Republicanism Explained – and then Applied to the Erstwhile “Princely State” of Jammu & Kashmir – Gandhi, Political Nationalism, and Political Internationalism Debunked and Exploded – and the True Meanings of “Patriotism” and “Political Loyalty” Revealed: Take #5

Part I

Republicanism Explained - in History

The historical idea of a Res Publica – where the “people rule themselves” – comes from Ancient Greece, and refers to a City-State that has “no ruler,” no monarch, no king: that is, a FREE CITY.

Athenian “democracy” – amidst an extremely diverse array of Greek city-states and free islands – is usually cited as the “perfect example” of republicanism, but the "democratic execution" of Socrates is a very great blot on its record. Which is surely why Plato's Republic reads like gibberish - for he must have feared for his life within democratic Athens and therefore sought employment elsewhere based on this "political treatise." It is also on record that Aristotle fled Athens after Alexander died - fearing the same fate that befell Socrates, as Alexander had been his student.

Do read Symposium before reading The Death of Socrates - in order to discover what the philosopher, and the Athenian society in which he lived, were like. Then - think, reflect...

People do NOT "rule themselves" when a "democratic body" by "majority vote" can make rules and laws binding on the rest - and as far as JUSTICE is concerned, it can never be put to the vote.

The "republican literature" of Ancient Athens - all in praise of Liberty - well, that's another matter, one that concerns modern education most deeply, particularly of the "elite," and I shall discuss that later in this post. 

And as for Plato's Republic - it is all about a "benevolent ruling elite" - the greatest POLITICAL FICTION of all time - and nothing even remotely anything like a res publica.    

We also have the historical record of the Italian City-States - and Niccolo Machiavelli's works during that time. I have commented on these in a recent post. The point I made in that post is highly relevant to this one as well - for Machiavelli, the greatest "political realist" of that era, did not recommend the use of a hired soldiery, or "mercenaries," for defending the city-state. He helped recruit "local militia" - which means "brave volunteers" - and in his The Prince, he fully explained why such "patriotic forces" are to be preferred over mercenaries.

The most recent historical record of a "civilisation" based on free cities is that of the Hanseatic League - and it is not only "international," spreading across the whole of Europe, but also entirely based on FREE TRADE as well as an international mercantile law that was developed and adjudicated by the merchants themselves, who also ran all civic affairs in their own free cities.

The Hanseatic League is the best historical example we have of free cities in which the people rule themselves, where they live free without rulers, without kings, monarchs, or sovereigns, under rules they have themselves agreed to, and which they administer and adjudicate amongst themselves. The sheer breadth of this civilisation beats the hell out of the centralised, bureaucratised EUSSR State of today - Hamburg, Lübeck, Bremen, London, Reykjavik, and even extending to some of the Baltic port-cities of Russia. And the MONEY then, of course, was GOLD!

Civic Independence - this is the KEY to the phenomenal success of Western Civilisation.

And Law - of course, which follows, because merchants need it. Not kings - who would only love to rule without it.

Part II

The Law

   

The "eternal laws" are those that come from the past, that are "accepted" within the minds of all who hear them "articulated," as laws they were already following. 

Thus. if someone were to say Private Property is sacred and inviolable - because in The Market we ALL treat "possession as property," from which it follows that "possession is nine-tenths of The Law" - ALL would accept this law within their minds, as a Law they were already following, though not knowing why.

Similarly, if someone were to articulate the Law of Inviolability of Contracts by pointing out how even "verbal promises" are meant to be kept - the very same "natural acceptance" of this Eternal Law would immediately transpire. 

The Law of the Inviolability of Contracts, as with the same for Property, would be "loved" - as a source of "protection" - and not "mistrusted," and certainly not "hated," as is always the case with laws IMPOSED upon a people who have NOT AGREED to live under them.

The very old song, "I Shot The Sheriff" - of which there are four live performances by Eric Clapton featured prominently on the right-hand bar - is surely the best example of HATRED for a law imposed upon the unwilling.

The Law of Torts - the oldest laws of the Anglo-Saxon tribes, and these tribes "loved their laws" - are nothing but a source of PROTECTION. They do not "coerce." And instituting these within a PRIVATE LAW SOCIETY is the best and most effective way to completely RID INDIA of the rotten, corrupt, predatory, tyrannical, and completely LAWLESS State Police - as I have explained full well in this old column. 

I could add that tort laws create a "caring society" of a very "practical" kind as compared to the "false philanthropy" of State Welfarism - and that is, a society in which each takes great care and precaution against injuring anyone else, even by accident.

Tort laws - the idea of Justice as compensation for a victim - is also "natural." We can see Justice of this type happening all the time around us - as in the case of traffic accidents. 

The "law of restitution" has to be "articulated" - and not "made." It already exists. It is naturally accepted and followed. None will consider it as an imposition, and all will willingly agree to be bound by it - for their PROTECTION. 

With these Eternal Laws in place - laws that require only their "articulation" as people are already following them - any modern res publica can thrive "without rulers" in the sense of "lawmakers" or even "lawgivers."

But let it be known that this "without rulers" does NOT mean "without rules."

     

Part III

Republicanism vs. Federalism

If we wish to contrast the "meanings" of these two "political terms" - "republicanism" and "federalism" - then the place to visit and look around is Switzerland, particularly Geneva, a free city whose "republicanism" was much admired all over Europe long before the American War of Independence. 

In Scotland then, republicanism could not be thought of, and mass democracy would certainly have been dismissed as absurd, but the Republicanism of Geneva was so deeply admired that Adam Smith traveled all the way there, to breathe its free air. 

When I toured this Free City - accompanied by a very good tour guide - I was shown the Ancient Cannons atop the City Walls of Old, and my good guide made it a point to show me that the "coat of arms" inscribed on those Ancient Cannons were the Coat of Arms of the City of Geneva. 

Above is a photograph of this City Coat of Arms on their own cannon - with many thanks to Google Images.
 

This is "republicanism" - The Free City.

There was a huge mural drawn on the Ancient City Wall of Olde Geneva that my good guide also took me to see - and it showed Geneva as an Ancient Market Town of these mountains.

Made eminent sense to me - for I was there to visit the Geneva Motor Show, the most important automobile exhibition in Europe, and the Swiss do NOT make cars!

What is "federalism" to the Swiss? - who are very proud of their "direct democracy." Theirs is also referred to as a "consociational democracy" - because French-, German- and Italian-speaking citizens have combined together in a "Swiss Identity" without a common language. Theirs is NOT a "homogenous nation-state."

The "Swiss Confederation" - as it is known - has NOT had its Constitution altered for centuries, and as for the 26 or more "cantons" that make up this federation in a tiny, landlocked, mountainous nation - each flies its OWN FLAG - and there is this very interesting as well as award-winning journal article of 2003 titled "The Constitutional Right of Secession in Political Theory and History" by Andrei Kreptul of the Seattle University School of Law that also tells of how "internal secessions" are carried out within Switzerland - as local units of direct democracy switch allegiance from one canton to another! 

During my fortnight's tour of parts of Switzerland I made it a point to ask any Swiss citizen I bumped into to tell me the name of his country's President - and NONE knew his name!

Not even ONE!

We can therefore immediately contrast this accommodative and decentralised political arrangement with the Mount Rushmore type of Central State the USSA has now developed into - and WONDER what ever happened to "republicanism" in America? 

Methinks they got too worked up over the other word - "federalism" - and the key documents of the discussions that took place before the drafting of their original constitution are The Federalist Papers!

This is The American Error.

And, since they also equate "democracy" with "freedom" - this is an ERROR we need to stay very clear of in "quasi-federal" India.

We ALSO need to look into the Root Cause of this Great Error on the part of the American people - and that is, their State-dominated and State-funded SCHOOLS. 


I have a long quote from Ludwig von Mises' The Anti-Capitalist Mentality in the post linked above, on their "Mount Rushmore Central State" - from which I shall quote the opening paragraph below:

In dealing with the liberal social philosophy there is a disposition to overlook the power of an important factor that worked in favor of the idea of liberty, viz., the eminent role assigned to the literature of ancient Greece in the education of the elite. There were among the Greek authors also champions of government omnipotence such as Plato. But the essential tenor of Greek ideology was the pursuit of liberty. Judged by the standards of modern institutions, the Greek city states must be called oligarchies. The liberty which the Greek statesmen, philosophers and historians glorified as the most precious good of man was a privilege reserved to a minority. In denying it to metics and slaves they virtually advocated the despotic rule of a hereditary caste of oligarchs. Yet it would be a grave error to dismiss their hymns to liberty as mendacious. They were no less sincere in their praise and quest of freedom than were, two thousand years later, the slaveholders among the signers of the American Declaration of Independence. It was the political literature of the ancient Greeks that begot the ideas of the Monarchomachs, the philosophy of the Whigs, the doctrines of Althusius, Grotius and John Locke and the ideology of the fathers of modern constitutions and bills of rights. It was the classical studies, the essential feature of a liberal education, that kept awake the spirit of freedom in the England of the Stuarts, in the France of the Bourbons, and in Italy subject to the despotism of a galaxy of princes. No less a man than Bismarck, among the nineteenth-century statesmen next to Metternich the foremost foe of liberty, bears witness to the fact that, even in the Prussia of Frederick William III, the Gymnasium [equivalent to "high school"] the education based on Greek and Roman literature, was a stronghold of republicanism. The passionate endeavors to eliminate the classical studies from the curriculum of the liberal education and thus virtually to destroy its very character were one of the major manifestations of the revival of the servile ideology.

         

No one in the West now know these classical languages - especially not in the USSA, but not even in the Britain of today - while if you read the works of scholars produced by Olde Europe - like Mises himself, product of an "elite" Vienna Gymnasium, or Leoni, or even Hayek - you find not only all the classical languages quoted, but all the modern European languages as well!

Lord Keynes, for example, confessed that his ignorance of German made it impossible for him to adequately review Mises' Theory of Money and Credit (1912). And so he gave it a "bad review"!

But Mises - he instructed all German-speaking students at his Vienna seminars to learn English!

I will deal with India today below - our sub-national "quasi-federalism" based on VERNACULAR LANGUAGES - but do THINK of the ENORMOUS HARM that has been caused to our vast nation-state by State-imposed education, which has included IMPOSED LANGUAGE of instruction, the vernacular. They have actually caused "national disintegration" - and "national dumbification" as well.

Part IV

Republicanism Applied - To Jammu & Kashmir

The erstwhile "Princely State" of Jammu & Kashmir was ruled by Hindu Dogra kings, remnants of the forces around Ranjit Singh, who was defeated in the Sikh Wars of the mid-19th century - after which the previously "lawless Punjab" discovered Law and Justice, thanks to the Lawrences and all the good men around them.

The Hindu Dogra kings of J&K remained as a 25-gun Salute State - but they were essentially "bad rulers," in particular, the last of them, Hari Singh, who was so "fickle" that his Resident resigned. His son, Karan Singh, was India-is-Indira's Minister of Education - and today serves as India's Permanent Representative to UNESCO!

After Mountbatten and the socialist-lawyer Patel finished off all these princely states, Hari Singh acceded in favour of India - it is said because he was Hindu - but it must be noted that his chief Muslim antagonist, Sheikh Abdullah, was party to this accession, being a Communist himself, which is why Srinagar's main market crossing is called "Law Chowk" - the name Sheikh Abdullah gave it, after Moscow's "Red Square"! Sheikh Abdullah's communist leanings made him prefer the socialist Nehru.

After the accession of J&K to India and Nehru's CONgress, there were border skirmishes with Pakistan - and one part of the Kashmir area has ever since been outside India's control. In addition, the matter of finding a "solution" to the "problem" has been "internationalised" - with a very old UN Security Council Resolution calling for a "plebiscite," something that the Indian State has never even tried to implement. There is, even today, a very large UN Office in Srinagar - high walls, high security, barbed wire, armed soldiers, and all that. Nothing has happened because of all this "political internationalism" - and never will. Local matters MUST be sorted out locally - which is what REPUBLICANISM is all about. The very word "politics" - a Greek word - is rooted in the word "polis," which means CITY - as with Persepolis being the City of the Persians. 

REPUBLICANISM is about "politics within each polis."

A Republican World will mean free international trade, free capital flows, free mobility of persons - but no "international politics" or "political diplomacy."

A Republican World as I have explained and outlined above, especially the portion in which the Eternal Law is "articulated" has NOTHING to do with any United Nations or their Security Council, and most certainly nothing to do with their very long list of "human rights" that are all "political rights" to be claimed from all the member-states by aggrieved citizens. What a Republican World is all about is best explained by the following quote from Ludwig von Mises' Nation, State, and Economy:

Liberalism, which demands full freedom of the economy, seeks to dissolve the difficulties that the diversity of political arrangements pits against the development of trade by separating the economy from the state. It strives for the greatest possible unification of law, in the last analysis for world unity of law. But it does not believe that to reach this goal, great empires or even a world empire must be created.

      
  






This "world unity of law" is what was achieved among the diverse merchants in all the European cities that formed the Hanseatic League - and it was PRIVATE LAW. It is still known as The International Law Merchant. 





While the "political party" of the Abdullahs, which still rules J&K today - with Omar, the Sheik's grandson-on-top - is called NATIONAL CONFERENCE, J&K actually comprises THREE distinct religious-cultural regions, and must never be viewed as a purely Hindu-Muslim or even Indo-Pak issue.

These are Jammu in the foothills, which is Hindu-dominated, and was the Dogra capital. 

Then, there is Srinagar - always the "summer capital." Srinagar is Muslim-dominated.

But there is also the enormous Buddhist region of Ladakh, with its capital city of Leh, with all its great, ancient, and wealthy gumpas (monasteries), its "forbidding" landscape, so stark, so bare, so very beautiful as well in a "it's a nice place to visit but you wouldn't want to live here" kind of way, and its extensive borders with Chinese Tibet!

So, J&K has ALL the ingredients for a Swiss-type "republican solution" - and, to be brief, I shall drum home the point with some observations I made in Ladakh, which I have toured extensively, and Srinagar as well. I flew into both these places - so I have never seen Jammu, but that is irrelevant, for the "Big Problem" is really Srinagar. And Ladakh is - well - never mentioned.

Ladakh: The gumpas indicate long established TRADE & CULTURAL LINKS with Tibet. Leh is a CITY - and must have been fairly wealthy once-upon-a-time. Today, the whole of Ladakh is OVERRUN by the Indian Army - and they "occupy" all kinds of "non-places" for what must be "strategic" reasons, dictated by the "national security" apparatchiks in New Delhi, as with Siachen itself. I was very close to Siachen - and the COLD cannot be described in words - but the BUDGET to maintain such large forces in such inhospitable terrain must be INCREDIBLE. I will only point out that there is a very big lake between Ladakh and Tibet called Pangong Tso - and SHIPS ply on the Chinese side, while NOTHING even floats on our side. The "contested" are of Aksai Chin - it ought to be a LOCAL ISSUE, resolved by the LOCALS who border the area, so that peaceful trade can happen, enriching locals on both sides. I could also add that KARGIL is less than a one-horse town.

Republicanism - each city and town with its own CANNONS!

SRINAGAR: Srinagar, in the Kashmir "valley" is a wondrous, green paradise-on-earth - with lakes, floating markets upon them, houseboats for tourists, all kinds of local arts and crafts, including carpet-weaving, all kinds of floriculture and exotic cash crops, including saffron - and excellent HASHISH, of course! - but it too is OVERRUN by "security forces," who "protect the regime." 

The regime itself is a CLIENT-State - and the then Finance Minister of J&K personally informed me that 90 per cent of his Budget comes from New Delhi.

This is apart from the costs of the "security forces" - who are much HATED by the good, honest, and hard-working LOCALS. 

There is NO MAYOR. 

There is only this CHIEF MINISTER - of the ENTIRE PROVINCE.

Federalism!

Let me add that much of Kashmir is under Pakistani control - and these include three other Big Towns: Gilgit, Hunza, and Skardu. 

I have, of course, not visited these - but I did read William Dalrymple's travelogue on these parts, which included his ride into CHINA from here on the KARAKORAM HIGHWAY! Read his first book - In Xanadu (1989).

The Siachen War was originally declared to PREVENT the construction of this Karakoram Highway!

REPUBLICANISM therefore requires PRIVATE HIGHWAYS and RAILWAYS - apart from CIVIL AVIATION - to quickly link up all these little republics.

Left to the TWO STATES - and their vicious visa-passport regimes - and to State Roads and State Railways, this happy scenario will NEVER HAPPEN, or not for a very long time.

Seeing the importance of trade between republics - we can easily visualise REPUBLICANISM along our twin coasts, for the Open Sea is a Free Highway.

We can also see the vital importance of private highways and railways INTERNALLY - to create a FREE MARKET within India, to link all the republics together, and to actually "integrate" the Nation in a "meaningful" - and very "practical" - way.

Thus, there are many MYTHS we must EXPLODE:

The Myth of National Defence / Security.

The Myth of the National Economy - and "trade policy," in particular.

The Myth of Nation as well as Nationality - which i exploded in a recent post.

The sheer destructiveness of the visa-passport regime. As with the Customs Department, so with these jokers - and with so many more of these bureaus - ABOLITION is best.

The obnoxious visa-passport regime is part-and-parcel of the "national security" apparatus. But it is not only NONSENSICAL from the "practical" aspects of security, it constitutes a violent infringement on private property rights - as, for example, when someone rents a property in a foreign location, even a hotel room, and is in possession of an agreement to that effect signed by both parties, one the "alien" and the other, the "citizen," to bar the entry of the alien infringes on the property rights of both.

 
As far as the "practical" aspects of "security" are concerned - allow me to share my first experience with this visa-passport regime, of when I obtained a "student visa" to pursue a one-year MSc programme at the LSE after a dozen or more visits to the British High Commission in New Delhi, standing in long queues each time, answering endless, pointless questions, filling up complex forms, and even scurrying to-and-fro to obtain "evidence" of "assets" I had in India - assets that would convince the British buraucRAT I would indeed return - and proofs of my "ability to pay" for the course and all other related expenses. OK - and so, I finally got that damned visa stuck onto my passport.

After getting out of Heathrow, during that one year in London, I NEVER carried that passport with me anywhere, and NO ONE ever asked me to produce it.

That is, NO ONE in The Market. 

Not even the landlady whose room I rented. Not any shop, not any Big Store or supermarket, not any pub, not the London Underground counter where I used to purchase a monthly "multi-zone" pass: NO ONE!

Further proof of the "myth of national security." 

To drum the point home, allow me to relate my hilarious experience with European border checks when I trained into Holland from Germany - and returned by train as well. At the border when I trained in, NO ONE from the Dutch side came to check anything. And when I trained out, once again there were no Dutch officials to check anything - but right across there boarded a dozen or more uniformed GERMAN OFFICIALS, to check not only passports and visas, but also for the DRUGS the Dutch freely sell. 

Double-whammy, if you ask me - for German TAXPAYERS! 


Of course, all these uniformed Germans could NOT find MY STASH - of course, NOT - and after they departed, and the train started moving again, I fished it out, fantastic genetically engineered ganja with astronomically high THC content, rolled myself a very mighty spliff, and got COMPLETELY STONED, exactly as Mr. Dylan said everyone MUST.


EVERYBODY MUST GET STONED - now, that's what I call the most highly justified USE OF FORCE!      




Thus, in India, maintaining an enormous Border Security Force along with Land Customs and Immigration personnel at all "international" linking points is nothing short of INSANITY. It is also PREDATORY.

It is India that "liberated" East Pakistan way back when - and we have closed our borders to these people today, with much talk of "fencing" a RIVERINE BORDER!

All you protect,

All you defend,

Is just a borderline.

Another borderline.

Joni Mitchell

On the other hand, we have had free immigration always with Nepal - without any problems - and now we have EXPORTED Maoist "ideologues" to them, all these PhD Economics "toilet-paper degree" holders from Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University!

And what about the long border with Burma?

REPUBLICANISM, LOCALISM - and OPENNESS to outsiders and all their tradables.

This is the pathway to Liberty, to Peace, to Civilisation - and to Prosperity for ALL.

India CANNOT gain by IMPOVERISHING its immediate neighbourhood - or by "destablising" regimes there.



The Socialist Central State, the Central Bureaucracy, and Central Legislation as well as Taxation - these must all give way to a New Order.

REPUBLICANISM!

      

In many a way, this is more-or-less what our very recent History has been all about - with these 650+ "Princely States" all over the territory, "sovereign" within their territories, many of these falling in the "border areas" of today.

Part V

Political Patriotism and Political Loyalty

ALL the "national-socialist" political parties of today are actively engaged in activities that HURT vast sections of the domestic population - as with inflationist-welfarism - but also vast sections of the outside world as well, as with PROTECTIONISM and "foreign exchange controls."

Their political ideologies promote CONFLICTS - internal as well as external - from "class wars" to inter-religious or "communal conflict."

They are all directly complicit in promoting a very harmful - and even ANTISOCIAL - sub-national chauvinism.

None of these political parties are based on LOYALTY to any POLITICAL PRINCIPLES.

On the contrary!

ALL these political parties are based on the one and only principle known to GANGSTERS - and that is: LOYALTY TO A PERSON. 

I have on old post on this. 

Speaking of POLITICAL PRINCIPLES - like the "classical liberalism" of Cobden, Bright, Bastiat, Gladstone, Menger, and Mises - they clearly recognised something called The Rightly Understood Interests Of The Whole Of Humanity, and remained loyal and faithful to these Principles till the end, despite whatever fickle fame and even-more-fickle fortune meted out to them.

Why should "patriotism stop at the borders"?

The first trades were all "foreign trades" - as there is little to trade within a tribe, but a wandering traveler, or a nomadic tribe at a new place, can always find tradables.


This is the true meaning of "political loyalty" - which is to ALL PEOPLES, and is based upon PRINCIPLES upheld and unswervingly adhered to.

This is also the true meaning of "political patriotism" - though for any FREE CITIZEN of any FREE REPUBLIC all it means in practice is the willingness to VOLUNTEER to raise arms in order to defend his City, or to apprehend any known OUTLAW.

What is swadeshi - or the "self-sufficient village republic" wherein everyone grows his own crops for his own consumption and weaves his own yarn for his own cloth - but a Big Yarn!

It's certainly NOT the History of Republicanism - so, never mind the "Theory," which says that "wealth is produced through SPECIALISATION and EXCHANGE." 

Ask little kids in KINDERGARTEN: What do you want to be when you grow up?

The KIDS will answer: Actor, dancer, singer, pilot...

NONE will say, "I want to grow up and be 'self-sufficient.'"

Specialisation and exchange - even KINDERGARTEN kids who do not as yet know how to read or write, KNOW full well, within their own MINDS, that the "division of labour is the Principle of Cosmic Change and BECOMING."  

 

For CIVILISATION - we need Peace, Trade, and Private Capital Accumulation.

If we in India do this  - and thereby create a New Indyeah that is "integrated" internally and externally through the "wheels of commerce," then we shall surely HEAL THE WORLD.