Kautilya in Modern Governance and Diplomacy

Exploring Kautilya’s Arthashastra: Professor Subrata Mitra on Its Impact on Modern Governance and Diplomacy

In a thought-provoking webinar moderated by Jovan Kurbalija, Professor Subrata Mitra discussed the enduring influence of Kautilya’s Arthashastra on modern governance and diplomacy. As an Emeritus Professor of Political Science at the South Asia Institute at Heidelberg University in Germany, Mitra is a leading authority on the application of traditional Indian political philosophy, particularly Kautilya’s teachings, to contemporary political systems.

Mitra began by outlining the significance of Kautilya’s work, which dates back to the 3rd century BC and is one of the earliest comprehensive treatises on statecraft. He described the seven pillars of a state according to Kautilya, which include the ruler, ministers, territory and population, fortified capital, treasury, army and police, and allies. Mitra stressed the importance of a ruler’s education, which should encompass a wide range of subjects, including scripture, ethics, diplomacy, and economics, to ensure effective governance.

The discussion then turned to Kautilya’s approach to diplomacy, which involves six methods of foreign policy and four strategies for dealing with other rulers. These strategies range from conciliation and gift-giving to sowing division and the use of force, highlighting the dynamic nature of state relationships where alliances and enmities are fluid and situational.

Mitra also reflected on the resilience of Indian democracy, pointing out the paradoxical aspects of Indian modernity, such as the tension between modern practices and traditional beliefs. He used the political significance of the cow in Indian culture as an example of this paradox.

During the webinar, an AI assistant based on Kautilya’s texts and Mitra’s writings was introduced. The AI’s capabilities were acknowledged, but the discussion affirmed the superiority of human intelligence and creativity, particularly in making historical parallels and engaging in cognitive bridging between the past and modernity.

Audience questions prompted discussions on various topics, including US-India relations, the practical application of Kautilyan theory in global governance, and the distinction between Kautilyan realism and Western forms of realism. Mitra advocated for a Kautilyan realism that incorporates deep cultural understanding and spirituality, suggesting that this approach could lead to more effective peace negotiations by considering the spiritual and historical dimensions of the parties involved.

Mitra also addressed the question of internet governance in India, highlighting the tension between the desire for global digital integration and the government’s cautious approach, including frequent internet shutdowns. He called for more powerful countries to respect the sensitivities of less powerful nations and to exercise self-restraint in their digital policies.

In conclusion, the webinar provided a rich exploration of how ancient Indian political thought, particularly Kautilya’s Arthashastra, remains relevant in the context of modern governance and diplomacy. Professor Mitra’s insights into the balance between righteousness and practicality, the importance of cultural context in international relations, and the enduring value of human intelligence over AI, offered valuable perspectives for contemporary political scientists and policymakers.

Jovan Kurbalija:

Welcome to our discussion today on Kautilya in Modern Governance and Diplomacy. We are particularly honored to have today with us Professor Subrata Mitra, leading expert on Kautilya’s philosophy and generally the way how traditional thinking, Indian in particular but also worldwide, impacts the modern diplomacy and governance. Professor Subrata Mitra is Emeritus Professor of Political Science at the South Asia Institute at Heidelberg University in Germany.

As you will be hearing from his exposé and from our discussion, he was trying to make these bridges, thinking cognitive bridges, between past, Indian past, and modernity. And in a very rigorous way to see what we can borrow from the past and how the past impacts today and possible future. Professor Mitra was very kind to accept one small experiment that we did with this webinar.

We created AI assistant based on Atsharath Shastra texts and also his writings and reflections. You can chat, ask the questions, you can see also the answer to the questions that AI system already provided. Professor Mitra told me one thing that he found it quite powerful and also reminding him on some things that he didn’t think immediately about. But we agreed to put the following challenge. in the spirit of Diplo approach, to have and to prove that human intelligence and human creativity, in this case one of the subrata, is much more superior than what machines can offer us.

Yes, machines are powerful, they can give interesting answers, they can write the thesis, but this cutting edge of a moment of creativity, making historical parallels, it is still our prerogative, when I say our, us as humans. This is the first in series of the sessions that we will do in order to dig out ancient thinking of relevance for today. We are sometimes what we call corononarcistic, we think that everything is happening now and here, and forget that things in the history were also reflecting on the love, hate, death, organization of society, and many other issues.

And India has a very, very rich tradition which unfortunately is sometimes forgotten. Before I pass the floor to Subrata to provide his introductory remarks, I first would like to thank Ambassador Kishan Rana, Diplo Senior Fellow, great friend of Diplo, who suggested this webinar, and thank you Kishan for that. We will proceed in the following way. Subrata will give his introductory expose, then we will consult what AI answered and what were the questions that were half-answered by AI, and ask Subrata to comment on that, and then we will open the floor for you here in the Zoom room, but also as you know, we are broadcasting through LinkedIn, YouTube, and Facebook.

And now my colleague Su Sonia Herring, who is here with us, is monitoring all four channels, therefore she will bring the questions. to us. Subrata, it’s great to have you today here. Please let us know, frame this discussion in the way you find appropriate. The floor is yours.

Subrata K. Mitra:

Jovan, thank you very much for the kind introduction and thank you very much to the whole Diplo team for combining the best of thinking with the best of technology. But before I start, there is another person I have to thank and hold my hands to, that is Ambassador Kishan Rana. He not only discovered me in Heidelberg where I’ve been lost and brought me into such a wonderful company where ideas matter and conversations are important. Thank you very much.

My introductory remarks will have five parts.

I’ll first talk about why I have chosen this title and then I’ll say a little something about what connects me to Kautilya or what connects Kautilya to me.

I would then talk a little about what Kautilya contributes to two different but connected areas, which is governance and diplomacy.

I would then show how ideas go from the past to the present and present to the future, what use an author makes of the past and what use others can make of him.

In that spirit, I would show you a couple of things I have done which go a little beyond Kautilya in terms of governance and in terms of diplomacy.

I will end by asking a general question. How does Kautilyan realism differ from the realism that we know from people like let’s say, John Mearsheimer, whom I follow closely, and how does Cautelian realism help us to join the battle against what I call liberal imperialism or the goodwill of imperialist powers who impose their views as if they were also good for us. That hopefully will take my 20 minutes.

So, to start with, I’ve talked about classical origins of modern politics in India. So you might want to know, is there modern politics in India? Of course there is. There are political parties and there are elections which are very modern and elections come up sometime with great surprising results. For a long time, our liberal friends have been talking about India as a country which is going towards fascism or Hindu fascism, and that will be the end of Indian democracy.

India comes up in the last parliamentary election with a result which surprised everyone. It brought Modi back in again, but with a reduced majority. Of course, our liberal friends have not taken that on board yet, that India is not really going down the path of fascism, but it’s a resilient democracy. And a resilient democracy which simultaneously, while keeping order at home, also keeps talking about the necessity of global order through negotiation and not through weapons and armaments.

And the same Prime Minister Narendra Modi is going from place to place. Who would imagine going to Moscow and to embrace Putin and then going to Kiev and embrace the… embattled Prime Minister, President Zelensky. Now, these are things about India’s modernity, but there’s a little bit of paradox about it.

Why does modern India do things like the Prime Minister throwing himself on the ground in front of Lord Rama and consecrate, helping the consecration of a temple built on the top of a destroyed mosque? How about the cow? Why is the cow at the forefront of the cultural politics of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which is a major component of the government in India today? So, these are some of the paradoxical aspects of Indian modernity and resilient democracy.

That is where I’ll take off and go to Kautilya’s Arthashastra. For those who are not familiar with the text, I actually use the Penguin version of Kautilya’s Arthashastra, the translation of the Sanskrit text. There are several such, this is Rangarajan and the other that we are using is the Kangle translation for the book that I did with a student of mine who has unfortunately left us now. It was published in India and I was very, very impressed with the cover that the Indian publication has. You see Kautilya presented partly as an ascetic and partly as a corporate villa-dilla.

So that is the book written in the 3rd century BC and it is one of the earliest books on the science of statecraft. Why do I call it science? Because it is an ideal type. It’s a book which comprehensively covers all aspects of politics and scientific in the sense that it has a dependent variable and some independent variables.

He cautiously says, if you want order, you have to do this, this, this. If you want prosperity, you have to do this, this, this. If you want peace, then you have to do this, this, this. So that is a bit of a modeler. And the argument I’m making is that implicitly, Kautilya’s ideas have found their way to the political system of India, political process of India, and the resilience of Indian democracy. Now you might ask, how is that possible?

Was Kautilya part of the Constituent Assembly of India who produced the constitution? The answer would be no. This is where I come in, in terms of Kautilya’s connectivity to me. Of course, if you grow up in India, at least in my generation, there were many shlokas or sayings attributed to Kautilya that you repeat, and like one shloka that my mother used to repeat, which is, what is the difference between a learned man and a man with power or a king? A king is worshipped in his own country, and a learned man is worshipped everywhere.

So said my mother and sent me off to the United States for my PhD. But there was nothing of Kautilya in my entire training as a political scientist. In the United States, I studied mathematical models of political behavior, and rational choice was my main methodological training.

When I came to Heidelberg from Berkeley, I got an opportunity, and this is very specific to German universities, at least in my generation. There isn’t a syllabus as such. The professor is expected to do research and produce out of his research knowledge, which he will teach. It’s called Foschung Bezogene Lehre. And I was trying to set up a whole program on the political science of South Asia.

So I asked myself, I’m a man of rational choice and game theory, and I want to do a program which will make my students free of me, which will give them a heuristic device to deconstruct politics as they see it, not simply dismiss it as traditional, but see indigenous modernity for themselves. How is this possible?

Then I asked myself, anyone who’s been trained in Western political science will have to have some foundational thinkers. Thinking about Greek philosophy and the Greco-Roman origins, many, many centuries of Christian church, St. Thomas, St. Augustine, and then comes the breakthrough to modernity, Jean Baudin, Hobbes, and beyond that, post-modernity. Implicitly, they would have to have these things in their foundation so they can study the constitution of Switzerland or today the European Union and so on.

I asked myself, what can I give my students which will rescue them from modernization theory, modernization theory which had argued that the past is bunk, forget it, our present is your future, and our past should be your present. And this is how you can, you Indians, can civilize yourselves. That is the mission civilisatrice, which helped legitimize colonial rule, and I wanted something which would make students free of that.

So I thought about starting, already in 1994, an advanced seminar, Oberseminar. on from Kautilya to Nehru. How do you go from antiquity, what kind of thought there were, and how do you go through colonial rule all the way to Nehru, who cites Kautilya often. That was in the beginning and very quickly we found the Kautilyan realism helped my students in their own work and the method we developed was called culture and rationality.

How do you combine one man, one vote, people voting to get more of what they want out of life, that’s rationality, and yet what they’re maximizing, the domain of their utility function is deep culture. The culture and rationality became, I also wrote a book, and that became the basis of like 50 PhDs that we produced, including one of Misha Levick, a gifted German student of mine who unfortunately died, but together he took my idea of reuse and showed how modern India has understood the Indian past and strategically used that to produce a modernity which will be modern, accessible to modernity from outside India, but at the same time will be deeply Indian.

That then is our connectivity, I say our because that meant me and my colloquium, and we set it up in Heidelberg and then we linked up with the IDSA in Delhi who were also looking for indigenous knowledge and we did quite a few things together.

It was a happy coincidence that Ambassador Rana discovered us a new missile already and wrote a wonderful review of my book, Governance by Stealth. That is the connectivity, and Jovan had the joy to read his work on Churchill. And then we could develop not a polemic, but an engagement with what we have, what has been imposed on us, and how can we go beyond. So now, only a couple of things about Kautilya.

I have to tell you that what I’m going to give now is what I got from the super-intelligent, what is it, artificial intelligence. Now, the two core components of this talk are governance and diplomacy. What Kautilya is doing is to produce an ideal type of a state which will have successful governance. He doesn’t call it governance by stealth, that’s the name that I have given it, which is how do you produce maximum order with the minimum use of force.

And diplomacy is how do you get what you want without necessarily using force. It’s not pacifism, the danda, the stick would be there, already symbolically, and to be used only when you have no other way. So never mind the Sanskrit words, on governance, the character of the state is saptanga. Anga is body, sapta is seven, like seven parts of the body. If you think of the state biologically, these are the seven parts of the state. They are following seven practices, or seven elements.

Swami, which is the sovereign ruler, Amatya, which are ministers, Janapada, which is territory and population, Durga, which is the fortified capital of the state, Kosha, which is cash, which is treasury, and Danda and Bara, which is the army and the police, and Mitra, a state has to have its allies.

So it’s not only endogenous, the state also must look out a little beyond its own territory. And the ranking that I have given is the ranking Kautilya gives. So most important is the ruler, is the king. And like in the body, they are interconnected. So if you suffer in one area, everything else will suffer. Now, king is crucial, and this king is not there for his own pleasure.

This is where we use Kautilya to debunk what is called Oriental despotism, that before the West civilized the non-West through colonization, it was all despotic rulers being there for their own pleasure and not for the subjects. The king has to have, and again, this is from the artificial intelligence, if you type in education of the king, this is what you’ll find. I would want to be a king in Kautilya’s Arthashastra.

According to Kautilya’s Arthashastra, the education and training of the king was considered extremely important for ensuring good governance. And here are some key points. Comprehensive education covering various subjects scripture, ethics, diplomacy, and economics for the king to gain knowledge required for ruling. Now the king had to be well-versed in the Vedas and Arthashastra or science of rule, in logic, agriculture, cattle breeding, and trade among other disciplines.

And he also had to be trained in self-discipline, truthfulness, energy, courage, and a spirit of inquiry. Practical training in areas like military arts. He has to learn how to handle elephants and horses and chariots and weapons, administration and security matters. The king was required to practice yoga and meditation to control his senses and develop mental fortitude.

Kautilya advocated that a heir apparent should start training from a very young age under the guidance of qualified teachers. This holistic, organic concept of the state has to be taught to the king. And I will not go any further. This king has to remember that the Raja is there for the Praja. Now as a student, I was taught the social contract goes back to Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau.

Way before, Kautilya talks about an Indian form of social contract, that you are there not for yourself only, but for them. And in order to do that, you have to have a complete knowledge of what makes good life. Now this king is allowed because Kautilya, the cynic, knows that people will not always follow the rule. And the king is being told, you have to have civil servants.

But civil servants are like fish in water. Can you tell when the fish is actually drinking the water that he is there to protect? So the king has to assume that people will not follow the rule if they can do it some other way. You have to be careful that order is not destroyed and Matsyanaaya or law of the fishes takes over. What is the law of the fishes? The big fish will eat a little fish. The king has to learn to be the biggest of fishes in his own domain and hold on to the righteous path. That is so far as internal politics is concerned. Let’s switch. I’m going a little fast, but I’ll come back when there are questions.

We now go to diplomacy. What is diplomacy? There are so many ambassadors in the Diplo network. You all know about it, which is getting what you want without necessarily using force. So how does the king conceptualize diplomacy? First of all, for a king, you are in the center and in the periphery, you have got other kings. Some of them are your aris or your enemies.

Some are mitras or friends and some are neutral. And the artificial intelligence will give you very complex combinations of friends, friend is friend, friend’s enemy is enemy, enemy’s enemy is friend, and so on. So that you would know exactly how to place each state which is around you. And you have to remember that life is dynamic, politics is dynamic. There are no permanent friends or permanent enemies. Everything depends on how you are situated in the complex at a given point.

So how are you going to tackle these other kings? Here he talks about Satgunya, which are six different strategies, which is peace, war, neutrality, marching, alliance, and double policy towards them, which is pretending to be friends, whereas you have courageous eyes on him, and the other way round.

How do you tackle people? How do you tackle other rulers? There are four things to do, or four possible things. Sama, dana, danda, veda, which is to be conciliatory, and if necessary, give a gift, which is an investment. You can call it a bit of a bribery. And understand their own political system, and if possible, do a little bit what the British did in India, divide and rule, understand the divisions within their families, and go to their cousin, who is against the big cousin, but doesn’t have the guts, so you make friends behind the king with his enemies.

And if everything fails, the big stick, or danda, in Hindi we would say danda, or danda. And this creates a dynamic framework, which produces an equilibrium. Now to pull it all together, I am not going more into detail of the Arthashastra, he has got very, very specific, precise advice on what to do in which particular case. And what I will do now is to, more or less, I mean, this is not mythical, there actually was a king, Chandragupta Maurya, the founder of Maurya dynasty. And this Brahmin man had been humiliated by the enemies of the Mauryas, the Nandavamsa, and he had actually helped.

So if there was a Kautilya, or was he known by other names, we don’t know. But ancient Indian social history is producing evidence of the actual existence of this ideal type of thinking. What we have done in our book with Michel is to look at Kautilya comparatively and go to some French thinkers.

We have in mind Maurice Halbwachs, actually he was killed in Buchenwald in 1945, who has written extensively on how collective memory passes from one generation to another generation.

The French school of Le Ludo Memoire, or Realms of Memory, under Pierre Noha, have done practical fieldwork on how memory communicates itself over long spaces and distance. And very, very important, we have used two other thinkers, Braudel, with the idea of habitus, and with the whole idea of the longue durée, of how history connects, present history connects to the remote past.

And Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, who has used a concept of a state as a palimpsest. Like think of a canvas on which someone has painted something, and you paint a little on it, and other people paint a little on it, so that a canvas becomes a multi-layered canvas. And if you look carefully, you’ll find traces of the past in the present.

All these things help us argue that Kautilya’s Arthashastra has transmitted itself through generations all the way into becoming a common common sense. And this common common sense goes into the making of modern politics in India. Now I’ll move over quickly to beyond Kautilya. See Kautilya was an original thinker, all right, but there are others before him and his contemporaries. So there’s a lot of give and take.

In that sense, Kautilya is a flow of knowledge. So what have we added? There are two things that I have added. First, talk of Kautilya punishment. Again, AI will tell you what happens if someone is trying to corrupt the queen. The queen is closest to the king. If you want to destroy the king and you don’t fight him directly, you go to the queen, you try to corrupt the queen by sleeping with her.

What happens to the person who sleeps with the queen? AI doesn’t go all the way, but the book does. If the person who is corrupting the queen is a spa worker, he should be put into boiling oil publicly and burned to death like that.

But if he’s a Brahmin, he’ll be branded, hot iron will be put on his forehead and sent into exile. Now this is something that will tell you that Kautilyan system is actually based on a very clear hierarchy of human beings, a Varna system.

Louis Dumont, the other French thinker, will call it homo hierarchicus, that the higher level would rule the lower levels. That will not wash today. Today, even saying this in India will make it a criminal offense because democracy has empowered, enfranchised, and entitled everyone.

So when I wrote my book, Governance by Stealth, I asked myself, how Kautilyan can governance be? And this is where I discovered how files are actually written. How? See, if you look at the Parliament, you see a law. But where did the law start? And how does the Home Ministry, whose secret files I used for that book, actually come up with a law? This is where I found that it starts at the lower levels of the bureaucracy, goes all the way up to the Home Secretary, who is a civil servant and a permanent civil servant, who has to work with a politician, who is his boss, the Home Minister, and the boss of the boss, the Prime Minister. The three have to agree for an idea to find the shape of a law. What is the job of the Home Secretary here? The Home Secretary has to think about the feasibility, the feasibility of this law, if he’s doing his work well. And he can tell his boss that don’t do it, it’s no good for you because it will not work.

This is where the balance between politics and administration comes in. That balance, I would argue, and we have evidence in the secret files of the Home Ministry, that the wishes of different classes, different castes, finally find their way to make a law. order legitimate.

Today, when you think about lawmaking in India, you have to take into account what are the Dalits or the former untouchable thinking, what are the tribal thinking, and how will this law affect non-Hindus, particularly Muslims or Christians for that matter.

Today, if you look at an India newspaper, you’ll find enough debate going on, on the necessity of order and for that order to be legitimate. So, that is a thought beyond Kautilya. How do you factor in democracy into the Kautilyan method of orderly rule? And this you do by building into the process of lawmaking mechanisms that will tell the majority what the minority or what the opponents of the government might think. I’m not saying Kautilya was not aware of it. Kautilya had a very fine system of espionage, spies who should bring the contrary evidence to the king, who should alert the king.

But there is no concept of a loyal opposition, a legitimate opposition, which accepts order, but which has a different political view. That is where I would argue we have to go beyond Kautilya to understand how order can be made legitimate.

Now, diplomacy. Which path to take? Saam, Daan, Ved, Tanda, of the four upayas. The king has to consult his ministers, all right, but how about beyond the minister, the people? What I have done, I have done, you will not be able to see it in our book, is to think of I’m going to hold it very close, but the book is available to download free of cost.

I’ve thought about the B.G. Keshu, or the king, as sitting in the middle of a toolbox where he has to ask himself what will be saleable at home and what will be acceptable abroad. And this I call, I’ve taken the idea from Putnam, it’s called the two-level game.

Every king, every state making policies must ask, what will my people want? Should I aggress? Should I capitulate? Should I assert on our legitimate interests? And which one of the three would be acceptable by those who have power over us, by the superpowers? And the king, therefore, or the state, the government, has to find the equilibrium between saleability or acceptability at home and acceptability abroad.

It’s a two-level game we call the toolbox. You will find the details and how Nehru did that to keep India non-aligned and get maximum help from the Soviets as well as from the Americans. And how, in spite of all this anti-Nehru noises, the current government of India is doing exactly that, buying cheap oil from Russia, but at the same time sending humanitarian help to Ukraine.

So what I have done here is to bring people in a democratic society, people matter, bring people in to the making of foreign policy, and this is done by thinking of foreign policy making as a two-level game. a game that is played within the state and a game that you play with powers that be outside. Now, I’ve taken a little more than my 20 minutes, but I’ll come to a close now by talking about Kautilyan realism, how it helps us or helps me give battle to liberal imperialism.

As I said before, on Ukraine, I follow very closely Mearsheimer and he has been talking about what will happen with the uncritical NATO expansion. He has started talking about it 15 years ago, I think, and this is exactly what has happened. But I would make a distinction between the realism of Mearsheimer and Kautilyan realism.

Think of it this way. Like both you, think of Kautilyan realism ensconced within a habitus. A habitus is an area with its population who have a kind of cognitive community who understand one another in terms of basic values. So the Indic civilization in that sense is a civilization which has its own value system and Kautilyan Arthashastra makes sense within it because the Arthashastra is not only Arthashastra, it is the alter ego of Dharmashastra.

You have to remember dharma and dharma is in Sanskrit dharayati, it is dharma, that which holds together and in Kautilyan system, the chap who is being punished accepts his punishment as legitimate because he believes that the punishment is there. to make Dharma possible, make transcendence of ordinary life so that ultimately we go towards liberation of the soul from the earthly bondage.

That is Dharma, Artha, Kama, Moksha, the four areas of life. Now the four important things of life are Dharma, follow the righteous path, Artha which is worldly life, Kama which is procreation, pleasure and if you do it all right, ultimately the soul will be liberated and go to the great soul. Now this is a core idea of the Indic civilization. I still remember in 1975 when Indira Gandhi imposed emergency on India, people started saying Adharma, she has done Adharma. Now Adharma is to be avoided.

I’m saying this because the Kautilyan realism makes sense within a habitus. Now if you’re thinking about Ukraine, if you’re thinking of Russia, think of them as civilizational states or long civilizations and start the argument from there. What is good for Ukraine? What is good for Russia? And why is negotiation necessary? How can they avoid what brought me to politics, which is the Hobbitian idea of avoiding shameful death.

Politics as a science was invented to make death, make shameful death, accidental death, murder unnecessary. So that there will be a Leviathan, a Vizag issue or in Hobbes, a king, a Leviathan. who would make order possible, and you’ll give up your right to self-help in order to accept. But in the Kautilya system, you accept the dandai, you accept punishment because ultimately it will help you to go up. And this is possible, this value system is possible only if you take into account the endogenous culture.

I have seen no argument about the endogenous culture of Ukraine or Russia, or for that matter Gaza and Israel. How can you argue for the two-state solution without taking into account the deep culture of those areas? This is where I would argue Kautilya is not AI make easy. Kautilya has to think deeply about deep cultures, about long durée, about how collective memory connects the present to the remote past, and I’ll go out from there as to what are the choices. Do we capitulate? Do we aggress?

Or do we talk about legitimate interests? And that, forgive me to have taken too long in my way of summing up what I have learned from Kautilya, and in my own modest way what I have contributed to Kautilya, to take Kautilyan realism, the next step in terms of governance and in terms of diplomacy. Thank you.

Jovan Kurbalija:
Thank you very much, Subrata, for the excellent, excellent expose. There are so many ideas, but I’m particularly pleased that you mentioned my favorite historian, Ferdinand Braudel, and long durée, and basically basis of our thinking in our current time in the history. Layers like palmysteps, which Nehru said, I will learn quite a lot today in the topic which is close to my focus, I’m sure focus of our audience today, the question how these deep layers of society can get into the focus and shape our lives.

We will come later on, we’ll have a limited time, we’ll come later on to also your advice how to deal with AI, which is basically trying to unpack the questions of our culture. Now, what I suggest is the following thing. That will squeeze my sort of presentation on AI, but I’ll just quickly share with all of you. You will just confirm if you can see my screen, yes or no? Yes, we can. Okay, here is the website of the event, and here you can ask the question based on the Arthashastra and many, many other documents. You just ask the question, one of the question is, what is the future of humanity? You can ask any question. And we got quite an interesting questions related to daily life. You will get the answer to the question, and then it is going through the different open source systems through all writings. I won’t read the question, but what is nice, you have also all previously asked questions over the last four weeks, and you can see that you can just click what should be, who should be Kautilya’s favorite today. He mentioned Kissinger, and the reason why he considered Kissinger, very interesting insights into the modernity. Now, out of all of this question, there was one question which I’ll ask on behalf of AI, which was not completely answered.

This was the question between just peace and just a peace. Just peace is ethically a solid peace based on the rightness, on the ethics, and just the peace is a pragmatic, more Machiavellian, more Kissinger style peace where you see the conflicts. That line AI didn’t manage to answer, therefore we’ll ask our professor to reflect on that more. Now, what I would like to invite is Susonja, our colleague, to see what are the comments from the audience, and then we can go into the answers and wrap up by Subrata. Su Sonia, over to you. We have also Ljupco raising his hand, and we’ll try to have maybe three maximum impromptu videos, and the rest you may pose the question in the chat, just for the efficiency of our time. Su Sonia, what are the questions or comments from the different channels? Zoom, and we have three more channels, LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube. Over to you.

Su Sonia Herring:
Thank you. Yes, we have some questions from YouTube and Zoom. One of our participants has quite a few questions, so I’ll just cut to the chase and go through them. Puru Singh has asked, how does professors see the US-India relations through Kautilya’s vision, and what comparisons and lessons can be learned from it? Yogandra Kumar has asked, if the Kautilyan theoretical framework is entirely based on realpolitik, and if this theoretical framework would apply in developing norms for global governance, or even norms for contact of international relations in our deglobalized world based on a certain value framework?

And he also mentioned Prime Minister Modi’s op-ed, where he provided his own framework, the key future of which being life and consciousness of oneness of the inanimate and animate. In other words, restructuring of communities for a sustainable global order. I think he’s asking the professor’s views on this. And finally, if there are any other Indian thought streams on international relations, theory-related discourse in our current times and contemporary times?

And finally, Nicholas from YouTube has asked, given the mixed Internet governance model India follows with a strong push for neoliberal economic digitalization, coupled with strong online content control surveillance and the most frequent Internet shutdowns in the world. How can international multi-stakeholder forums address the balance between fostering digital economic growth and protecting fundamental rights in countries that follow such mixed models? And we had one last comment, which found it very interesting that the Western Foundation for Political Thought also starts as parts of the body, in this case, three parts of the body in Plato’s Politeia.

Jovan Kurbalija:
Thank you, Su Sonia. We have Ljuptro with the first comment. I can see his hand. And yeah, we continue. Ljupco, please go ahead.

Ljupco Gjorgjinski :
Yeah, thank you very much. First of all, thank you to Diplo for organizing this. And thank you to Ambassador Rana for obviously having a pivotal contribution, as he always does, in making this conversation possible. Thank you, Professor Mitra for really at least making my own mind kind of explode in many different ways. Let me use Indian techniques that have allowed me to focus it in one small area because it could go into many. That comment on the relation between the body and the theory was something that I put up.

And it came up as you were describing how you said seven parts. Obviously, in Politeia, Plato goes with three parts. The interesting thing is that the most traditional interpretation of Plato’s Politeia is that it’s a blueprint for a state. I’m not one of those, and I interpret it differently. I do think that he really meant what he said, which is, let me present an idea of an ideal state. so that you could see how an ideal ordering of the body and an individual would be, but there are many correlations and he does go into those three. Using again, perhaps Indian Vedic knowledges, it is the first, which he describes as gold in Agnya, the consciousness that is there, silver perhaps as Anahat, and then kind of the stomach, the appetite.

If we’re talking about artificial intelligence, right away, we see a dissonance, a difference. If we’re talking about how a state should be organized and connecting it to the idea of a body, we have this now new entity, artificial intelligence, that does not have a body. So if we’re talking about any governance or diplomatic structures, this is where the division is. So let me not go further than that, but I would love to hear how that connection between body and statecraft, that is obviously there in the tradition presented in Kirtilian kind of realism, manifest perhaps in today’s world, but also the other way around, and a body to statecraft, especially as we have artificial intelligence on the march. Thanks.

Jovan Kurbalija:
Thank you. Thank you, Ljupco. I have now quite an interesting question. The last question inspired me also to pick up on your thinking, Subrata, on the critical issue. Maybe we can start with that, and we move to the other question, which is happening now. It’s a question of our physical incorporation, our body and the governance. And it’s becoming very important in the artificial intelligence discussion.

And there are digital twins concepts of virtuality and reality. And that would be interesting to hear your view and what is in Indian tradition. on this question of our physical incorporation and the question of virtuality. Because sometimes there are views that Asian cultures will be easier to accept artificial intelligence and other virtual tools than European cultures which have a strong focus on the physical incorporation.

That’s a bit philosophical issue, but maybe, off the cuff, some reflection from your side and maybe guidelines for me and others. Where should we look for that inspiration to deal with it? And then we have other questions. I will read them and we will move on. Please go ahead.

Subrata K. Mitra:

Could I go ahead now, Jovan? Yes, yes. With the first question, yes. Thank you very much for those wonderful questions. I don’t know how we are doing for time, but I will discipline myself, though I find it hard facing such rich questions. But I’ll start with the last one from you, Jovan. I think the whole idea behind yoga is to have that body-mind balance. And body-mind balance really means you don’t deny the body, but you ask yourself, what is the higher purpose for which this body is there? How do I live and keep rising at the same time?

So that it’s not just exercise or muscle building, it’s also building the muscles in your head, in your conscience. And this is why the various kinds of yoga have to be seen as holistic. And that I think would nicely match the balance that Kautilya is talking about between doing the right thing and doing the correct thing. Correct according to the law, right according to dharma. And that balance has to be kept and that balance has to be kept by every individual. It can’t be done centrally. To quickly jump to artificial intelligence.

Look, AI can answer your questions, but you are the master of the questions. You decide what is important, what is worth knowing. And from Cautela, what we’re getting is a heuristic device. What is feasible and what is right. So righteousness and feasibility. That is where I think dharma or virtuousness comes in. Without that, no order can sustain itself unless you successfully inculcate the core values in those who are affected by those values.

Otherwise, remember the whole idea of power. No power can sustain itself without the consent of those who are subject to that power. And why do you accept what you don’t like? Who likes punishment? But the Cautelian system, therefore, I would like to argue that think of the present in the context of deep culture and deep past. Even in the age of globalization, you don’t live everywhere at the same time. You live somewhere. You draw on some values which belong to habitus. This, I’m talking about India. And I’m not, therefore, talking about Ukraine or Gaza. But if you are going to talk about them, understand them in terms of the depth,

Recently, I went to Moscow to give a paper on the self and the other. How can the self take the other as seriously as the self takes the self in order to produce a moral level playing field? And for that, I found this recent work, I’ve not yet integrated that to my understanding of Kautilya, the self and the other brings into play what I would call this, how to break through the self and the other wall of separation, like I think, you think, I think, you think, and this can go on. How do we break through it?

We break through it by understanding what is sacred for you and taking the sacredness as seriously as I take my sacredness. The cow is sacred to me as a Hindu, but a cow has to be sacrificed by a Muslim. So there are two different sacrednesses and how can they be part of the same state? This is where Kautilya, if you want to apply Kautilya here, you have to find a balance between Arthashastra and Dharmashastra, and you have to understand what is the dharma of the other.

The other is an untouchable, the other is a tribal, the other is a woman, the other is a transgender, or the other is a Muslim or a Christian. That is taking Kautilya, as far as Kautilya would go, to the great slaughterhouses of the world today, in Ukraine, Russia, or in Gaza, at the occupied West Bank.

Jovan Kurbalija:
Thank you. Subrata, we just got a few requirements to extend in emails that I’m getting direct messages. Therefore, we will extend those of you who obviously have to stick for one hour session, please feel free. to leave the room, but it’s so interesting and it’s not often that we get requests to extend the session, usually people want shorter sessions.

Therefore, I will thank you, Mr. Singh and others for asking for this extension. Here is a quick comment, and we have a few more questions, but a quick comment, Subrata, on your last sentence or last line. It’s a thinking of the Ubuntu thinking, which we often mention in our discussion, which says, I am because you are. And it’s so deep and profound, and we will have one session with Ubuntu African thinkers of traditional knowledge, in this attempt to bring that in the current discussion.

And it’s often quoted, Cogito ergo sum by Descartes, I think therefore I am. It’s an interesting difference between these views. Now, Subrata, we are going to the next questions, and again, we are not cutting it sharp after one hour. We’ll continue to answer all questions. There were quite a few new questions. There was a question of US-India relation. What Kayutila would advise about it or comment on it?

Subrata K. Mitra:
See, I would like to think of US-India relations not only as a bilateral relation, but as a multilateral relation. Now, I’ve talked about liberal imperialism. Should the United States decide, like Foucault would say, like a doctor or professor or parent, what you want is not what you need. That’s a big American problem. They are not able to place themselves in the shoes of the other.

Now, India, as a democracy, shares democratic values with the United States. But, India does not share the armament industry, which is egging on global conflict. Billions of dollars given to Ukraine, but those dollars come back in a recycled way to the armament industry, which is making huge profits out of it. This is where, I would argue, Indo-American relations are thriving, but let’s remember that democracy is not only playing India against China, democracy is about understanding the legitimate habitus of China, of India, of Russia, of Ukraine, or the United States for that matter.

It’s not a one horse race, it’s a multiple, multi-horse race, and that is something that Americans have to understand, and I think India has been very good in terms of conveying to the United States why India has to take her national interest as seriously as America takes American national interest, and the world is not the playing field of America, the world is the playing field of the world.

And this is where I would argue about Gautellian realism, and not simply to take this neo-imperial liberalism of the United States, which wants to legislate to other people as to how they should live, and what they should eat, who should they play with. Anyway, that’s my take on the Indo-American question.

Jovan Kurbalija:
Thank you, Subrata.

Subrata K. Mitra:
I’ve noted, sorry, I’ve noted different questions, and you started, Yohan, yourself, with a question of this deep layer, or Palimpsest, as Nehru would say, what is deep layer, what is long dugha, what does one do with it? as a policymaker? I think that was the question. That was, for me, a very valuable question. Do you think I could respond to that question?

Jovan Kurbalija:
Sure. It wasn’t the Subrata, it is a part of the question, but also my endorsement, because I’m a big fan of Fernand Braudel and these things. But please go ahead.

Subrata K. Mitra:
Okay. In the spirit of conversation, I’ll talk about very controversial things. 1992, 6th of December, should remain a memorable day for anyone who wants to study Indian politics. What happened on that day? On that day, a fanatic mob destroyed with primitive tools a disused mosque which was standing at the place that the destroyers were claiming to be the birthplace of Rama.

That is where I document the first breakdown of India’s secular democratic state. There were soldiers, and in my book, Governance by Stealth, I’ve got a whole chapter on this event, destruction of the Babri Mosque. Now, why am I talking about it? I’m talking about it because the whole Babri Mosque thing has not been understood in terms of the longue durée, or the lieu de mémoire, of politics.

If you deconstruct it, you’d find that the mosque, which was built 400 years ago, was built on the top of what many Hindus thought was a temple which marked the birthplace of Rama. Now, for Hindus, spots on the earth are sacred. They can’t be moved. You can move a mosque. A mosque is not a sacred spot as such. I mean, there are sacred spots for Islam too, like the Kaaba. in Saudi Arabia is a sacred spot, but Hindus claim that spot as the spot where Rama was born and it was a sacred spot for them.

When you invade a country to show your mastery, you destroy temples, you destroy sacred structures, you build your own sacred structure on it. That’s how history has operated. Now, there was already a battle on that, 1920s, and independent India did nothing about it except to seal it off, that mosque was no longer used. A long-due politics would have said, now here is a dispute, the dispute is between two different forms of sacredness and there has to be a negotiation, a negotiated settlement.

Because that was not done, ultimately, that empowered the criminals who broke that disused mosque. That’s how I would argue. Why am I arguing about this? Because that’s not the end of the matter. The Supreme Court solved it brilliantly by saying, we have to go back to collective beliefs. They have not quoted Morris Hallward, but they could have, or P.N. Roha, because the collective belief had it that that spot belonged to Hindus. What the Supreme Court did was a Solomonic judgment. It gave that spot to Hindus and the temple could be built, but ordered the state to give five acres of land for a mosque to be built within the city of Ayodhya. The reason I’m talking about it is because that is not the only disputed spot. There are many others in India today.

And what do you do when you see, as a Hindu, bits and pieces of your gods on the steps of a mosque? or the wall of a sacred Islamic structure. It has to be remembered that for Hindus, gods are like people. You put them to sleep before you go to sleep yourself. If you are rich, you have a temple in your own home. If you’re not, you put a god in this corner of your bedroom so that the gods are living gods. And for Islam, they take their gods, their sacred structure as seriously.

Now, where is the negotiation taking place as to what to do about those temples which are destroyed on the top of which mosques were built? I’m not saying Indians are the only ones who are not doing it. This is not being done in Jerusalem either. So when a spot is disputed over, I would say, open up the layers, look at the palimpsests, as Nehru would say, and read different layers of it and bring together the spokespersons of the different sides and get the holy religious orders to rein in their extremists so that parties, political parties, who can go about moderate politics and bring democracy, both sacredness as well as political order.

So that would be a political scientist’s way of using the long duree and open up the deep layers so that large-scale brutality of the kind happening in Ayodhya or the kind happening in Jerusalem will not be necessary. I’ve written about it and I would keep arguing that the sacred matters for ordinary people, life is not just food, clothing, and shelter. People ask, what happens to me after I die? So, there is the concept of the higher life, higher level. That is what dharma shastra is about. And I’m saying we have to bring the sacred back into politics and do the argument of democracy not only in terms of politics within the system, but politics of the system. And that is how religious violence and revolution can be avoided and evolutionary politics can go on.

So, I just want to extend the domain of politics to bring the sacred back in again. That was one question and only then the second question, just peace would be possible. Just peace would be possible through deep negotiation about the conflicting concept of justice by both sides. It will not be possible if the politics of Ukraine is decided in Berlin and Washington. It has to be decided in Kiev and in Moscow. It’s Kiev and Moscow who need to talk and not Washington and Moscow. This will be my argument. This will also be my argument between India and China, a question that has not been asked, but a question that needs to be asked.

How can India and China get on as good neighbors, or India and Pakistan for that matter? How is just peace possible between India and Pakistan and the conflicting zone of Kashmir? Now I would be cautious enough to say it will be possible if India reopens the issue of the partition of the United India into India and Pakistan and ask all over again, how do we respect the identity of Kashmir and still make it a part of India and make it accessible? to Pakistan.

These are things I can talk about as a political scientist, but in politics they’re extremely difficult to talk as the practitioners of this conversation will know, as Ambassador Rana would know. But that is why I am in political science and that is why I have accepted your invitation to join you in this talk, hoping these ideas of transcendental politics will trickle down to the level of ordinary everyday politics. I don’t know, I’ve gone on a bit at a length. I’ll stop here, Jovan, and I’ll look at you.

Jovan Kurbalija:
Thank you, Subrata. There was one question which was specific, but I have to provide the context before we ask Susania because there were more questions. There was a question from Nicholas which was more related to internet governance and the fact that in India there are a bit of conflicting approaches to the way how internet should be governed.

There is a business circle which is for full integration with the global digital system, government which is more cautious about also digital sovereignty, but also the high level of cuts of the internet, especially you mentioned Kashmir and other regions basically.

Therefore, the question was more how to reconcile all of these issues. One democracy interested to be integrated in global internet, in the same time cutting part of the country from the internet. But I think you gave the, let’s say, ingredients to cook the answer, but maybe you will reflect on this. I’ll be blunt about it.

Subrata K. Mitra:
I’ll be blunt. The superior powers have to understand and accept the fact that we live in an unequal world, that countries which are powerful can abuse the concept of freedom of trade, like England did against China in the Opium War, talking about the right to trade as a fundamental right. And people have to take into account the feelings of weaker powers.

If a country feels vulnerable through invasion of the Internet from outside, I’ll have to give it the right to protect itself by bringing in some restrictions on the freedom of the Internet to reach everyone. Now, how much unfreedom is necessary for real freedom? Where is the balance? I would put the onus on the superior power.

The superior power has to understand the sensitivity of the weaker power and self-control, impose some restrictions on their power to invade other people’s Internet space. Now, India is supposed to be a bit touchy. Western democracies have complained about it.

And I would argue, yes, it is open to abuse by authoritarian societies, authoritarian states. I would still argue that it’s the more powerful who has to take into account the sensitivity of the less powerful. I have a quotation from Buddha, learn to be compassionate to those who are weak and who have to be protected. Be compassionate to your enemies.

Jovan Kurbalija:
Philosophy, teaching, and everything that we give impartial view, but also address the critical issues, because these days, correct talk and avoiding the controversy is difficult. They should be tackled carefully, properly, fairly. And thank you for bringing that element to our discussion. I’ll pass the floor to Susonja for the last maybe two questions, and then, well, I can go till tomorrow. It’s so interesting, Subrata, but we’ll have a chance, but we’ll have to close it with this extra time. Su Sonia.

Su Sonia Herring:
Thank you, Jovan. We have, yes, three questions, and actually, two of them are related to each other, but I’ll just continue. Katilia’s… Okay, sorry about that. Arthas Hastra emphasizes the importance of strategic alliances and pragmatic governance in context of building a multipolar and peaceful global order. How can we interpret his quote, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, to promote a balanced and peaceful coexistence in today’s international relations was the question, and similar to that, how do we reorientate the contemporary state to the founding principles of governance as noble kings who will work to the benefit of their governed? And finally, we have a specific question. Can you please elaborate a little more on the distinction between Kotillion realism and Mearsheimer’s offensive realism?

Subrata K. Mitra:
I’ll start with the last question, because this is, for me, a core problem. Mearsheimer, as I said, I respect him very much, and he had already talked about the importance of gestures, that if I open my arms and… look towards you. I am thinking that I am going to embrace you, and you are thinking that I am going to strangle you. How does the self understand what the other thinks?

Well, by taking the other person’s interpretation seriously. This is what I got from Meir Seymour, and he has been talking about it for a long time, that if Russia says, don’t get any closer, we are afraid of you. Should I say, no, no, there is no need to be afraid of us, especially when the other knows that if a nuclear weapon is placed in Mexico or Canada or Cuba, Americans will not be very happy about it.

So, cautelian realism goes the next step. Where does Putin come from? What is the deep structure of Russian thinking? How do we go back to Tolstoy, to Pushkin, to the evolution of hundreds of years of the habitus that’s called Russia? Or for that matter, Ukraine, which was part of that. How does Ukrainian nationalism differ from Russian nationalism? This is where I would bring in the concept of the sacred or Dharmashastra. The cautelian idea would be to make politics standing on two legs. One is the Arthur, the material leg, the other is the spiritual leg. And I would then ask about the spirituality or the conflict of the two spiritualities.

And that is a heuristic device, and for that you have to go way beyond in history and go to the long dugay. I’m not particularly well versed in Orthodox Christianity, but Orthodox Christianity is also present in Ukraine. Why can’t the two variations of Orthodox Christianity talk to one another about where is the middle ground? Or for that matter, where is the middle ground between ancient Judaism and ancient Islam? How do we go back to those thousands of years of conflict and start from there to find a spiritual basis for a two-state solution? Or a spiritual basis for good neighborliness between Ukraine and Russia?

That is the little twist I’m giving to Mayor Simon’s realism in terms of adding a bit of Kautilyan Dharmashastra or spirituality to it. I’m not a starry-eyed pacifist at all. I simply believe that in every mind there is a spot where you will not be touched without your permission. Because if you are, you will feel violated, then you would want to cut your wrists or cut your throat. So that is where all rage breaks out.

Now, heuristically speaking, where is that spot where you feel violated? That is to be discovered. AI will not help you. A bit of history might. Or a bit of Indology, in the Indian case, might. It calls for research. I’ll quickly now go to the other two questions.

Enemies, enemies. my friend, for now. It’s a dynamic world and don’t have any confusions about a long-term relationship in terms of thinking. That was the Indian mistake. Nehru thought we can propitiate China and give up all claims to Tibet. And this is how the Nehruvian doctrine of Hindi-Chini-Bhai-Bhai started. Until, and Nehru forgot, that the four upayas have to be taken seriously. Shyam, Daan, Ved, Danda. And that, if you make yourself vulnerable, then your neighbour, Kautilya and Ved, would want to expand to you.

So, what India is now doing, I think it’s the right thing to do. Put 50,000 men and probably three times as many in the high Himalayas, to show that if you bite us, we’ll bite you. But at the same time, keep a channel of negotiation open. And this has created, for now, some tranquility. Also, on the line of no control with Pakistan. So, the challenge here is to remember that diplomacy is a four-fold process, Shyam, Daan, Danda, Ved. Governance.

Governance is not simply keeping order. Governance is also keeping legitimacy. And legitimacy entails the self-understanding the other, not only in terms of food, clothing and shelter, but also in terms of the gods or goddesses or spirituality or sacred spaces of the other. If you don’t expand the scope of politics, then you’ll be denying politics the scope which anti-politics or violence will take over.

That will be my Kautellian way of enhancing governance by stealth. In the book I’m talking about order, welfare and identity, how all three have to be taken into account for legitimate order to be possible. An order which is not legitimate is not sustainable and the government of Bangladesh discovered it when Sheikh Hasina tell like a house of cards. I’ll stop here.

Jovan Kurbalija:
Thank you. Thank you Subrata for this great, great answers, comments and real treat for all of us, I would say. Even many colleagues stayed for this extra half an hour. Let me just bring a few good news. We’ll have a recording from the session and transcript which we will add to our AI system. And there are many questions which we will try to tackle in the follow-up to this discussion.

You will receive the summary discussion, you will receive transcript and I invite you to continue using the AI system which we will enrich with the references that Subrata made today. One question which resonates as a strong impression with me today is that logically we were really enriched with so many interesting aspects that Subrata brought to us.

But what matters is the one quote which I always quote Kishan who is today with us and thanks to whom this session was initiated. He started teaching online with Diplo 20 plus years ago. He basically went to his guru. And his guru asked him what he was doing. And he said, I’m teaching online. And the key question which Kishan was asked, and I’m now paraphrasing, is can you convey emotions online? This is a teaching, not conveying information, not conveying given knowledge, but conveying emotions.

And this I felt today, that in addition to really elaborate knowledge and deep knowledge with Subrata, you conveyed to us values of solid knowledge, expertise, but also modesty, and the compassionate call to rediscover our core humanity, which is not just based on material goods, but also our spirituality. And this is at least for me as a moderator, the stronger impression from today.

And with that, I would like to thank Subrata personally, on behalf of Diplo, and I’m sure on behalf of all participants based on their comments that we have been receiving. And we are looking forward to continue this discussion. There are so many threads on which we can develop and learn more from your, not only vast knowledge, but also your deep humanity. Thank you.

Subrata K. Mitra:
Thank you very much. Thank you. Bye-bye.