
central authority in every member
country. Thus it becomes necessary
to train its specialists to assume
that the long-term route of accountability is not broken, so that they
can devote their energies to fix the
problems in all the other relationships – through civil service reform,
citizens’ charters, right to information, anti-corruption agencies and
so on. However, while such an approach may pass the scrutiny of the
Board of Directors in Washington,
D.C, it does not deliver results on
the ground.
The World Bank’s own evaluations have revealed that its standard prescriptions for civil service
reform,
performance
contracts,
outcome budgeting, financial management, public procurement and
other aspects of public management
reforms have not worked in the conditions of Asian, African and Latin
American countries. Such reforms
have not even succeeded in curbing
8
Ghadar Jari Hai, Vol. V No. 3, 2011
big-time corruption in the United
States, Britain and other European
countries.
Systemic Decay
Wikipedia says that corruption
generally refers to decadence – or
systemic decay.It also says that the
word corrupt, when used as an adjective, literally means “utterly broken”.
The Greek philosopher Aristotle
wrote a book called On Generation
and Corruption, also known as On
Coming to Be and Passing Away. He
referred to corruption as the process
of the Old passing away.
There is increasing recognition
in the mass consciousness of Indians
that the system of governance in our
country is suffering from systemic
decay. The question is: What kind
of new system of governance do we
need at this time?
What is the political theory underlying a modern system of governance that is fit for 21st century
India?
For Indians to adopt and attempt
to implement global prescriptions of
“governance reforms” that have been
tested and failed the test – would be
the height of foolishness.
We need to restore the reciprocal relationship between rights and
duties, and of citizens and the State.
We need a theory and a vision that
builds on and enriches the political
philosophy and experience of statecraft we have inherited from our
ancestors, and is fit for the present
conditions.
That the State is duty bound to
provide prosperity and protection for
all citizens is part of the heritage of
Indian political thought. People who
are expressing their anger against
corruption today are asserting their
rights as citizens to receive certain
basic services from the State. The inherited concept of governance, based
on reciprocal rights and duties of the
rulers and the ruled, spurs the modern day demand to end corruption in
the delivery of public services.
The concept that ultimate decision-making power lies in the hands
of the people also has roots in the
political history of this subcontinent.
It is a concept that was invoked by
the revolutionary anti-colonial uprising of 1857. It has even deeper roots.
The concept that it is the people who
select their leader can be found in
the early Vedic texts. For instance,
the Yajurveda says, “O people, ye are
the givers of kingship, that brings
knowledge and showers happiness,
… Ye are the givers of kingship and
masters of strong army, bestow the
kingship on the deserving.” This concept went out of vogue in later periods, when kingship was transferred
through blood lines. But its residue
within the Indian conscience did not
disappear. It is in fact demanding attention today more than ever before.
The path to develop the modern
Indian theory of governance begins
with the enumeration of the phenomena of modern day Indian society, the different forms of systemic
decay, analysis of their nature and
their roots. Indian brains need to
break free from the pressure to adopt
an alien and outdated conceptual
framework in the name of “global
best practice”.
We need to bring forward from
our past what is precious and modernize it to serve the present. This
essay would have served its purpose
if it inspires a few to devote their
brain power to develop and elaborate
the modern Indian theory of governance.
Sanskriti
NINASAM: A Temple to the Commons
By S Gautham
W
ater envelops Malenadu
(Hilly regions of Karnataka-Ed) in a million different ways; it pours down in sheets
from the sky. It winds through
plunging valleys like a snake in the
grass. It thunders down towering
precipices of Mesozoic rock, flecking joyous sprays of smoky foam.
The dewdrops radiate a hue of lush,
glimmering green from the shrubs
of the shola. Malenadu is also the
land of rain. This is the home of coffee and sandalwood, the wild dog
and the whistling thrush; it is the
nursery of Yakshagana and Hulivesha (forms of folk theatre-Ed). It is
at once, the ecological nucleus of
the Western Ghats, and the throbbing, resonant, heart of Kannada
culture.
It was here, to a tiny village
called Heggodu that a young dreamer and idealist called K V Subbanna,
returned home after university in
distant Mysore, a few years after
India’s independence. While there,
the young Subbanna had embraced
both socialism and literature. He
was also infected with a lifelong love
for theatre, cinema and their roles
in society.
Those were also times of a heady
euphoria across the nation. There
was, of course, the trauma of partition; but there were hopes and
dreams as well. And, as a newly decolonised people imagined a nation
for themselves, the early visions
were firmly decentralised. The notion of the village being at the centre
of all development (an idea endorsed
enthusiastically by Gandhi) was still
very dominant.
Subbanna threw himself into
managing his family’s plantation of
supari palms and paan vines. But
his restless exuberance led him,
and a group of friends, to launch a
cyclostyled newspaper, build a library and incubate a theatre group.
The seeds of that experiment have
grown into a unique cultural movement, receiving, and reflecting upon
the art of the world - at home in a
remote hamlet in a verdant valley.
Ninasam is an acronym for
Neelakanteswara Nataka Samsthe.
It is named after the presiding local deity in Heggodu, and was informally started in 1949. Like in so
many villages across India, it was
a forum where people got together
to perform one play a year, mostly
mythological. But Subbanna pushed
the borders – slowly, but steadily.
He rejected the notion that high art
was only intellectually accessible
to the urban elite. Among the early
plays they performed, was a trans-
Ninasam is an acronym for
Neelakanteswara Nataka
Samsthe. It is named after
the presiding local deity
in Heggodu, and was
informally started in 1949.
lation of D L Roy’s Bengali classic,
Shahjahan. Then, they went on to
Brecht and Shakespeare. He once
attended a film appreciation course
in Poona, and came back, transformed. A film club was formed, the
Ninasam Chitra Samaja. A few local
volunteers trained as projectionists
– and prints were borrowed from the
National Film Archives. The villagers began to view Chaplin and Kurosawa, Bergman, Ray and world war
documentaries. And K V Subbanna,
from the sides, would speak the dialogues in Kannada, even as the film
ran.
In this way, the ideas and the
images, the sounds and the surprises of the wider world began to arrive in Heggodu, consumed with an
infectious enthusiasm and debated
vigorously by its denizens and their
neighbours. An unwavering commitment throughout was a strong
sense of community, where despite
the many quarrels, disagreements,
and differences, the organisation
prevailed. The political differences
were many and varied, there were
issues of social hierarchies, but the
aim was debate, dialogue, and where
possible, creative resolution. They
explored the links between what
they saw and heard and the everyday problems in their society. They
did not leave their politics at home;
instead they never gave up striving
for consensus.
The village of Heggodu now has
a spiffy 600-seater auditorium (Heggodu’s population is less than a
Ghadar Jari Hai, Vol. V No. 3, 2011
9
Sanskriti
thousand) named after yet another
son of the Western Ghats, and an
indescribably talented, and prodigious, giant of modern India - the
multi-faceted Shivarama Karanth.
It is part of a larger campus, a genuine multiplex, for there is Akshara
Prakashana, a publishing imprint,
a drama school, and Tirugaata, a
travelling drama repertory company. For one week every October,
the campus hosts the Samskriti
Shibira, a cultural festival. The
participation is truly eclectic, with
a wide range of people attending;
both rustic, and urbane. Last year
an Iranian student of Philosophy,
a lecturer in English from Mandya,
a Banana vendor from Davangere
and a Marxist activist from Siliguri were dorm mates. Ninasam has
survived and grown for sixty years,
the shibira for half that time. The
sheer endurance of this rustic and
doughty group of villagers is a testimonial to their viability.
Painting of K.V. Subbanna
10 Ghadar Jari Hai, Vol. V No. 3, 2011
Ninasam’s innumerable
celebrants delight in its
rooted, organic blossoming;
they see its core values as
intrinsic to a praxis that
resists the commodification
of culture, and its
corporatisation.
I have just completed an hourlong documentary film set in Heggodu, around the activities of Ninasam. The film is a celebration of
the deeply humanist strain that
survives in Ninasam today, and also
reflects on the place of the village in
contemporary India. In a country
where they have by constitutional
right, the freedom of speech and ex-
pression, it has become necessary for
people to ‘wrest’ a vested right, as
has been the experience of the Anna
Hazare campaign in recent days. My
experience of Heggodu, over several
filming visits over the past year, is
that it is a genuine public space,
committed to free speech and fearless listening. Independent of both
state and corporate control, it is a
truly ‘public’ space. You would witness a faithful translation of Shakespeare, without arrogantly dumbing
it down for its audience and intervening with the Ramayana, a common inheritance.
Ninasam’s innumerable celebrants delight in its rooted, organic
blossoming; they see its core values
as intrinsic to a praxis that resists
the commodification of culture, and
its corporatisation. They see it as
proof that art is truly universal, and
that rustic audiences are capable
of being proactive consumers of an
‘urbane’ artistic culture, capable of
engaging in the most sophisticated
of aesthetic experience. The energy,
the motor that drives all this is an
unshakeable belief that the Village
is a viable centre of community life.
To the late Subbanna and to Ninasam, the village and the Nation,
Heggodu and the World, were interchangeable terms.
Ninasam has its share of critics as well; some claim that it was
Subbanna’s landowning prosperity,
which enabled him to bankroll a
whim. This is not entirely true, for
Ninasam regularly publishes its accounts. One of its core principles is
not to accept outside money for its
core activities. And it has always
been funded by local subscription
and volunteerism. Others draw attention to his Brahmin birth and upbringing; they despair that this has
limited the vigour with which Nina-
Sanskriti
sam has interrogated social inequity, the vicious brutalities of caste oppression and communal disharmony.
This may perhaps be partially true,
but last year for instance they performed Shakespeare’s Othello and
Kuvempu’s radical retelling of the
Ramayana, Shoodra Tapaswi (the
story of Shambhooka-Ed). While one
explores racial prejudice, the other
is an attack on caste prejudice.
It can be argued that a reforming
Brahmanism, (or indeed a reforming
capitalism that the new free market
is touted as being) however progressive it may be, has its inherent
limitations. The ultimate articulation of this crisis has to come from
the subaltern. A truly public space
will allow this articulation to flourish, and this I have seen first hand
in Heggodu. If I were to give just one
example, it would be the formation
and growth of Janamanadaata – or
the play in the minds of the people,
which is a travelling drama repertory too. It has been founded by an
alumnus, and now a faculty member
of the Ninasam Theatre Institute, M.
Ganesh. Its members are all alumni
of the Ninasam Drama School. They
are independent of Ninasam, yet
they have emerged from within and
found their voice in a common enabling space. Their main emphasis is
to articulate the voice of the underprivileged and exploited, with an emphasis on dalit assertion. Last year,
they adapted for stage performance,
the riveting, visceral, autobiography
of the dalit poet Siddalingaiah, Ooru
Keri, a text, which is characterized
according to literary critic, the late
D R Nagaraj, by badavara naguvina
shakti, or the power in the laughter of the poor and Khadgavaagali
Kavya, Let Poetry become a Sword.
My experience of filming in Heggodu and interrogating the Ninasam
Ninasam members perform a scene from Othello
experience raised in my mind, fundamental questions about democracy and decentralisation. The Ninasam story helps us to seek answers
to some crucial questions about the
universality of art; the nature and
process of its consumption; and the
relationship it has with its audience.
It also does much more. It opens the
debate about the possibilities such
a practice has for the formation
and sustenance of communities, organically linked to local production
economies that are not exploitative
or destructive.
This is a crucial debate for contemporary India, witness as we
are to the disturbing consequences
that policies gone awry, governance
failure, and corporate greed have
wrought in large swathes of the
country. In understanding Ninasam
and its contemporary challenges,
we develop an understanding of the
parlous state of village India. At one
point, in this year’s Shibira, a participant got up to remind the audience that the debate is no longer
really about how we are consuming
like there is no tomorrow, or even
whether villagers lead a simple life
because they have no choice. For
him the situation is graver still, for
our villages have become old age
homes where no youth lives.
He was making a very important point. For, in the free market
chatter that now consumes us, the
future is a seductive urban paradise; it is a vision that envisages
three quarters of our people living
in cities. It is a very fuzzy notion of
metropolitan bliss. It is this callous
brand of capitalism, which treats
villages only as resources, which
treats nature, at the same time, as
food source and a garbage dump,
that led to the young man’s lament.
With the emptying of the villages,
the questions that has returned to
haunt us –what kind of a nation do
we want to be?
S. Gautham is a film maker,
among other things. Photographs by
the author.
Ghadar Jari Hai, Vol. V No. 3, 2011
11
Perspectives
Basavanna and the royal treasury
Basavanna was one of the guiding lights of Lingayata Sharana Movement of
12th C Karnataka. He and other leading figures (sharanas) of this movement
are well known for their radical Bhakti philosophy which propounded dignity
of labour; ending caste and gender discrimination in practice and in theory in
all social and spiritual matters and incisively ridiculing meaningless Vedic
rituals and temple worship, while extolling the virtues of an intense communion
with a personal God. However, very little has been written about their radical
economic philosophy and statecraft. Excerpts from this paper by
M M Kalaburgi attempts to fill that void.
I
t is an ancient concept in India
that if a nadu*( a cluster of villages) is to have the status of a
kingdom, it has to have the sevenfold limbs: territory, king, minister, subjects, treasury, army, and
fort. Since the royal treasury was
the lifeline of the other six limbs, it
was of the utmost importance. The
Treasury was made up of war-booty
from time to time, the annual tributes by feudatory chiefs, and perennial taxes from local sources. The
man who looked after the bhandara
i.e. Treasury was the bhandari or
finance minister.
It is well-known that Basavanna
was Bijjala’s (A Kalachuri dynasty
King who ruled in Kalyana, Karnataka, 1130-1167 CE-Ed) finance
minister. In olden times, people believed that the Royal Treasury was
the king’s own. In those days, the
emperor at the apex, the chieftain
of the nadu, the feudatory chief at
the mandala*( a group of nadus)
dispensed the Treasury as if it were
12 Ghadar Jari Hai, Vol. V No. 3, 2011
the private property of the ruling
classes.
The Treasury would be spent for
the benefit of the priestly class of a
religion, construction and upkeep of
temples, nurturing agraharas (exclusively Brahmin settlements-Ed),
gifts and alms on religious occasions and such other purposes. This
is evidenced by records concerning
temples and agraharas of medieval
Karnataka.
This is the way in which the
Treasurer of those times used to
oversee the management (or mismanagement?) of the Treasury. In
these circumstances, Basavanna
emerged as the Finance Minister. It
was the veritable arrival of a chaste
person at such a degenerate state
of affairs. Principled as he was, the
very first question he asked himself
was “Whose is this Treasury, after
all? Whoever has the right to it?”
The Virashaiva Puranas, Basavarajadevara Ragale (epic biographical poem on Basavanna in Kanna-
Basavanna
da by Harihara, 13th C), in particular, seem to hold an answer to this
question. Basavanna is appointed
Perspectives
clerk of the Kalachuri Treasury. By
and by, he rose to be Finance Minister. It was a rich Treasury growing
up since the Chalukyan times.
As he opens the doors of the
Treasury on the first day of his assuming charge, Basavanna utters:
Oh my! Such a priceless wealth
Was not handed out to bhaktas,
Parasiva’s bhaktas
Alas! It is going to the crows
Alas! It is going to the lokayatas
The phrases “Oh my! Such a
priceless……” indicate the magnitude of the Treasury. “Alas! It is going to the crows” signifies its excessive abuse. This abuse is nothing
but the aforesaid wanton enjoyment
by the kingly and priestly classes.
In poet Harihara’s view, they are
lokayatas i.e., hedonists, who don’t
have a right to the Treasury. The
true heirs are the lingayatas i.e.
prasadavadis* (prasada: receiving everything as a gift from the
Godand using the bare minimum for
oneself and dispensing the rest for
the benefit of the community. Prsadavadis are those who practice this
principle). In sum, even if a hedonist himself is the king, he is not the
owner of the Treasury. But even if
the prasadavadis be poor subjects,
the Treasury belongs to them. This
is the philosophy of Basavanna. In
Harihara’s poetry, Basavanna says
about the Treasury: “The belongings of bhaktas are not to be spoilt”
When he is spending it for them,
his words are: “I am a servant serving you, your own money on demand”. When Bijjalla objects to the
use of the Treasury for the bhaktas,
Basavanna throws a hint that the
Treasury is not Bijjala’s, but of the
bhaktas by saying, “Do the shivabhaktas ever desire your belongings?
They are taking what is only theirs”
After Basavanna took charge
as Finance Minister, Bijjala must
have been annoyed at finding it difficult to spend the Treasury according to his own whims and fancies,
since Basavanna believed in the
principle that not the king, but
the bhaktas were the owners of
the Treasury. On the other hand,
what with the flow of money stopping for construction of agraharas
and gifts for priests, Basavanna incurred the wrath of the priests who
had all along been enjoying the benefits from the Treasury.
Basavanna, for one thing, restricted the use of the Treasury for
the enjoyment of the King and other elite. For another, he used it for
bhaktas. Since the term bhakta is
used as a synonym for jangama (the
selfless mendicant), in this context
as also from his utterance “I don’t
In Basavanna’s new social
order, labour assumed
prime importance. The
wealth of the Treasury was
basically a product of the
labour of the community
at large and that this was
the class that made for the
growth of the Treasury.
Basavanna seems to have,
to start with, utilized money
to fulfil this bounden duty
seek caste among jangamas”, it is
evident that these jangamas are
not the caste-based jangamas of the
present day, but the virtue-based
community of knowledge seekers
that was just then taking shape.
In Basavanna's new social order, labour assumed prime importance. The wealth of the Treasury
was basically a product of the labour of the community at large and
that this was the class that made
for the growth of the Treasury. Before preaching the value of work to
them, it is the first duty of a government to provide them with food,
clothing and shelter which are essential for living. Basavanna seems
to have, to start with, utilized money to fulfil this bounden duty. It is
but natural that, broadly speaking,
this event looked like misuse in the
eyes of the accusers. More so in the
eyes of those who were deprived
of the benefits they had long been
enjoying. The slander by such people spread thick and fast in society
and may have reached the ears of
Basavanna. His vachanas (Bhakti
poems in Kannada-Ed) allude more
to the affairs of the treasury than
to other political issues. Sometimes
he soliloquizes to console himself,
at other times, he dismisses this
false accusation in explicit terms.
And at yet other times, we hear the
bold voice of Basavanna to the effect that, though Bijjala is preparing to take action against him, he is
not the one to be daunted.
They examine my body, look into
my mind
The jangamas loot my wealth no
end
Oh Kudalasangamadeva(Oh lord
of the meeting rivers—a signature of
Basavanna's vachanas)
Ghadar Jari Hai, Vol. V No. 3, 2011
13
Perspectives
I am true to your Dream Treasury.
Maybe, under the circumstances
of the accusation snowballing into a
grave situation as a fallout of spending the wealth of the state for the
benefit of jangamas, he throws up
the soliloquy and openly dismisses
the false accusation in the following
vachana:
When a milk stream is flowing
by the town,
Why should I float on the back of
an evil cow?
Why should I be shameless?
Why, indeed?
When
Kudalasangamadeva
himself is with me
Why need I Bijjala’s Treasury?
After a time, when Bijjala was
about to take action, Basavanna
takes a hard, undaunted stand
against the king:
Does the elephant fear the goat,
Sire?
Instead, doesn’t it fear the goat
taking it for a lion’s paw?
Do I fear this Bijjala, Sire?
Instead, don’t I fear Kudalasangamadeva who is merciful to all
creatures?
There are hints in “Basavarajadevara Ragale” (epic biographical
poem on Basavanna in Kannada by
Harihara 13th C) Basava Purana
(epic biographical poem on Basavanna by Palkurike Somanatha in
Telugu in 13th C) that a hearing was
conducted on this charge.
Marriage between Haralayya’s
(a cobbler) and Madhuvarasa's (a
Brahmin) progeny with active encouragement by Basavanna is commonly believed to be the cause of
14 Ghadar Jari Hai, Vol. V No. 3, 2011
Marriage between a
cobbler’s son and a
Brahmin’s daughter with
active encouragement by
Basavanna is commonly
believed to be the cause
of the conflict between
Basavanna and King
Bijjala. However it would
be more appropriate to
assume that the real cause
was Basavanna’s radical
economic philosophy.
the conflict between Basavanna
and Bijjala. In other words, rejection of class distinctions per se is
said to have ignited the Kalyana
Kranti (revolution). But this breaking of the social barriers of caste
through an inter-caste marriage
was just a pretext for a breach in
the relations between the two. And
it would be more appropriate to
assume that the real cause was
Basavanna's radical economic
philosophy. The unfortunate fact
is that admixture of caste overshadowed the class struggle and
hogged all limelight unto itself.
With the new economic policy in
his head and the might of the State
Treasury in hand, Basavanna got
a good opportunity of putting his
precepts into practice.
Though there may have been
a breach in the relations between
Bijjala and Basavanna due to religio-social issues, the question of
ownership of the state treasury
must have been largely responsible for the breach to widen into a
chasm. For, the propounding and
propagation of religious principles
would not adversely affect Bijjala.
Besides, he too was a Shaivite. Bijjala’s power was not challenged by
the eradication of gender distinctions in Basavanna’s new social
philosophy. All these radical social
thoughts and measures may have
dented the priests’ prestige quite
a bit, but it was of no direct consequence to King Bijjala. But rejections of class distinctions, especially
the challenge to the king’s right to
the Treasury, shook the very foundations of Bijjala’s governance and
may have sparked off his embitterment towards Basavanna. Rejection of class distinctions must have
added fuel to the fire.
The breach between the two
wouldn’t have occurred so fast or
not all, had Basavanna been some
other Minister. Nor would it go to
such an extreme. By appointing
Basavanna Finance Minister, Bijjala was hoist with his own petard.
Thus, the Sharana movement was
not merely socio-religious movement, but also economic. Therefore, the view of scholars that the
Lingayatabhakti movement was of
purely socio-religious nature and
not of socio-economic nature needs
to be reviewed.
Author Prof M M Kalburgi, is a
well known researcher in Kannada
culture and history and a former
Vice Chancellor of Kannada University, Hampi.
English Translation:
Prof Sadanand Kanavalli
Perspectives
Chanakya on Corruption
Just as fish moving under water cannot possibly be found out either as drinking
or not drinking water, so government servants employed in the government
work cannot be found out (while) taking money (for themselves)-Chanakya
[Arthashastra, Chapter IX, “Examination of the Conduct of Government
Servants” in Book II, “The Duties of Government Superintendents”]
The following are excerpts from Arthashastra. Clearly the bewildering alphabet
soup of CAG, CVC, DRI, ED, SFO, CBI, ACB and various forms of Lokayukta and
Lokpal have much to learn from the ancient veteran of Indian statecraft.
CHAPTER VII.
he business of keeping up Accounts in the office of accountants.
THE superintendent of accounts
shall have the accountant’s office constructed with its door facing either
the north or the east, with seats (for
clerks) kept apart and with shelves of
account-books well arranged.
Therein the number of several
departments; the description of the
work carried on and of the results
realised in several manufactories
(Karmánta); the amount of profit,
loss, expenditure, delayed earnings,
the amount of vyáji (premia in kind
or cash) realised, —the status of
government agency employed, the
amount of wages paid, the number of
free labourers engaged (vishti) pertaining to the investment of capital
on any work; likewise in the case of
gems and commodities of superior
or inferior value, the rate of their
price, the rate of their barter, the
counterweights (pratimána) used in
weighing them, their number, their
weight, and their cubical measure;
the history of customs, professions,
and transactions of countries, vil-
T
lages, families, and corporations; the
gains in the form of gifts to the king’s
courtiers, their title to possess and
enjoy lands, remission of taxes allowed to them, and payment of provisions and salaries to them; the gains
to the wives and sons of the king in
gems, lands, prerogatives, and provisions made to remedy evil portents;
the treaties with, issues of ultimatum to, and payments of tribute from
or to, friendly or inimical kings— all
these shall be regularly entered in
prescribed registers.
From these books the superintendent shall furnish the accounts
as to the forms of work in hand, of
works accomplished, of part of works
in hand, of receipts, of expenditure,
of net balance, and of tasks to be undertaken in each of the several departments.
To supervise works of high, middling and low description, superin-
Ghadar Jari Hai, Vol. V No. 3, 2011
15
Perspectives
tendents with corresponding qualifications shall be employed.
The king will have to suffer in the
end if he curtails the fixed amount of
expenditure on profitable works.
(When a man engaged by Government for any work absents himself),
his sureties who conjointly received
(wages?) from the government, or his
sons, brothers, wives, daughters or
servants living upon his work shall
bear the loss caused to the Government.
The work of 354 days and nights is
a year. Such a work shall be paid for
more or less in proportion to its quantity at the end of the month, Ashádha
(about the middle of July). (The work
during) the intercalary month shall
be (separately) calculated.
A government officer, not caring
to know the information gathered
by espionage and neglecting to supervise the despatch of work in his
own department as regulated, may
occasion loss of revenue to the government owing to his ignorance, or
owing to his idleness when he is too
Chanakya source: myads.or
16 Ghadar Jari Hai, Vol. V No. 3, 2011
weak to endure the trouble of activity, or due to inadvertence in perceiving sound and other objects of sense,
or by being timid when he is afraid of
clamour, unrighteousness, and untoward results, or owing to selfish desire when he is favourably disposed
towards those who are desirous to
achieve their own selfish ends, or by
cruelty due to anger, or by lack of dignity when he is surrounded by a host
of learned and needy sycophants, or
by making use of false balance, false
measures, and false calculation owing to greediness.
The school of Manu hold that a
fine equal to the loss of revenue and
multiplied by the serial number of
the circumstances of the guilt just
narrated in order shall be imposed
upon him.
The school of Parásara hold that
the fine in all the cases shall be eight
times the amount lost.
The school of Brihaspathi say that
it shall be ten times the amount.
The school of Usanas say that it
shall be twenty times the amount.
But Kautilya says that it shall be
proportional to the guilt.
Accounts shall be submitted in
the month of Ashádha.
When they (the accountants of different districts) present themselves
with sealed books, commodities and
net revenue, they shall all be kept
apart in one place so that they cannot carry on conversation with each
other. Having heard from them the
totals of receipts, expenditure, and
net revenue, the net amount shall be
received.
By how much the superintendent
of a department augments the net
total of its revenue either by increasing any one of the items of its receipts
or by decreasing anyone of the items
of expenditure, he shall be rewarded
eight times that amount. But when
it is reversed (i.e., when the net total
is decreased), the award shall also be
reversed (i.e., he shall be made to pay
eight times the decrease).
Those accountants who do not
present themselves in time or do
not produce their account books
along with the net revenue shall be
fined ten times the amount due from
them.
When a superintendent of accounts (káranika) does not at once
proceed to receive and check the accounts when the clerks (kármika) are
ready, he shall be punished with the
first amercement. In the reverse case
(i.e., when the clerks are not ready),
the clerks shall be punished with
double the first amercement.
All the ministers (mahámáras)
shall together narrate the whole of
the actual accounts pertaining to
each department.
Whoever of these (ministers or
clerks?) is of undivided counsel or
keeps himself aloof, or utters falsehood shall be punished with the highest amercement.
When an accountant has not
prepared the table of daily accounts
(akritáhorúpaharam), he may be
given a month more (for its preparation). After the lapse of one month he
shall be fined at the rate of 200 panas
for each month (during which he delays the accounts).
If an accountant has to write only
a small portion of the accounts pertaining to net revenue, he may be allowed five nights to prepare it.
Then the table of daily accounts
submitted by him along with the net
revenue shall be checked with reference to the regulated forms of righteous transactions and precedents and
by applying such arithmetical processes as addition, subtraction, inference and by espionage. It shall also
be verified with reference to (such
Perspectives
divisions of time as) days, five nights,
pakshás, months, four-months, and
the year.
The receipt shall be verified with
reference to the place and time pertaining to them, the form of their
collection (i.e., capital, share), the
amount of the present and past produce, the person who has paid it, the
person who caused its payment, the
officer who fixed the amount payable,
and the officer who received it. The
expenditure shall be verified with
reference to the cause of the profit
from any source in the place and time
pertaining to each item, the amount
payable, the amount paid, the person
who ordered the collection, the person who remitted the same, the person who delivered it, and the person
who finally received it.
Likewise the net revenue shall be
verified with reference to the place,
time, and source pertaining to it, its
standard of fineness and quantity,
and the persons who are employed to
guard the deposits and magazines (of
grains, etc.).
When an officer (káranika) does
not facilitate or prevents the execution of the king’s order, or renders
the
receipts
and
expenditure
otherwise than prescribed, he
shall be punished with the first amercement.
Any clerk who violates or deviates
from the prescribed form of writing
accounts, enters what is unknown to
him, or makes double or treble entries (punaruktam) shall be fined 12
panas.
He who scrapes off the net total
shall be doubly punished.
He who eats it up shall be fined
eight times.
He who causes loss of revenue
shall not only pay a fine equal to five
times the amount lost (panchabandha), but also make good the loss. In
case of uttering a lie, the punishment
levied for theft shall be imposed.
(When an entry lost or omitted) is
made later or is made to appear as
forgotten, but added later on recollection, the punishment shall be double
the above.
The king shall forgive an offence
when it is trifling, have satisfaction
even when the revenue is scanty,
and honour with rewards (pragraha)
such of his superintendents as are of
immense benefit to him.
CHAPTER VIII.
Detection of what is embezzled
by government servants out of state
revenue.
ALL undertakings depend upon
finance. Hence foremost attention
shall be paid to the treasury.
Public prosperity (prachárasamriddhih), rewards for good conduct (charitránugrahah), capture of
thieves, dispensing with (the service
of too many) government servants,
abundance of harvest, prosperity of
commerce, absence of troubles and
calamities (upasargapramokshah),
diminution of remission of taxes, and
income in gold (hiranyópáyanam) are
all conducive to financial prosperity.
Obstruction (pratibandha), loan
(prayóga),
trading
(vyavahára),
fabrication of accounts (avastára),
When a government
servant has been proved
to be guilty of having
misappropriated part of a
large sum in question, he
shall be answerable for
the whole.
causing the loss of revenue (parihápana), self-enjoyment (upabhóga),
barter (parivartana), and defalcation
(apahára) are the causes that tend to
deplete the treasury.
Failure to start an undertaking
or to realise its results, or to credit
its profits (to the treasury) is known
as obstruction. Herein a fine of ten
times the amount in question shall
be imposed.
Lending the money of the treasury on periodical interest is a loan.
Carrying on trade by making use
of government money is trading.
These two acts shall be punished
with a fine of twice the profit earned.
Whoever makes as unripe the
ripe time or as ripe the unripe time
(of revenue collection) is guilty of fabrication. Herein a fine of ten times
the amount (panchabandha) shall be
imposed.
Whoever lessens a fixed amount
of income or enhances the expenditure is guilty of causing the loss of
revenue. Herein a fine of four times
the loss shall be imposed.
Whoever enjoys himself or causes
others to enjoy whatever belongs to
the king is guilty of self-enjoyment.
Herein death-sentence shall be
passed for enjoying gems, middlemost amercement for enjoying valuable articles, and restoration of the
articles together with a fine equal to
their value shall be the punishment
for enjoying articles of inferior value.
The act of exchanging government articles for (similar) articles of
others is barter. This offence is explained by self-enjoyment.
Whoever does not take into the
treasury the fixed amount of revenue
collected, or does not spend what is
ordered to be spent, or misrepresents
the net revenue collected is guilty of
defalcation of government money.
Herein a fine of twelve times the
Ghadar Jari Hai, Vol. V No. 3, 2011
17
Perspectives
amount shall be imposed.
There are about forty ways of embezzlement: what is realised earlier
is entered later on; what is realised
later is entered earlier; what ought
to be realised is not realised; what is
hard to realise is shown as realised;
what is collected is shown as not collected; what has not been collected is
shown as collected; what is collected
in part is entered as collected in full;
what is collected in full is entered as
collected in part; what is collected is
of one sort, while what is entered is
of another sort; what is realised from
one source is shown as realised from
another; what is payable is not paid;
what is not payable is paid; not paid
in time; paid untimely; small gifts
made large gifts; large gifts made
small gifts; what is gifted is of one
sort while what is entered is of another; the real donee is one while
the person entered (in the register)
as donee is another; what has been
taken into (the treasury) is removed
while what has not been credited to
it is shown as credited; raw materials that are not paid for are entered,
while those that are paid for are not
entered; an aggregate is scattered in
pieces; scattered items are converted
into an aggregate; commodities of
greater value are bartered for those of
small value; what is of smaller value
is bartered for one of greater value;
price of commodities enhanced; price
of commodities lowered; number of
nights increased; number of nights
decreased; the year not in harmony
with its months; the month not in
harmony with its days; inconsistency
in the transactions carried on with
personal supervision (samágamavishánah); misrepresentation of the
source of income; inconsistency in
giving charities; incongruity in representing the work turned out; inconsistency in dealing with fixed items;
18 Ghadar Jari Hai, Vol. V No. 3, 2011
misrepresentation of test marks or
the standard of fineness (of gold and
silver); misrepresentation of prices
of commodities; making use of false
weight and measures; deception in
counting articles; and making use
of false cubic measures such as bhájan— these are the several ways of
embezzlement.
Under the above circumstances, the persons concerned such as
the treasurer (nidháyaka), the prescriber (nibandhaka), the receiver
(pratigráhaka), the payer (dáyaka),
the person who caused the payment
(dápaka), the ministerial servants of
the officer (mantri-vaiyávrityakara)
shall each be separately examined. If
any one of these tells a lie, he shall
receive the same punishment as the
chief-officer, (yukta) who committed
the offence.
A
proclamation
in
public
(prachára) shall be made to the effect
“whoever has suffered at the hands of
this offender may make their grievances known to the king.”
Those who respond to the call
shall receive such compensation as
is equal to the loss they have sustained.
Just as fish moving under
water cannot possibly
be found out either as
drinking or not drinking
water, so government
servants employed in the
government work cannot
be found out (while) taking
money (for themselves).
When there are a number of offences in which a single officer is involved, and when his being guilty of
parókta in any one of those charges
has been established, he shall be
answerable for all those offences.
Otherwise (i.e., when it is not established), he shall be tried for each of
the charges.
When a government servant has
been proved to be guilty of having
misappropriated part of a large sum
in question, he shall be answerable
for the whole.
Any informant (súchaka) who
supplies information about embezzlement just under perpetration
shall, if he succeeds in proving it, get
as reward one-sixth of the amount in
question; if he happens to be a government servant (bhritaka), he shall
get for the same act one-twelfth of
the amount.
If an informant succeeds in proving only a part of a big embezzlement, he shall, nevertheless, get the
prescribed share of the part of the
embezzled amount proved.
An informant who fails to prove
(his assertion) shall be liable to monetary or corporal punishment, and
shall never be acquitted.
When the charge is proved, the
informant may impute the tale-bearing to someone else or clear himself
in any other way from the blame.
Any informant who withdraws his
assertion prevailed upon by the insinuations of the accused shall be
condemned to death.
CHAPTER IX.
Examination of the conduct of
government servants.
THOSE who are possessed of
ministerial qualifications shall, in accordance with their individual capacity, be appointed as superintendents
(Con�nued on back inside cover)
Books
An ode to Kalki – A reconstructor of
ancient Tamil culture
S Raghavan pays homage to R Krishnamurthy “Kalki”, a noted writer of
Tamil historical fiction
I
remember, with fond memories,
those far away days when my sister and I used to fight a no-holds
barred war every week to be the first
to read the Sunday Tamil magazine
called Kalki. What instigated us to
spoil an otherwise cordial relationship was the irresistible serial story
Ponniyin Selvan, the centrepiece of
the magazine. The story was serialised over a period of three and a
half years, with every week’s session
ending in a gripping suspense that
kept the readers guessing for a whole
week. It was a monumental historical
work, one that I would rate several
notches above the historical novels of
Alexander Dumas and Walter Scott.
Kalki (1899-1954) stands like a
huge banyan tree in Tamil literature, rooted deeply in the psyche of
the Tamil people, serving as a perennial source of flowers and fruits
of engaging fiction for the common
man. As the tree grew in stature and
spread its prop roots over the entire
spectrum of Tamil literature, several
budding authors benefited from it as
creepers would from an expansive
tree.
Kalki was the pen name of R.
Krishnamurthy. He was a Tamil
writer, film & music critic, freedom
fighter and journalist from Tamil
Nadu.
During the non-cooperation move-
R Krishnamurthy
Source - www.hindu.com
ment in 1921, thousands of students
gave up their studies to participate;
Krishnamurthy was among them.
Kalki had a compelling passion
to do away with backward customs
and meaningless practices. Perhaps
it was this thirst for doing away with
the old and making the new sprout
and blossom that made him adopt the
pen name of Kalki, the tenth Avatar
of Vishnu, whose mission was to end
the Kali Yuga and initiate a new era
of righteousness.
His historical and social novels
and short stories brought about a sea
change in the way Tamilians looked
at their cultural and historical past.
The colonial past and Euro-centric
thought hung as a heavy pall of smoke
in Tamil literature and thought, hiding the richness of the Tamil heritage. Kalki’s works, a seamless blend
of historical truths and scintillating
imagery, stirred the Tamil people
out of their ignorance and awakened
their love and respect for their language and culture.
Kalki’s simple style and profound
humour helped him to imprint strong
messages in the minds of the Tamil
people, messages that reinforced a
belief in justice and forthrightness.
His novels had no need to take recourse to sensationalism or vulgarity. They enveloped the reader like
a gentle breeze, mesmerising both
the young and old. Just as Bharathiyar’s poems ignited patriotism in the
hearts of the Tamil people, Kalki’s
prose fanned the flames further.
A good part of my knowledge of
Tamil history was acquired through
reading Kalki’s novels. Parthibhan
Kanavu (The dream of Parthibhan)
and Ponniyin Selvan (Son of Ponni) took me through an expedition
through Chola statecraft from the
7th to the 10th centuries. For a reader with a bent of mind for history,
those novels were a treasure trove.
They revealed fascinating facets and
diversity of our art, culture, tradition,
and religion. And all of them dramaGhadar Jari Hai, Vol. V No. 3, 2011
19
Books
tised and personified in larger than
life characters that only Kalki could
weave out of thin air.
Ponniyin Selvan is a 2400 page
historical novel, in 5 volumes. It is
a gripping narration of the life of
Arulmozhivarman (later crowned as
Rajaraja Chola I), one of the greatest kings of the Chola Dynasty of the
10th-11th century. He established the
Chola empire by conquering the kingdoms of southern India, expanding
the Chola Empire as far as Sri Lanka
in the south, and Kalinga (Orissa)
in the northeast. He fought many
battles with the Chalukyas in the
north and the Pandyas in the south.
He streamlined the administrative
system with the division of the land
into various districts and by standardizing revenue collection through
systematic land surveys. Being an
ardent devotee of Shiva, he built the
magnificent Brihadeeswarar Temple
in Thanjavur.
There are controversies around his
invasion of Sri Lanka. Based on extensive research, and relying on stone
inscriptions, copper plates and other
sources, Kalki portrays Rajaraja as a
compassionate King, tolerant of varied religious and political views, and
extremely popular among the people
as the son of Ponni, the river Kaveri.
Kalki describes how he rebuilt the
city of Anuradhapura and hundreds
of Buddhist shrines destroyed in the
war with the Sinhala King, Mahinda.
There are moving instances in the
novel about how he faced flak from
his opponents for refusing to force the
Sri Lankan people feed his army and
instead brought food from his own
granary. There are also gripping accounts of his constructive engagement
with Buddhist monks and his effort
to hand over the supervision of conquered territories to them.
Another magnum opus, Sivagami-
20 Ghadar Jari Hai, Vol. V No. 3, 2011
yin Sabadham (the vow of Sivagami),
was a tribute to the great Pallava Empire and Mahendravarman I, the Pallava emperor and his son Narasimhavarman, the future monarch. The plot
revolves around the historical events
of the Chalukya king, Pulakesi II laying a siege of Kanchi, the capital of
the empire, and Narasimhavarman
avenging this by attacking Vatapi,
the capital of the Chalukyas.
I have visited Mamallapuram (popularly known as Mahabalipuram, the
city of Mahabali, or the city of the undefeatable wrestler - Mamallan) several times and endlessly admired the
huge monolithic stone frescos and the
genius who created them. In Kalki’s
novel, set in the 7th century, this genius, Narasimhavarman comes alive,
falls in love with a sculptor’s daughter
and expands his empire even farther
than what his father attempted. Father and son were great connoisseurs
of art. Kalki portrays the father as
adept at disguising, a compassionate
king who was easily accessible and
who sought and got advice from his
courtiers. Though he gets converted
from Jainism to Shaivism, he remains
tolerant of other religions and respects
their practices. He dreams of a day
when peace reigns and kings do not
have to fight wars with each other.
Humour and story narration support each other as closely as the warp
and weft in a fabric, in Kalki’s novels.
And the humour will always have the
double aim of entertaining the reader
along with poking fun at backward
customs, religious intolerance and
superstitions. There is really no single comedian in his novels. Humour
finds voice and effect through various characters and incidents. In Ponniyin Selvan, one comes across a debate between Saivites, Vaishnavites
and Advaitists.
I will take a little bit liberty here
and involve our readers in this never-resolved debate. Azhwarkadiyan
Nambi, one of the central characters
in Ponniyin Selvan and a staunch
Vaishnavite is challenged by a group
of equally fanatic Saivites. They demand, “Oh, Nambi! Are you aware
that Brahma tried to find Siva’s head
and Vishnu His feet and both failed
ignominiously and surrendered at the
feet of Siva? The how can you pretend
that Vishnu is greater than Siva?”
To which Nambi replies vehemently, “You stupid Veerasaivite
saint smeared with dirt from Veerasaivite feet! Your Siva foolishly gave
several boons to the ten-headed Ravana, but our Sri Rama made mincemeat of him”.
Now in this debate intervenes an
Advaita sanyasin who adds fuel to
the fire. “Why are you wasting your
time in useless arguments? You can
never find out who is greater, Siva or
Vishnu. The answer lies in Vedanta
and you inferior bhaktas will never
reach the stage of gnasa (logic) where
there is neither Siva nor Vishnu, but
only Brahman. The debate continues
nevertheless, until the Advaitin announces, “Appane! Don’t hit me with
your staff. Even if you hit me, I won’t
get upset or quarrel with you, because if Brahman hits Brahman, it’s
Brahman itself that gets hit”.
The debate goes on quite a while
and we get several glimpses of the
Vedanta and all other sacred books
of the Saivites and Vaishnavites.
Nambi brings the debate to a hilarious climax saying, “Watch me all
of you. Brahman is going to be hit by
Para Brahman, the greatest of the
Brahman. I am going to hit myself
with my staff!”.
Kalki stands out like a beacon in
Tamil literature and his works will
engage, educate, inspire and entertain several generations to come.
(Con�nued from Page 18)
of government departments. While
engaged in work, they shall be daily
examined; for men are naturally fickle-minded and like horses at work exhibit constant change in their temper.
Hence the agency and tools which
they make use of, the place and time
of the work they are engaged in, as
well as the precise form of the work,
the outlay, and the results shall always be ascertained.
Without dissension and without
any concert among themselves, they
shall carry on their work as ordered.
When in concert, they eat up (the
revenue).
When in disunion, they mar the
work.
Without bringing to the knowledge of their master (bhartri, the
king), they shall undertake nothing
except remedial measures against
imminent dangers.
A fine of twice the amount of their
daily pay and of the expenditure (incurred by them) shall be fixed for any
inadvertence on their part.
Whoever of the superintendents
makes as much as, or more than, the
amount of fixed revenue shall be honoured with promotion and rewards.
(My) teacher holds that, the officer who spends too much and brings
in little revenue eats it up; while he
who proves the revenue (i.e., brings
in more than he spends) as well as
the officer who brings inasmuch as he
spends does not eat up the revenue.
But Kautilya holds that cases of
embezzlement or no embezzlement
can be ascertained through spies
alone.
Whoever lessens the revenue
eats the king’s wealth. If owing to
inadvertence he causes diminution
in revenue, he shall be compelled to
make good the loss.
Whoever doubles the revenue
eats into the vitality of the country. If
he brings in double the amount to the
king, he shall, if the offence is small,
be warned not to repeat the same;
but if the offence be grave he should
proportionally be punished.
Whoever spends the revenue
(without bringing in any profit) eats
up the labour of workmen. Such an
officer shall be punished in proportion to the value of the work done, the
number of days taken, the amount
of capital spent, and the amount of
daily wages paid.
Hence the chief officer of each
department (adhikarana) shall thoroughly scrutinise the real amount of
the work done, the receipts realised
from, and the expenditure incurred
in that departmental work both in
detail and in the aggregate.
He shall also check (pratishedhayet) prodigal, spend-thrift and niggardly persons.
Whoever unjustly eats up the
property left by his father and grandfather is a prodigal person (múlahara).
Whoever eats all that he earns is
a spendthrift (tádátvika).
Whoever hordes money, entailing hardship both on himself and his
servants is niggardly.
Whoever of these three kinds of
persons has the support of a strong
party shall not be disturbed; but he
who has no such support shall be
caught hold of (paryádátavyah).
Whoever is niggardly in spite of
his immense property, hordes, deposits, or sends out—hordes in his
own house, deposits with citizens or
country people or sends out to foreign countries;—a spy shall find out
the advisers, friends, servants, relations, partisans, as well as the income and expenditure of such a niggardly person. Whoever in a foreign
country carries out the work of such
a niggardly person shall be prevailed
upon to give out the secret. When the
secret is known, the niggardly person
shall be murdered apparently under
the orders of (his) avowed enemy.
Hence the superintendents of all
the departments shall carry on their
respective works in company with accountants, writers, coin-examiners,
the treasurers, and military officers
(uttarádhyaksha).
Those who attend upon military
officers and are noted for their honesty and good conduct shall be spies
to watch the conduct of accountants
and other clerks.
Each department shall be officered by several temporary heads.
Just as it is impossible not to
taste the honey or the poison that
finds itself at the tip of the tongue,
so it is impossible for a government
servant not to eat up, at least, a bit of
the king’s revenue. Just as fish moving under water cannot possibly be
found out either as drinking or not
drinking water, so government servants employed in the government
work cannot be found out (while) taking money (for themselves).
It is possible to mark the movements of birds flying high up in the
sky; but not so is it possible to ascertain the movement of government
servants of hidden purpose.
Government servants shall not
only be confiscated of their ill-earned
hordes, but also be transferred from
one work to another, so that they
cannot either misappropriate Government money or vomit what they
have eaten up.
Those who increase the king’s
revenue instead of eating it up and
are loyally devoted to him shall be
made permanent in service.
Ghadar Jari Hai, Vol. V No. 3, 2011
21
Printed and Published by K Madhusudhan on behalf of Lok Awaz Publishers and Distributors., Printed at: New Print Cottage, B-74,
Okhla Industrial Area, Phase-2, New Delhi - 110020, Published at: E-392, Sanjay Colony, Okhla Phase-II, New Delhi - 110020, Editor: S Raghavan
Struggle
Original: Shadhona by Kazi Nazrul Islam
Translation: Mohammad Omar Farooq
Bohu jug dhore bechechish tora
Ebar mrittu shadhona kor,
Je hate keboli kor monajat
She hate ebar ostro dhor.
Gogon hoite helal chiria
Shajare toder lal nishan,
Buroder aiyu okhkhoy hok
Nesar kore de toder pran.
Translation
You lived for so long,
Now once put your life on the line;
The same hands you use for only prayers,
With weapons let once those shine.
Tearing off the crescent from sky,
Decorate your flag that is crimson red;
Let the seniles live longer
You offer your precious life, go ahead.
Kazi Nazrul Islam (24 May 1899–29 August 1976), sobriquet Bidrohi Kobi,
was a Bengali poet, musician and revolutionary who pioneered poetic works
espousing intense spiritual rebellion against fascism and oppression. His
poetry and nationalist activism earned him the popular title of Bidrohi Kobi
(Rebel Poet). Nazrul was born into a Muslim family in India and received
religious education and worked at a local mosque. He learnt poetry, drama
and literature while working with various theatrical groups. After serving in
the British Indian Army, he started working as a journalist in Kolkata. He
preached revolution through his poetry in works such as “Bidrohi” (“The Rebel”)
and “Bhangar Gaan” (“The Song of Destruction”). He also started a publication
“Dhumketu” meaning The Comet. He was arrested many times by the British
authorities for his activism in the Indian independence movement. He wrote
during his time in prison the “Rajbandir Jabanbandi” (“Deposition of a Political
Prisoner”). He also composed music for many songs which are collectively
known as Nazrul Geeti. Nazrul was declared the National Poet by Bangladesh
in 1972