259

§3. LOCAL FINANCE.

VIII. SOME IMPORTANT CORPORATIONS.

IX. 1. PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS: Schools, Hostels,

INTRODUCTION

§ I.

ONE of the characteristic features of ancient Hindu Associated life in civilization is the marked development of associated ancient life it exhibits. That development was achieved in India. varying degrees in the different spheres of life. We find it in those of religion, learning, politics, civics, and economics. In all these spheres organizations grew up on what may be regarded as a democratic or popular basis to fulfil the ends of national life. A proper presentation of Hindu culture in all its aspects and phases should take into account these diverse developments of the associated life, the many manifestations of the democratic principle which that culture represents. In the present work Local an attempt will be made to trace one particular line government of that development, to dwell upon the workings of aspects. the democratic principle in one particular sphere.

one of its

has both

The subject of Local Self-Government in ancient The subject India has both historical and practical interest. We historical owe largely to her elaborate system of local ment the preservation of the integrity, independence,

B

govern

and practical interest.

The local bodies unaffected by political revolutions

have helped

to preserve the culture

of the race.

Views of
Birdwood

and of Metcalfe.

and individuality of Hindu culture, despite the world-
shaking and catastrophic political movements to
which that culture was frequently exposed in the
course of her history. That provided a sort of Noah's
ark in which were safely protected the vital elements
of Hindu civilization against the overwhelming
political deluges that swept over the country from
time to time.
time to time. As Sir George Birdwood has truly
remarked: 'India has undergone more religious and
political revolutions than any other country in the
world; but the village communities remain in full
municipal vigour all over the peninsula. Scythian,
Greek, Saracen, Afghan, Mongol, and Marāthā have
come down from its mountains, and Portuguese,
Dutch, English, French, and Dane up out of its
seas, and set up their successive dominations in
the land; but the religious trades-union villages
have remained as little affected by their coming and
going as a rock by the rising and falling of the tide'."
This is indeed an echo of an earlier utterance of
Sir Charles Metcalfe: 'The village communities
are little republics, having nearly everything they
can want within themselves, and almost independent
of any foreign relations. They seem to last where
nothing else lasts. Dynasty after dynasty tumbles
down; revolution succeeds to revolution; . . . but
the village community remains the same. . . This
1 Industrial Arts of India, p. 320.

union of the village communities, each one forming a separate little state in itself, has, I conceive, contributed more than any other cause to the preservation of the peoples of India, through all the revolutions and changes which they have suffered, and is in a high degree conducive to their happiness, and to the enjoyment of a great portion of freedom and independence'.1

between

ancient

The fact is that India presents the rare and Relations remarkable phenomenon of the state and the society state and co-existing apart from, and in some degree of inde- society in pendence of, each other, as distinct and separate India units or entities, as independent centres of national, popular, and collective life and activity. Both of them were independent organisms with distinct and well-defined structures and functions of their own and laws of growth and evolution. The limits of state-interference were accordingly so defined and fixed as not to encroach upon the sphere of the activities of the social organization. A policy of non-interference was recognized as the ideal policy of the state, the functions of which were ordinarily restricted to the irreducible minimum', viz. the protection of life and property and realization of the revenue for the proper execution of that duty. There was a well-understood delimitation of the respective

1

Rep. Select Comm. of House of Commons, 1832, vol. III, app. 84, p. 331.