India – Mother of Democracy

One of the dominant narratives of the G20 summit that was held in September 2023 in New Delhi with India as its Chair, was the theme of India as the “Mother of Democracy.” This reiterated the civilisational truth that India since the ancient times, was not only the disseminator of philosophies, knowledge systems and art forms but was also the originator of the democratic spirit and structures. These democratic structures were well evolved and defined. It was an imagined notion that civilisational India was concerned more with philosophies and high thought and had little to show in terms of statecraft and structures. In his essays on the renaissance in India, Sri Aurobindo discusses in great detail  many dimensions of Indian polity.

Sri Aurobindo argues that the ‘legend of Indian political incompetence” had  “arisen from a false view of the historical development and an insufficient knowledge of the ancient past of the country…” Sri Aurobindo discerns  “a strong democratic element in Indian polity and even institutions that present a certain analogy to the parliamentary form, but in reality these features were of India’s own kind…So considered they are a much more remarkable evidence of the political capacity of the Indian people in their living adaptation to the ensemble of the social mind and body of the nation than then when we judge them by the very different standard of Western society and the peculiar needs of its cultural cycle.” It was the existence of this “strong democratic element in Indian polity” and institutions which made India stand apart in the ancient world. Besides being a knowledge society with mighty and well-established seats of learning, India also had a well-established system of governance and of rule which was shaped and defined by the democratic spirit and essence. There was a fundamental difference in the Indian king exercising power from that of kings in other civilisations.

The Indian king’s power, argues Sri Aurobindo, “was not personal and it was besides hedged in by safeguards against abuse and encroachment.” The monarch in the Indian context, observes Sri Aurobindo, was a “limited or constitutional monarch” and his continuation was more dependent on the “continued will and assent of the people.” These ideas of Indian statecraft and structures, thus, travelled with traders, scholars, soldiers, monks and philosophers across the world and left impressions and influences.

A western historian and explorer, Pierre Sonnerat, writes in his “Voyages aux Indes Orientales” (1782), “L’Inde dans sa splendeur, donna des religions et des lois a tous les autres peoples; L’Egypte et La Grece lui durent a la fois leurs fables et leurs sagesse.’ (India in her splendour gave the world her religion and her laws. Both Egypt and Greece owe her their legends and their wisdom.) Sonnerat was just one among legions of explorers and scholars from the west who made this point, having traversed the length and breadth of the continent.

The Uttaramerur Inscriptions, from 1100 years ago in Tamil Nadu perhaps best illustrate this democratic spirit and sense that existed in civilisational India. These inscriptions on the walls of the village assembly, the Gram Sabha Mandapam, dated, 920 A.D during the reign of Parantaka Chola (907-955 AD) are perhaps the best examples reiterating the narrative of “India as the Mother of Democracy.” Veteran archeologist and historian the late Dr Nagaswamy has called it an ‘Outstanding document in the history of India…a veritable written constitution of the village assembly that functioned a 1000 years ago.” The village as per the inscriptions “had an elaborate, highly refined electoral system, a written constitution prescribing a mode of election” with a “right to recall elected representatives if they failed in their duty.”

When we refer to civilisational India’s contribution to world thought and culture, this is one dimension that must be flagged. India, the mother of democracy, is not a slogan, it is a historical reality. It was a crucial contribution she made for the evolution of humankind.

(This article first appeared in “Ritvik” Monthly Newsletter of the Centre for Human Sciences, Rishihood University)

(The views expressed are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the position of the organisation)