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The ArthaàÈstra in a Transcultural Perspective Comparing Kauäilya with Sun-Zi, Nizam al-Mulk, Barani and Machiavelli The ArthaàÈstra in a Transcultural Perspective Comparing Kauäilya with Sun-Zi, Nizam al-Mulk, Barani and Machiavelli Editors Michael Liebig Saurabh Mishra INSTITUTE FOR DEFENCE STUDIES & ANALYSES NEW DELHI PENTAGONPENTAGONPENTAGON PRESSPRESSPRESS The Arthaàästra in a Transcultural Perspective Comparing Kauäilya with Sun-Zi, Nizam al-Mulk, Barani and Machiavelli Editors: Michael Liebig and Saurabh Mishra First Published in 2017 Copyright © Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi ISBN 978-81-8274-938-2 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without first obtaining written permission of the copyright owner. Disclaimer: The views expressed in this book are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, or the Government of India. Published by PENTAGON PRESS 206, Peacock Lane, Shahpur Jat, New Delhi-110049 Phones: 011-64706243, 26491568 Telefax: 011-26490600 email: [email protected] website: www.pentagonpress.in In association with Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses No. 1, Development Enclave, New Delhi-110010 Phone: +91-11-26717983 Website: www.idsa.in Printed at Avantika Printers Private Limited. Contents Preface vii Contributors ix 1. Introduction 1 Michael Liebig and Saurabh Mishra 2. Kauäilya Redux? Re-use, Hybridity, Trans-cultural Flow and Resilience of the State in India 31 Subrata K. Mitra 3. Understanding Kauäilya’s ArthaàÈstra: Origination, Migration and Diffusion 68 Pradeep Kumar Gautam 4. Kauäilya and Machiavelli in a Comparative Perspective 113 Michael Liebig 5. ArthaàÈstra: Reflections on Thought and Theory 172 Medha Bisht 6. RÈjadharma, Legitimacy and Sovereignty in the ArthaàÈstra 195 Saurabh Mishra 7. Kauäilya and Sun-Zi: Comparative Philosophical Analysis 222 M.S. Prathibha vi The ArthaàÈstra in a Transcultural Perspective 8. FatÈwÈ-ye jahÈndÈri: Hybrid Political Theory in the Delhi Sultanate (Perso-Islamic and Endogenous Traditions of Statecraft in India) 241 Seyed Hossein Zarhani References 264 Index 286 Preface This edited volume continues the series of publications of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) that address the pre-modern Indian political theorist Kauäilya and the relevance of his thought for contemporary strategic thinking and practice. The three conferences on Kauäilya’s ArthaàÈstra organised by IDSA since 2012 are documented in three edited volumes.* These contain analyses of the core ideas and concepts of Kauäilya’s ArthaàÈstra and investigate their relevance for India’s strategic culture. This particular volume takes us a step further by situating Kauäilyan thought in a comparative perspective. That means, first, taking a trans-temporal, mainly intra-cultural perspective on the significance of Kauäilyan thought for the evolution of India’s political institutions and practices. Here, the concepts of intra and trans-cultural hybridity, and the ‘re-use of the past’ are key. In addition, a comparative perspective involves correlating Kauäilya to pre-modern political thinkers of other civilisational spaces and historical contexts, such as Sun Tzu, Ziauddin Barani, Niccolo Machiavelli, and Nizam-ul-Mulk. The impulse for these publications came from a brainstorming in spring 2014, when a group of researchers from IDSA and the South Asia Institute (SAI), University of Heidelberg, met in New Delhi. They shared the view that the academic evaluation of the core concepts of Kauäilya’s ArthaàÈstra – and their contemporary relevance – remain inadequate, and devoid of a comparative dimension. As a result, two trilateral workshops were held: one in May 2015 at IDSA in New Delhi, and another in February 2016 at ISAS in Singapore – the latter titled ‘Evolution of the Modern State in India: Comparing Kauäilya, Machiavelli, Nizam-ul-Mulk, Barani and Sun-Tzu.’ Meanwhile, Prof. Subrata *Gautam, P.K. / Mishra, S. / Gupta, A. (Eds.) (2015, 2016a/b): Indigenous Historical Knowledge – Kautilya and his Vocabulary, vols. I, II, III. New Delhi: Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses/Pentagon Press. viii The ArthaàÈstra in a Transcultural Perspective Mitra moved from Heidelberg to the Institute of South Asia Studies (ISAS), National University of Singapore. The project has been enriched by the researchers and their research subjects drawn from different cultural and national traditions. The research results presented at the workshops are both interesting and novel – offering fresh insights into the evolution of the science of politics, statecraft, and inter-state relations. We are delighted that these research findings are being shared with a wider audience. Jayant Prasad Subrata Mitra Director General, IDSA Director ISAS, NUS Contributors Col. Pradeep Kumar Gautam (Retd.) is currently a Research Fellow in the Military Affairs Centre at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), New Delhi, India. Dr. M. S. Prathibha is currently an Associate Fellow in the East Asia Centre at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), New Delhi, India. Dr. Medha Bisht is an Assistant Professor in the Department of International Relations at the South Asian University, New Delhi, India. Dr. Michael Liebig is a Fellow and Lecturer at the South Asia Institute, Heidelberg University, Germany. Dr. Saurabh Mishra is a Research Assistant at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), New Delhi, India. Dr. Seyed Hossein Zarhani is a Fellow and Lecturer at the South Asia Institute, Heidelberg University, Germany. Prof. Subrata K. Mitra is the Director of Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore, Singapore. 1 Introduction Michael Liebig and Saurabh Mishra In writing this introduction, we have to take a somewhat bigger sweep. This edited volume is already the fifth in a series of books published by the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) that are addressing Kauäilyan thought and its contemporary relevance.1 This volume, however, is the first in the series that has an international character right from the beginning – both with respect to the researchers involved and its subject area – looking at Kauäilya’s ArthaàÈstra in a comparative, transcultural perspective. Yet, it needs to be emphasised that it was a long way until the ‘comparative moment’ was reached. The contents of this edited volume are derived from two workshops on Kauäilyan thought – one in May 2015 at the IDSA in New Delhi and the other one in February 2016 at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), National University of Singapore. However, the genesis of this book goes back to 2012, when a group of Political Science researchers from India and Germany2 came to the conclusion that the idea-contents of Kauäilya’s ArthaàÈstra are far too important for Political Science – political theory, International Relations (IR) theory, Security Studies and Intelligence Studies – as to be solely left to Sanskrit philologists. Unquestionably, Indology has done most valuable scholarly work on the ArthaàÈstra – including making it accessible to the social sciences. But we thought that a fresh approach was overdue that situated Kauäilyan thought firmly in a Political Science frame. After all, the ArthaàÈstra deals with political theory and theorised statecraft and Kauäilya himself calls it a work of ‘Political Science’. We felt that we should work with respect to Kauäilya’s ArthaàÈstra 2 The ArthaàÈstra in a Transcultural Perspective in a directionality that somewhat paralleled that of Amrita and Aruna Narlikar with respect to the MahÈbhÈrata.3 We had, still somewhat vaguely, three research areas in mind: (a) Exploring the relevance of Kauäilyan ideas and concepts for the present – that is, the foreign and domestic policies of post-independence India. (b) The interpretive explication of the central ideas and concepts of Kauäilya’s ArthaàÈstra with respect to its domestic and foreign policy dimension. (c) Exploring the significance of Kauäilya for the genealogy of political thought and the evolution of Political Science and IR theory. Back in 2012/13, the focus of our research had been the relevance of Kauäilyan thought for present-day India.4 What influence, if any, does Kauäilyan thought have on post-independence India’s institutional evolution and political culture as well as on Indian strategic culture? Through expert interviews and the (content) analysis of contemporary political and strategic texts, our research finding was rather clear-cut: Yes, Kauäilyan thought-figures are a significant ideational ingredient of modern India’s politico-strategic culture. This applies to the manifest influence of Kauäilyan thought via the conscious and deliberate ‘re-use of the past’ (Mitra) in addressing contemporary challenges by politico- strategic actors – embedded in India’s paradigm of the ‘modernity of tradition’.5 Equally significant is the latent influence of Kauäilyan thought within the ‘habitus’ (Bourdieu) of political and strategic actors as well as within ‘popular politicising’.6 Subrata K. Mitra’s article in this volume provides the theoretical entrée to the question of the relevance of Kauäilyan thought for modern India’s political institutions and behaviour. However, we quickly came to a second and quite sobering finding – the