Hindu Theory of International Relations

Benoy Kumar Sarkar

American Political Science Review, 1919, vol. 13, issue 3, 400-414

Abstract: The conception of “external” sovereignty was well established in the Hindu philosophy of the state. The Hindu thinkers not only analyzed sovereignty with regard to the constituent elements in a single state. They realized also that sovereignty is not complete unless it is external as well as internal, that is, unless the state can exercise its internal authority unobstructed by, and independently of, other states.“Great misery,” says Shookra, “comes of dependence on others. There is no greater happiness than that from self-rule.” This is one of the maxims of the Shookra-neeti bearing on the freedom of the rastra, or the land and the people in a state. Kautilya also in his remarks on “foreign rule” expresses the same idea in a negative manner. Under it, we are told in his Artha-shastra, the country is not treated as one's own land, it is impoverished, its wealth carried off, or it is treated “as a commercial article.” The description is suggestive of John Stuart Mill's metaphor of the “cattle farm” applied to the “government of one people by another.”

Date: 1919
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