To the modern governance of India, the most important instructive part of Arthashastra is the machinery of government. About bureaucracy Kautilya feels that, government servants are to be enthused to actively help the administration in carrying out orders by granting them promotion in salary, pension, financial help, and agricultural lands and also by giving them permanent employment.
Authority is obeyed by the people on account of sanctions behind orders, position of the officer concerned who issues authority and qualities possessed by the officer.
All the members of the bureaucracy who derive their authority from the king, stand before the people as representatives of the royal authority and are ultimately responsible to the king. This is evident from the reference in Arthashastra to the enforcement of orders, sending of writs and the procedure of forming royal writs.
According to Kautilya, the state is the only guarantor of peace and it administers -this responsibility through the enforcement of Danda i.e. punishment. Danda makes a man righteous and danda is to be applied with justice. Dandaniti is the oldest name for Arthashastra.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Kautilya regards the study of dandaniti as indispensable. Dandaniti literally means, ‘the use or the employment of the rod. Danda, as the scepter held by king is everywhere the symbol of state.
The principle of division of labour, as primary for the proper and efficient working of the machinery of government, is well illustrated in Arthashastra. Kautilya says, “Sovereignty is possible only with assistance. A single wheel can never move, hence the king shall employ ministers and hear their opinion”. This bears a certain resemblance to modern business rules.
According to Arthashastra, the more responsible the office is, more numerous and the higher are the qualities required for the officer.
Kautilya says, the king shall never allow people to swerve from their duties. The science of public administration is also connected with the 4 Vedas and anvikshiki. Anvikshiki is the light to all kinds of knowledge including the science of public administration. Even today, the outline of Arthashastra, of the relationship between the science of public administration and the sciences of economics and of government is correct.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
But, the relationship of the science of public administration with the triple Vedas, as described in Arthashastra, is not applicable today on account of the predominance of secular authority over religious authority.
Arthashastra emphasizes the close connection between the art and science of public administration. Arthashastra brings out that administrator must possess the knowledge of the science of public administration. According to Kautilya, an administrator can be adept in the art of public administration only if he is conversant with the science of public administration.
The proficiency in the science of public administration is enjoined on almost all the important dignitaries in the government such as the king, the crown-prince, the priest, the ministers etc.
A prince is expected to study the sciences and strictly observe their precepts under the authority of specialist teachers. The high priest should be well versed in the science of government.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
About the minister, Kautilya says, whoever is not well versed in science should be unfit to hear of council deliberations and about the king, he insists, that an earring king who is bent upon doing what is against the science brings about destruction to himself and his kingdom by maladministration. Also, Kautilya unravels the connection between the art and the science of public administration in the opposite direction.
The government of Kautilya’s conception is engaged in a series of social welfare activities. In fact, during the period of Kautilya social welfare was the primary concern of the religious corporations, village and municipal communities, craft guilds and caste assemblies. Thus the concept of today’s welfare state was evident in the Mauryan administration.
The practice of job classification also appears to have attained a high degree of sophistication during Kautilya’s times.