EVALUATE THE POLITICAL VIEWS OF KAUTILYA .

INTRODUCTION
Kautilya was the minister in the Kingdom of Chandragupta Maurya during 317 – 293 B.C. He has been
considered as one of the shrewdest ministers of the times and has explained his views on State, War,
Social Structures, Diplomacy, Ethics, Politics and Statecraft very clearly in his book called Arthashastra1 .
The Mauryan Empire was larger than the later British India which expanded from the Indian Ocean to
Himalayas and upto to Iran in the West. After Alexander left India, this was the most powerful kingdom
in India and Kautilya was minister who advised the King. Before Kautilya there were other philosophers
in India who composed the Shastras2 but his work was robust and encompassed all the treaties written
earlier. I considered Kautilya for three reasons. Firstly, I wanted to highlight the patterns of thinking in
the east which was present long before Machiavelli wrote his “Prince”. Secondly Kautilya’s ideologies on
state, statecraft and ethics are very realistic and vastly applicable in today’s context. Thirdly, I feel
Kautilya’s work on diplomacy is greatly underrepresented in the western world and it is quite apt to
analyze his work in that area. If we compare statesman on the four dimension framework of: War &
Peace, Human Rights, International Economic Justice and World Order Kautilya had a strong opinion on
all the four aspects. In fact people like Bismark and Woodrow Wilson in recent history had been able to
demonstrate their views only on two of the four dimensions. Kautilya’s work is primarily a book of
political realism where State is paramount and King shall carry out duties as advised in his book to
preserve his state. Kautilya’s work is so deep rooted in realism that he goes to describe the gory and
brutal means a King must adopt to be in power. This could have been one reason why Ashoka, the
grandson of Chandragupta Maurya whom Kautilya advised renounced violence and war thus taking the
path of Dharma or Morals.

KAUTILYA ON WAR

Kautilya was a proponent of a welfare state but definitely encouraged war for preserving the power of
the state. He thought that the possession of power and happiness in a state makes a king superior hence
a king should always strive to augment his power. This actually coincides with the Weber’s view that
there is no moral in international politics which means that states must be at war all the times. Kautilya
though did not state this explicitly but we can infer that he did presume to be at war is natural for a
state. On the other hand he like Thomas Hobbes believed the goal of science was power. He said that,
“Power is strength and strength changes the minds”3 , hence he used power as a tool to control his
society as well as his enemies. He also believed that it is the King’s duty to seek material gain, spiritual
good and pleasures. In this he clearly comes out as a realist and does believe in ethics of responsibility4 .
Kautilya thinks that for a King to attain these three goals must create wealth, have armies and should
conquer the kingdoms and enlarge the size of his state. This is quite interesting because he in a way
does believe that a state’s superiority is in its military and economic might which is what later
philosophers and rulers have followed. In the case of war, Kautilya and Machiavelli have the same
reasoning where they advocate the King to be closely involved in the science of war. Kautilya advocated
three types of war: Open war, Concealed war and the Silent War5 . Open war he describes as the war
fought between states, concealed war as one which is similar to guerilla war and Silent war which is
fought on a continued basis inside the kingdom so that the power of the King does not get diluted. In his
opinion open warfare in any form was righteous. In open warfare he believed that State is one up on
over morals and no morals can stop the State from fighting an open war. He believed that there were
three types of kings who go into warfare and it is important to understand the distinction between the
types of kings and the appropriate warfare strategy to be selected. Firstly, he thought there was a
righteous conqueror who can believes in power of the state. This is where the open warfare needs to be
fought and the righteous king treats the lost king with dignity. Secondly there is a greedy king who fights
war for material wealth in which case along with power state’s resources are lost and hence to prevent
such a war, one should use a tactical and concealed war. Thirdly he thought there were always
demoniacal kings who wanted to plunder and here one must use silent wars. Kautilya was also very
harsh in narrating the exact methods of fighting a silent war and use of spies and women as tools to
reduce the strength of a state. Machiavelli, in his work does not labor into the details and one reason
could be that the time when Machiavelli wrote, The Prince, the world had changed and already quite
immoral in many ways. The aspect which I dislike in Kautilya’s work is where he advocates the use of
women as weapons of war. He saw women as a source of pleasure and charm which should be used to
instill clashes between kings. One reason why wrote in detail explaining the strategy was because he
was a strong proponent of social structure. He strongly believed in the caste system and the relative
position of a man and a woman in a caste. This could be another reason why during his time there were
many Kshatriyas6 . Using secret agents, assassins, lies were tactics which he advocated to win a war. He
vehemently defends the state and believes that religion and morals are supposed to serve the state. In
Kautilya’s concept of war, chivalry does not have any place and he is a realist. When compared to two
early Indian writers Bharadwaja7 and Vishalaksha8 , the former is a realist and the latter is an idealist.
Kautilya, takes the side of Bharadwaja in his Arthashastra and believes that war is a means to an end for
wealth and stability. It is very difficult to say what inspired his thinking on the concept of war as we
know that he was born as a poor Brahmin9 and strongly believed in social structures.

Kautilya on Justice
Kautilya believed that for the prosperity of a state, the state must be devoid of internal conflict and the
King should be in control of the state. To maintain this internal peace he believed in a just and realistic
rule of law. His definition of a state was one which had power and wealth and hence he put property
rights and protection of wealth as one of the important themes in his jurisprudence. In fact he
advocated that one could get rid of corporeal punishment by paying off fines. Kautilya also attaches
great importance to human rights on how the invaded ruler and his ministers should be treated. He
shows a deep understanding of criminal justice and war justice. Surprisingly, for a harsh and realist man
like Kautilya he shows mercy towards the people defeated in a war and recommends humanity and
justice towards them. He thinks that this important to preserve the mandala structure of war and peace.
He advocates that defeated king shall be treated with respect and he should be made an ally. He thinks
that they key people advising the defeated king should be eliminated through a silent war.

KAUTILYA ON DIPLOMACY
Kautilya believed that nations acted in their political, economic and military self-interest. He thought
that foreign policy or diplomacy will be practiced as long as the sell-interest of the state is served
because every state acts in a way to maximize the power and self interest. He thought that the world
was in such a state that a kingdom was either at war or was preparing for a war and diplomacy was yet
another weapon used in this constant warfare. He believed that diplomacy is a series of actions taken by
a kingdom such that it gains strength and eventually conquers the nation with which diplomatic ties
were created. He also believed that treaties should be made in such a way that King benefits and serves
the self-interest of the Kingdom. He did talk about violating treaties and creating dissension between
states so that his kingdom might benefit which directly is similar to Bismarck’s strategies of treaties. In
fact Kautilya can be compared to Bismarck that both of them though of extremely complex network of
treaties and relationships without any successor in either case.
Kautilya described three types of political system namely rule making, rule application and rule
adjudication and has been recognized for his contributions to bringing diplomacy at the helm of state’s
affairs. In his words he defines diplomacy as, “A King who understands the true implication of diplomacy
conquers the whole world” 13 . To understand his concept of diplomacy it is important to understand
the Mandala concept, six types of foreign policy and four solutions.
COMPARING KAUTILYA
Having looked at Kautilya’s approach to war, diplomacy and ethics, it is but important to compare him
with Plato and Machiavelli. I chose them because Plato was born before Kautilya and has been
considered as the greatest philosopher of all times. His view on state, war and society could have been
different because of the geographic origins of these two great minds. I also chose Machiavelli because
he is in recent history and also has written extraordinarily on statescraft and both Kautilya and
Machiavelli served a king.
Kautilya and Plato
Kautilya and Plato have many similarities in terms of social structure, belief in autocracy, emphasis on
virtues of honesty and favoring the elitist in the society. Kautilya endorsed caste structure and approved
of lower caste doing menial jobs while Plato strongly favored slavery. But both men never discuss
slavery in detail nor do they justify it as an institution. Plato and Kautilya both thought the state should
be governed by the learned and elites while despising the idea of democracy. They thought democracy
would result in anarchy. Plato and Kautilya liked the idea of a military class and thought that the rulers
should come from that sect of the society. In addition they believed in honesty and just behavior by the
kings towards their subjects as Kautilya and so did Plato believe in the state of happiness for the Nation.
The important difference comes between these two men come their support for different parts of the
society. While Kautilya favored the Brahmins or the priests to make the law and policy he also favored
the warriors to be the rulers. In case of Plato, he favored the aristocrats to both rule and act as the
intellect for the society. In addition Plato was a philosopher and not a politician, while Kautilya was a
seasoned politician with views on philosophy. This becomes important because Kautilya has been time
and again reproached for being harsh and wicked in his treatise but I attribute it to his being extreme
side of realism having been a politician. The context in which Plato lived was a group of small states with
Athens only as the large empire. In the case of Kautilya, he was part of a large state with centralized
bureaucracy and an expanding empire. The other key difference between them was the construction of
the state. Plato believed in unity and common good central to the state, while Kautilya thought military
to be the focus of the state and a powerful state can be created only by a strong military. In terms of
diplomacy, Plato has very little contribution towards foreign policy and infact thought foreign trade was
a negative influence on the state. In contrast, Kautilya has thought about diplomacy and foreign policy
elaborately. Similarly these two men differ on their economic policy making where Plato thinks about
the State as a provider of rule of law, Kautilya extracts value from the citizens through taxes and
redistributes wealth.
Kautilya and Machiavelli
Kautilya’s work comes from his myths and beliefs where as Machiavelli mainly writes based on his
experiences and examples from history. One of benefits of Kautilya’s work is that this imagination has
given his work a robust structure and can last over a petime. In addition Machiavelli’s work can be
considered as one of the possible subsets of Kautilya’s statecraft. The weakness of Kautilya’s work is that
it is not empirical and is not time tested. Yes, some of his writings were used by his King Maurya but
they were denounced by King Ashoka as wicked and cunning. In addition the language that Machiavelli
uses is very learned while Kautilya uses terse statements which make the point. Though this might look
to be more an issue of education and expression, I think language is a representation of diplomacy and
suaveness. In general Kautilya has been criticized for being harsh and crude in dealing with spies and
espionage and this language differential only vouches for it even more.
 Conclusion
Kautilya is one of the most renowned Indian political philosophers. Though, he lived a long time ago,
Certain philosophies from his theory are still applicable in modern political frame work. The book,
written in Sanskrit elucidates theories and principles of governing a state. Kautilya established an
extremely vital imperative - governance, polity, politics and progress have to be linked to the welfare of
the people. Covering various topics on administration, politics and economy. It is a book of law and a
treatise on running a country which is pertinent even today. His philosophies remain prevalent today in
India.
Kautilya was a statesman of one of a kind in the east especially in India. While he made a great
contribution to statecraft and challenging the Hindu religious thinking by vilifying morals in war and
justifying the end, I think his key weakness was that he was not a visionary. He was a great thinker with
unlimited imagination as his treatise is not written with experiences or drawn from empirical evidences
but out of myths and possibilities. He did not manifest any concrete vision for the Mauryan Empire. He
proposed the mandala concept in war and diplomacy and created intricate web of relations but he did
not predict an outcome for this empire. It was the good luck that the progeny of this Empire were even
stronger kings and expanded the empire else, the fate would have been similar to what Bismarck faced
in Europe. Kautilya needs to be looked at from today’s perspective and one can definitely say that his
blind subordination to the social structure is unacceptable. The current social structure is dynamic and
driven by both political and economic forces. Kautilya could not advocate any change to this social
structure and in fact I think it could be one of the key reasons that India is still deep rooted in social
caste system as no great thinker ever challenged it.