Background
On Wednesday morning, June 25th, the world awoke
to the surprising news that a 30-something state assemblyman named Zohran
Mamdani had secured a plurality of the votes in the first round of the Democratic
primary for New York City’s mayoral race. This was a cosmic upset, as his main opponent
was the very well-funded but scandal-ridden former governor Andrew Cuomo who
was heavily supported by the establishment.
Attention quickly gravitated to Mamdani’s background, his record as a state
legislator, his viral encounter with “border czar” Tom Homan, and most of all, his
overtly socialist set of campaign promises.
After Cuomo’s concession, Mamdani has now become the official
Democratic candidate for the chief elected official of the country’s largest
city, and is widely favored to win the general election in November. His proposed policies have induced significant
head scratching and angst within the Democratic Party, and it is not clear how
much of his platform he will be able to implement.
What I find interesting – as a casual out-of-state observer
– is the link between Mamdani’s stated goals and the ancient Indian concept of yogakshema
(welfare of the people) laid out in Kautilya’s Arthashastra as a model
for good governance. A brief exploration
of this connection is the subject of this blog post.
Kautilya’s Arthashastra
Kautilya, also known as Vishnugupta or Chanakya, is believed
to have been a key figure in the events that led to the ascension of
Chandragupta Maurya to the throne of Magadha (the state of Bihar in modern
India) a few years after the death of Alexander the Great. He served as a Minister in Chandragupta’s
court, and is regarded as the author of “Arthashastra. The word “Artha” means “wealth” and “shastra”
means “science of”. However, the scope
of Arthashastra is much broader than that and it is widely recognized as
a definitive treatise on governance – focusing on politics, economics and
warfare.
Arthashastra can be construed as a manual that
describes the art of government. It
covers various aspects of governance such as: (a) administration, (b) law, order
and justice, (c) taxation, revenue and expenditure, (d) foreign policy, (e)
defence, and (f) war. A central tenet of
Kautilya’s philosophy – as expounded in Arthashastra – was that
promoting the welfare of the people results in acquisition of wealth, and continued
growth of prosperity requires enlarging the territory by conquest. Also intertwined to these principles of statecraft
is the concept of Dharma, which signifies righteous conduct as well as a
sense of duty – to oneself, to society and to the universal order. These nuances make Kautilya’s 4th Century BCE magnum opus Arthashastra both complementary to and
distinctive from Machiavelli’s 16th Century CE political treatise “The
Prince” to which it is often compared.
Kautilya outlines three key duties of a King:
·
Rakshaa – protecting the
state from external aggression,
· Paalana – maintaining internal law and order within the state, and
· Yogakshema - safeguarding the welfare of the people.
The first two aspects, dealing with external and internal
security of the kingdom, need little elaboration. We focus on the third one, i.e., welfare of
the subjects.
What is Yogakshema?
Kautilya’s vision of an ideal King is one who acts like a
sage monarch (rajarshi) and ‘is ever active in promoting the
yogakshema of his people’. It is
useful to first understand the etymology of this word before examining its
relationship with good governance.
As explained by the famous Indian scholar, philosopher and
teacher Adi Sankara (8th Century CE), the compound word ‘Yogakshema’ is
derived from yoga meaning ‘attaining the unattained’ and kshema meaning
‘maintaining the same’. Also, in
Bhagavad Gita (9.22), Lord Krishna says: “For those who are devoted to Me and
who worship Me with love, I carry what they lack and preserve what they have”
— with the underlined words taken to be another definition of yogakshema.
We can summarize these scriptural
statements as simply: yoga = acquiring, and kshema =
protecting.
In the context of good governance,
we can expand the meaning of the two components of yogakshema as per
Kautilya:
·
yoga – the King’s role in helping his
subjects acquire peace, prosperity and well-being, and
·
kshema – the King’s efforts at ensuring its
peaceful and continued enjoyment.
The implicit message of Kautilya is that the King should focus
on pursuing yogakshema for ALL of his subjects, especially the ones with
limited resources, power and ability to make things happen on their own. Such a policy would lead to the betterment
and empowerment of society as a whole, while reducing inequity. Also, yogakshema
should not be limited to material (i.e., social, political and economic) welfare
only, but also encompass spiritual and moral well-being.
For such a holistic vision of the entire society to prevail,
the subjects should adhere to their own dharma (righteous conduct) while
heeding a higher moral consciousness both at the level of elites and the common
people. The King’s dharmic duties would
entail implementing policies that address both the prosperity (yoga) and
protection (kshema) of his subjects.
This requires initiatives targeting economic development to promote
prosperity as well as social welfare programs to preserve well-being in an
equitable manner across the society.
Relevance vis-a-vis Mamdani’s Platform
Let us take a look at some of the
key pillars of Mamdani’s campaign, viz:
·
Improved housing affordability
· Expanded community benefits for childcare and higher education
· Better infrastructure and amenities
These proposals are fundamentally consistent with Kautilya’s concept of yogakshema. They are aimed at improving the quality of life of those at the lower end of the economic totem pole. Indubitably, these policies protect main-street types such as teachers (whose income has stagnated over the years) while taxing the wall-street types such as investment bankers (who have benefited disproportionately from a booming stock market aided by favorable tax regimes). Some may characterize these as merely socialist promises.
However, as Kautilya has explained, a noble King
‘endears himself to his people by enriching them and doing good to them’
in a way that increases shared prosperity and reduces inequality across the
kingdom. That appears to be Mamdani’s
motivation as well. In fact, both yogakshema
and Mamdani's platform are oriented around the idea that there is an
obligation of the King/state to ensure that those with limited resources are able
to prosper as well.
It is also interesting to note that the Preamble to the US
Constitution’s phrasing “promote the general Welfare, and secure the
Blessings of Liberty” seemingly mirrors the dual thrusts of yogakshema. Here, “promote” can be interpreted as the
attainment of well-being (yoga), and “secure” can be taken to mean
protecting the underlying rights and freedoms (kshema).
In Conclusion
A well-known Shanti Mantra (peace prayer) from the
Upanishads, well-aligned with the concept of yogakshema, states:
swasti prajaabhya
paripaalayantaam
nyaanena maargena mahim mahishah
go braahmanebhya shubhamastu nityam
lokaah samastaah sukhino bhavantu
We pray for the well-being for all the subjects. May the rulers govern the land according to
the principles of justice and equality. May the natural environment (with cows
as a proxy) and intellectuals/custodians of knowledge (with brahmins as a
proxy) be protected on a daily basis. May
all enjoy happiness.
Should Mamdani win the general election this November, one
hopes that the principles of yogakshema will continue to be reflected in
his governing policies and priorities, and this Shanti Mantra would be a
good invocation for his administration.
End Notes
1.
My primary resource for this article was L.N.
Rangarajan’s translation of Kautilya’s The Arthashastra, published by
Penguin Classics – along with assorted forays to the interwebs.
2.
Mamdani’s maternal grandfather, A.L. Nair was a
colleague of my father, B.K. Mishra. Both served as officers of the Indian Administrative
Service in the state of Odisha during the period ~1950 to ~1980.
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