Class Notes 4 You

Intro: Father of Indian strategic thought, statecraft and political economy. Was Chandragupta Maurya’s chief advisor and helped him defeat Nanda dynasty and establish the Mauryan dynasty. Context: like Machiavelli was unhappy with corruption in Italy, Kautilya was unhappy with corrupt and inefficient governance of Nanda dynasty in Magadha and wrote Arthashatra in which he talks of making an ideal and corruption free state. Book: Arthashastra: deals with both Dharma(laws) and Danda(statecraft). Deals with both, internal as well as external aspects of statecraft. The Arthashastra talks about grand strategy that includes states military and non-military, material and ideational resources and using these power factors for the realisation of its foreign policy goals Comparable to Sun Tzu's art of war and Machiavelli's prince Deals with types of war, espionage, types of corruption. In the words of Bhikhu Parekh, Kautilya represents the realist tradition of India Ideas: Described stat...

Intro: political thought Based on ideals of buddhism emerged around 6th centruy BC during the time of Mahajanapads though the world identifies buddha as the messenger of peace and spirituality, scholars like Upinder kaur,Gail omvidt and kancha iliah considered Buddha as first social and political philosopher. Said many Kings like Bimbisara, ajatsatru went to Buddha for guidance . Upinder kaur Gail omvedt Kancha ilaiah ideas: Digha nikaya talks about origin of state- Initially an ideal state existed . But with time people became corrupt and greedy and the need for a central authority was felt to main peace and order (akin to hobbes social contract) king: was called mahasammat (the great elect) his duty was to uphold dharma and ensure material and spiritual well being of his subject ( rajadhamma) king was elected from an assemby (buddhist sanghas), which shows its republican and democratic nature . People chose among themselvses the noblest of all who was knowledgable,liberal,gentle,mode...

Intro: RAND corporation VP, George tanham in his 1992 paper, ‘Indian Strategic Thought: An Interpretative Essay’  argued that the Indian elite had not systematically or coherently thought about national security and india is intellectually empty as far as political ideas are concerned. Counters by: Prof Morris Jones says it shows ethnocentric attitude of Western scholars. Says ignoring indian values would lead to impoverishment of west. in his book “India and Asian geopolitics”- Saying that India has no strategic culture is only to say that it is different from the strategic cultures one is used to Rodney W jones- india’s strategic culture is not monolithic, rather it is mosaic like. Max muller- India: what it can teach us-says nowhere in the world, human mind has dealt the issues of different spheres of life with such depth as india. “If all the books on war and peace were to suddenly disappear form the world, and only the Mahabharta remained, it would be good enough to capture al...