Indian Political Thinkers
Indian thinkers questions test doctrines and their keywords - satyagraha, trusteeship, integral humanism - and require you to attribute a critique correctly.
Ancient and colonial
- Kautilya: Arthashastra; saptanga (seven limbs of the state); mandala theory of inter-state relations; danda; the king's duty is yogakshema, welfare.
- Dadabhai Naoroji: drain theory; Gokhale: moderation and constitutional methods; Tilak: swaraj as a right.
Gandhi and after
- Gandhi: satyagraha, ahimsa, trusteeship, swaraj, sarvodaya, decentralised village economy.
- Tagore: critique of narrow nationalism, internationalism, Santiniketan.
- Nehru: democratic socialism, secularism, non-alignment, Panchsheel.
- Ambedkar: constitutionalism, annihilation of caste, social justice, state socialism.
- M.N. Roy: radical humanism; Jayaprakash Narayan: total revolution; Deendayal Upadhyaya: integral humanism; Savarkar: Hindutva.
Worked example: Gandhi's trusteeship means the wealthy hold property as trustees for society. Reasoning: it rejects both violent expropriation and absolute private ownership, so it follows from ahimsa and from his view that wealth is socially produced.
Traps: Ambedkar criticised village panchayats as sites of caste oligarchy - he did not endorse them as Gandhi did; Gandhi was not a defender of unlimited property; Nehru's socialism was democratic and mixed, not Marxist-Leninist; Kautilya's state is not a theocracy.