There is no clear idea about the political organisation of the Indus Valley people. Unlike the Mesopotamians and the Egyptians they have not left behind any inscription describing their system of administration.
Perhaps the Indus valley people were more concerned with commerce and they were ruled by a class of merchants. But it can be safely stated that there was an organisation like a municipal corporation to look after the civic amenities of the people.
For the early British archaeologists, Harappa was a civilisation contrasting with contemporary Mesopotamia in its paucity of weapons.
Moreover, India was the land of religion and hence priest kings were considered to be more appropriate for earliest India than ruling dynasties. But given the civilisational complexity of the Harappan culture, it could not have been ruled through religion alone.
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According to Shereen Ratnagar, religion and ideology are always the trappings or ‘packaging’ of the exercise of political power.
Thus, in one sense, all Bronze Age rulers were ‘priest kings’ with heavy ritual responsibilities, but to suggest that Harappan towns and villages were ruled by priests and not kings would go against all the principles of early state structure.
The urban society of the Indus people seems to have comprised different classes of people including administrators, priests, merchants, craftsmen and labourers. The rural society comprised peasants.
Many tribal institutions survived into the Harappan period and must, in fact, have played an important role. Rural communities perhaps acknowledged the distinction of clan and lineage.
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The ruling class initiated and cemented relationships with various rural communities. This phenomenon explains why the unicorn, possibly a ruling class emblem, is the most frequently occurring image (over 65 per cent) on the Harappan seal.
According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, despite a growing body of archaeological evidence, the social and political structures of the Indus culture remain objects of conjecture.
The apparent craft specialisation, along with the great divergence in house types and size, points to some degree of social stratification. Trade was extensive and apparently well-regulated.
The remarkable uniformity of weights and measures and development of many civil works such as construction of great granaries, imply a strong degree of political and administrative control over a wide area.
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Further, the widespread occurrence of inscriptions in the Harappan script almost certainly indicates the use of a single lingua franca, a sign of social coherence.