Reading the Arthashastra: On internal security
Conciliation, dissension and coercion What prescriptions does Kautilya offer for internal security? He starts the chapter on “internal and external dangers” by noting that these dangers arise due to...
View ArticleReading the Arthashastra: On declaring war
Calculations of relative power The decision to go war, according to the Arthashastra, is a rational one—the king should choose war or peace, whichever is most advantageous. So Kautilya is not a...
View ArticleReading the Arthashastra: The proper use of détente
Using hostile peace to tilt the balance By distinguishing enmity and offensive action, Kautilya makes a sophisticated argument about the use of a ‘hot peace’ to accumulate economic power, that will, in...
View ArticleReading the Arthashastra: Dealing with disaffection
Its causes and its remedies Which of the three, Kautilya asks, is the worst—an impoverished people, a greedy people or a disaffected people? He answers: An impoverished people are ever apprehensive of...
View ArticleOn liberal nationalism
Connecting liberalism, nationalism and realism Let’s start with an axiom: all individuals are free, and from this freedom, they possess certain inalienable rights. They possess these rights and...
View ArticleReading the Arthashastra: War by diplomacy
Here’s an interesting paper by Roger Boesche on the Kautilyan doctrine of war and diplomacy: Whereas Carl von Clausewitz said that war is just an extension of domestic politics, Kautilya argued that...
View ArticleReading the Arthashastra: The rule of law
The science of punishment and the science of government The concept of dandaniti, variously translated as the science of punishment, the science of chastisement, and in Dr Shamasastry’s translation,...
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Reading the Arthashastra: R P Kangle’s magnificent work
Kautiliya Arthashatra, by R P Kangle (MLBD) R P Kangle’s three volume compilation, translation and commentary on Kautilya’s Arthashastra is actually in print and available from the venerable Motilal...
View ArticleUnjust conquests
On India’s strategic frontiers In ancient Indian political philosophy, the establishment of the state is seen as an instrument to impose dharma, or the moral code, through dandaniti or the rule of law....
View ArticleThe librarian of Mysore
It’s been a hundred years since Rudrapatna Shamasastry published the English translation of Kautilya’s Arthashastra The Star of Mysore has an article (linkthanks JK) by A V Narasimha Murthy marking the...
View ArticleWhat the admiral said about China
Beyond a realistic appreciation of the situation “Common sense” according to Admiral Sureesh Mehta, “that cooperation with China would be preferable to competition or conflict, as it would be foolhardy...
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Sunday Levity: Foreign origins of the South Indian breakfast
Can you stomach the truth? Most people—most of all South Indians—react to this with shock and denial. Some go on and come to terms with it. What could be more South Indian? Photo: avlxyz/Alpha Well,...
View ArticleAnd he’s doing it before even winning the Booker prize
Chetan Bhagat uses sophisms to advance an argument for surrender So how many cliched sophisms can you squeeze into one 900-word op-ed piece? Chetan Bhagat manages to do five. More than a defence of the...
View ArticleThe New Himalayas
Nuclear weapons are doing what high mountains once did As K M Panikkar noted, while India developed a sophisticated framework of inter-state relations within the natural frontiers of the subcontinent...
View ArticleIntroducing Pax Indica
Of Vijay Chauhan, Voldemort and the Realist perspective Over at Yahoo! India columns I introduce Pax Indica, my fortnightly column. Excerpts: The underlying point is that countries operate in an...
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