Benoy Kumar Sarkar

“ The cultural achievements of republican India might easily be belittled. But let students of the history of civilization compare the contributions of the age of Hindu republics with the values of European culture from Pythagoras to Plato. ”

“ But it is hardly known among scholars that the Hindu constitution grew along republican or non-monarchical lines also. [1] Let us exclude from our present consideration the patriarchal-democratic "crowned republics" of Vedic India, as well as the vairājya or kingless states mentioned in the Aitareya Brāhmana, [2] the koola-samghas [3] (family-soviets or communal republics) and ganas [4] referred to in the Artha-shastra, or the nationalities described in the Mahábhārata [5] as "invincible" because of their being constituted on the principle of "equality". ”

“ The chief was elected by the people. He used to preside over the sessions. The title of the president was rājā (literally king) . [24] It corresponded in reality to the consul in Rome and the archon in Athens. And if the emissaries that Pyrrhus of Epirus sent to republican Rome (B. C. 280) could not describe the Roman Senate except as an "assembly of kings", there was nothing specifically undemocratic in the honorific title of rājā for the chief executive of a Hindu republic.
The republic of the Vajjians was a United States of ancient India. ”

“ Thus in the pride of nationalism, fostered also on the occasion of Moslem invasions in the Middle Ages, has to be sought one of the feeders of the custom that in subsequent ages came to be practised exculsively by women, viz., the satee or the self-immolation of widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. ”

“ The Bhaggas had their headquarters in Soomsoomara Hill, the Boolis in Allakappa, and the Kalamas in Kesapootta. Pipphalivana was the territory of the Moriyas, and Ramagama of the Koliyas. There were two branches of the Mallas, one with sovereignty in Koosinara, and the other in Pava. The most important of these ten nations were the Sākiyas of Kapila-vastu, the Videhas of Mithilā and the Lichchhavis of Vesali. The last two were amalgamated and went by the name of the Vajjians. ”

“ It is interesting to observe that the management of affairs of the rural areas of these republics was not the monopoly of the male sex. Women also were proud to bear a part in works of public utility. ”

“ It was a famous city at the apex of the delta of the Indus. In this community, as Diodorus tells us, "the command in war was vested in two hereditary kings of two different houses, while a council of elders ruled the whole state with paramount authority." [11]
Large indeed in Alexander's days was the number of democratically governed peoples, with the institutions of sva-rāj or self-rule though sometimes of the oligrachic character. One of the most important of these nations was the Arāttas (Arāshtrakas, i.e., kingless) with their kinsmen, the Kathians. ”

“ THE GANAS OR REPUBLICS OF ANCIENT INDIA [* 1]
By Benoy Kumar Sarkar.
STUDENTS of comparative politics are generally familiar with the norm in the Realpolitik of monarchical India. It is well known that the rights of the people and then institutional achievements under the Hindu royalties were generically on a par with those of the nations ruled by le grand monarque and such “enlightened despots” as Peter, Frederick and Joseph. ”

“ The laying out of parks, the erection of communal halls, rest-houses and reservoirs, and the construction and mending of roads between village and village were undertaken by men and women in joint committees. ”

“ This cluster of republics represented evidently the survival of a type of polity that had been more or less uniformly distributed throughout the Hindu world. An older link in the chain of India's political evolution is furnished by the clan-commonwealths of the fifth and sixth centuries B. C. And it is to the eastern and central regions of Northern India, roughtly speaking, to the modern province of Bihar, that we have to turn our eyes for these oldest historical specimens of Hindu republics.
These republican peoples are generally enumerated as ten. ”