CHANAKYA NEETI

CHANAKYA NEETI

Came as the tiger noiseless slow

Like fiery passion's headlong flow.

... 'KING PORUS -- A LEGEND OF OLD' by Michael Madhusudan Dutt.

This is the way the poet has depicted the imperceptible arrival of the invading Greek army of Alexander on the north-western border of India. India was caught unawares then despite her high-flown spiritual philosophy. India lost part of her territory to the Greeks and would have lost her independence completely, perhaps, but for the astute braahman, Chanakya, who became Chandragupta Maurya's Prime Minister and by his shrewd political skills helped the Mauryan king throw the Greeks out of India.

But Chanakyas are not born everyday. As the Mauryan empire declined and the country slid into post-Ashokan non-violence, hordes of barbaric tribes kept on marauding and even invading India and the trend continued throughout history thereafter as the country, now shorn of its kshatriya power, courtesy, Buddhist and Jain non-violence, and disunity among the kshatriya kings owing to the general chaotic conditions prevailing, fell repeatedly to foreign powers without much of a resistance at all. That astute politician, statesman, economist, administrator, author and multifaceted genius who understood every aspect of statecraft was himself never understood by the future kings of the declining Hindu era to the utilisation of his teachings to their full potential and the result was a thousand year long slavery to alien powers which greatly debilitated the Hindu civilisation.

Today we are faced with a similar predicament when our country is threatened from all sides, internal and external enemies who are trying to subvert the sovereignty of the nation. What is needed now, therefore, is Chanakya Neeti to deal with these perfidious designers of India's downfall and we must be effectively able to do it provided our means are right and motives pure, that of defence of the motherland from any intended harm by adversaries.

Written by Sugata Bose