hile looking for an appropriate text on politics and power, I had a choice of picking either Arthashastra or Sun Tzu’s narrative on war. I decided in the end in favour of Arthashastra because it covers political realism and also brings into focus the role of the king and his rights and obligations.

That text was produced by Chanakya, also called Kautilya or Vishnugupta, (flourished 300 BCE), who was an ancient Indian statesman and philosopher. The classic treatise on polity, Arthashastra (The Science of Material Gain), was a compilation of almost everything that had been written in India up to his time regarding artha (property, economics or material).

Kautilya was a remarkable realist of his time. He is said to have worked as a teacher in the famous ancient Indian university at Takshashila. Kautilya’s work is so deep-rooted in realism that he goes to describe the gory and brutal means a king must adopt to keep himself in power. This could have been one reason why Ashoka, the grandson of Chandragupta Maurya, was educated and nurtured by him as a future ruler. It was because of him that Ashoka renounced violence.

The context in which Arthashastra was written had its peculiarity. During the time of the Greek invasions, especially those led by Alexander the Great, he went to Nanda king, Chaur Dana, who was ruling Magadha, and pleaded for help to save India. Instead of listening to him, the Nanda king insulted him for being a priest and an ugly monkey who knew little about military affairs.

The incident, reliable sources suggest, left a deep mark on his life. Instead of being trapped in an emotional collapse, he responded with what would become a timeless classic, a genuine scholarly magnum opus, the Arthashastra. By virtue of his realistic masterpiece, the Arthashastra as a practical guide to action, he would make a great king, Chandragupta, a Kshatriya who was taken as a young boy by Kautilya to Taxila to educate him in science, arts and military strategy.

With the pragmatic advice from the greatest military and political minds of ancient India, Chandragupta not only dislodged the Nanda dynasty but also stopped the Greek invaders and united India under the famous Mauryan Empire. Kautilya advised him to renounce violence and war, thus taking the path of dharma or morals.

While Machiavelli stresses the art of founding and maintaining new states and Kautilya emphasises maintaining a pre-existing kingdom according to traditional standards, both thinkers worry about securing legitimacy for their respective rulers and political orders. The text’s advocacy of the concept of a strong central administration, and substantive economic and political reforms led Heinrich Zimmer to proclaim it the first complete anthology of the timeless laws of politics, economy, diplomacy and war.

Kautilya believed that while it was important for the state to wage a war and conquer, it was also important to maintain law and order within the state in order to make it more powerful. The fundamental virtue of the text remains realpolitik.

Kautilya advocates absolute monarchy though the king’s powers are hedged in with restrictions. He wants the king to be energetic, endowed with sharp intellect and a strong memory. King, and in our times the ruler, must be free from passion, anger, greed, obstinacy, fickleness, haste and back-biting. To succeed, where needed, he can be ruthless, crafty and two-faced. But the ruler (the king) should not act like a bandit chief. “In the happiness of his subjects lies his happiness.”

The decisions taken by the one at the helm must be measured and based on cool calculation, never on anger, dislike or lust.

To maintain internal peace, he stressed a just and realistic rule of law. His definition of a state related it to power and wealth. Hence, property rights and protection of wealth were important themes in his jurisprudence. In fact, he advocated that one could get rid of corporeal punishment by paying of fines.

Kautilya believed that while it was important for the state to wage war and conquer, it was also important to maintain law and order within the state in order to make it more powerful. The fundamental virtue of the text remains realpolitik, emphasising the state’s self-interest and security by endorsing pragmatism and utility to justify state actions, above all else. National interest thus serves as the principal standard for shaping the foreign policy of a state. In fact, it is the sole motivating force behind all state actions. Actions that serve better than other options to promote the national interest must be selected. Kautilya has famously stated that “the welfare of a state depends on an active foreign policy.”

To pursue an active foreign policy a state must be strong in every way: politically, economically and militarily to minimise the probability of an invasion. Kautilya had clearly grasped the logic of balance of power arguments long before the phrase was known to the West. He had advocated the pursuance of a balance-of-power policy via both self-help and alliances. The essence of Mandala theory is that a state must assume all its neighbouring states as enemies. The states on the other side of these enemy states were likely to be allies: the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

His ‘matsya-nyaya’ doctrine of “the stronger fish devouring the weaker” corresponds to the ‘law of jungle’, ‘might is right’ or ‘anarchy’ in the Western lexicon. Since international politics operates according to matsya-nyaya, moral principles or obligations have little or no force. Consequently, every state, according to Kautilya, acts to maximise its power and self-interest.

Thus, Kautilya’s Arthashastra offers an important non-Western reservoir of ideas and concepts and as such demands theoretical engagement by our parliamentarians as well as students to broaden the discipline of international relations. I hope the people running Pakistan will demonstrate some interest in such thinkers and their texts.

The writer is Professor in the faculty of Liberal Arts at the Beaconhouse National University, Lahore. He can be reached at tahir.kamran@bnu.edu.pk