r

EXPEDIENCY AS THE GUIDE FOR

GOVERNMENT POLICY\

A prince should .llave no other aim or thought nor take up any other thing for his study but war and its organization and discipline, for that is

the only’ art that is necessary to one who commands and it is of such virtue that it not only maintains those who are born princes but often enables men of private fortune to attain to that rank. When princes think more of luxury than of arms, they Jose their state. The chief cause of the loss of states is the contempt of this att, and the way to acquire them is to be well versed in the same. He ought therefore never to Jet bis thoughts stray from the exercise of war.

Whence it is to be noted that in taking a state, the conqueror must arrange to commit all his cruelties at once so as not to have them recur everyday, and so as to be able to reassure people and win them over by benefiting them. Whoever acts otherwise either through timidity or bad counsel, is always obliged to stand with knife in hand and

can never depend on his subjects because they,

owing to· continually fresh injurie.i, are unable io

depenu upon him.

For injuries should be done ull together so that being lesi; tasted, they will give

less offence.

.Benefits should be granted little by

little so that they may be better enjoyed.

And

• :rho Pri.nce, Niccolo :\for.hiavelli, translation by Luigi R icci, A Mentor, C}a11S1c, pubha!~~d by ‘fho ~ow Arnerican Library of World Lil.\<lrature foe, ?\ow York, JO.,_, ·

a.hove all, a. prince muAt live with his subjects in such a way that no accident of good or evil fortune can deflect him from his course ; for the good that you do does not profit, because it is thought to be forced upon you and thus yon will derive no benefit

wh.atev~r from it.

From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved· more than feared or feared more than loved. ‘The reply is that one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared +ban loved, if one of the two must be wanting. Fo1 it may be said of men in general that they are ungrateful, anxious to avoid danger, and covetous of gain ; as long as you benefit them, they are entirely yours ; they offer you their blood, their goods, their Jives and their children a~ I have said before, when the necessity is remote ; but when it approaches, they revolt. And the prince who has relied solely on their words without making other preparations is ruined ; for friendship is gained by purchase and not t.hrough grandeur and nobility of character. It is bought but no~ secured, and not a. pinch should be expended in your service. And when men have less scruple in offending one who makes himself loTed than one who makes himself feared ; for love is held by a chain of obligations which, men being selfish, is broken whenever it scrveR their purpose ; but fear is maintained by a dread of punishment which never fails.

I know that everyon~ will admit that it would be highly praiseworthy in a prince to possess all the

55

qualities that are reputed good, but as they eann\<n all be possessed or observed, human eonditiona not permitting that, it is necessary he should be prudent enough to avoid the scandal of those vices which would lose him the state, and yet he must not mind incurring the scandal of those vices without which it would be difficult to save the state, for if one considers weJJ, it will be found that some things which seen as virtues would, if

followed, lead to one’s ruin and some others which

appear vices, result in one’s greater security and

wellbeing.

How Jaudablo it. is for a prince to keep good

faith and live with integrity, and not with astuteneP.s, every9ne knows.

Still, the. experience of our times shows tbose princes to have done great things who have bad Jittle regard for good faith and have been able by astuteness to confuse men’s brains and who have ultimately overcome those who have made 1oyn1ty their foundation.

A prince, being thus obliged to know well how to ad like a beast, must imitate both the fox and the lion for the lion cannot protect himself from traps and the fox cannot defend himself

fro~ wolves.

One must therefore be a fox to recognise traps, and a lion to frighten wulns. Those who wish to be only lions do not underst.’.ln\<l this.

Therefore a pru\<lcnt ruler ought· not to keep faith when by so doing, it would be against hiq interest

and when the rensons which made him hind himself

no longer exist. If men were all good. this precept

would not be a goocl one, but us they arc bau au\<l

56

would not observe their faith with you, so you are not bound to keep faith with them.

Nor have legitimate grounds ever failed a prince who wished to show an excuse for the non-fulfilment of his

promise.

Of this one coul\<l furnish

an infinite number of modern examples to show how many times peace has been brokC’n and how many promises rendered worthless by the faithlessness of princes and those who have been able to imitate the fox have succeeded best. But it is necessary to disguise this character well and to be a great feigner and \<lissemhler ; men arc so simple and so ready to obey present nccessitieR

that one who deceives will nlways find those who nllow themselves to be

deceived.

I will only mention one modern instance. Alex· nndcr VI did nothing else but deceive men ; be thought of nothing else au\<l foun\<l the occasion for it. No man was better able to give assurances or affirmed with stronger oaths ancl no man observed them less. However, he always succeeded in his

deceptions.

It is not therefore necessary for a prince to have all the above named qualities, but it is very necessary to seem to have them. I would even be bold enough to say that to possess them and always to observe them is dangerous, but to nppea.r t.o possess them is useful. Thus it is well to seem merciful, humane, sincere, religious and also to be so, but you must have the min\<l so disposC’d that when it is needful to be otherwise, you may be a.hie to change to the opposite qualities. And therefore

57

the ruler must have a mind prepared to adapt itself according to the wind as the variations of

fortune dictate.

A prince must take great care that nothing goes out of his mouth which is not full of the abovenamed qualities, and to see and hear him, he should seem to be all mercy, faith, integrity, humanity

and religion.

And nothing is more necessary than

to ,seem to have this last quality, for men in general judge more by the eyes than by the hands,

for every one can see, but very few must feel.

Everybody sees what you appear to be ; few feel what you are, and those few will not dare to oppose the many who have the majesty of the state to defend them an\<l in the actions of men and especially of princes from which thC’re is no appeal, THE END JUSTIFIES THE MEANS. Let princes aim at conquering and maintaining the state, and the means will always be judged honourable and praised by everyone, for the vulgar

judges by

appearances, and since the world consists only of the vulgar, the few who are not vulgar are isolated when the many have a rallying point in the prince. A certain prince of the present time, whose name it is well not to mention, never does anything but·

preach peace and good faith, but he is really a great

enemy to both, and ha.cl ho observed either of them, he would have lost his state or reputation on many

occasions.• ‘ •Allama l\Iuhnmma\<l Tqbal (JS77-l!l3fl) had this to 11ay about Machiavelli in bis celebrated Pors1an philoaophical poem-RE.UUZ·I· BEKHUDl;

When atheism first rent religion’s g1umont There arrived [^1]’atan’s me.iscmger-tho }t’lorontino ·

Who worshipp1·d falsehood ; ‘ Whose collyrium shattered the sight of men. He wrote a scroll for prin\<’cs. Ho sowed the seed of C’onflict Ria evil geniua decamped to Jarknesa. · And his awordliko pen struck truth aaundor I Carving imag1•s like • .\zar was his trade His fort1lo mind conco1voJ a now tle~ig~ ; lfiB novel fo1th proclo1mC’d tl10 state tho only tlioty His thoughl:t tho 11.(11111.Jlu t111·[^111]·1I to pru1. cwu

[^0]r1hy. • ‘rho toucl1:1tcmu hu in1rud11r1•tl to 11.’~ t tho truth [^11] 0:1 r.ain Dark n!ght he wr!-’JIJ’~d ob1mt tho peoplu’s ‘ ‘Y’’”‘· • • n.oeptu.>n called m htjj \’Ouabulary-Eipu\<liency f 58 The ruler of a genuine Islamic state is the antithesis of the governments of today.

Here is a living example of one Muslim ruler who had no rci::pcct for the precepts of Machiavelli:

“Aurangzob took for his title the Persian word engraved on the sword which his captive father had given him-Alamgir (World Compeller) and by this titlo he was known to hia subjeets and to succeeding generations of l\Iuslims.

Before we consider the use he made of his power, we must learn something of his character.

“Aurangzeb was first and last, a storn Puritan. Nothing in his life-neither throne nor love nor ease-weighed for an instant in his mind against his loyalty to the principles of Islam. Following the Prophet’s precept that every Muslim should practice a trade, he devoted his leisure to making skull caps. He not only knew the Quran by heart but copied it twice over in his fine calligraphy and .sent the richly adorned manuscripts as gifts to Mecca and Medina. Except for the Haj which he dared not risk Jest he should return to find an occupied throne, ho left nothing undone as his duty as a Muslim.

“Aurangzeb, it must be remembered, might have cast the precepts of Muhammad to the winds and still kept-nay strengthened the hold of his rule. After the general slaughter of his rivals, his seat on the Peacock Throne was as ·secure as Shah Jehan’e or Jehangir’s.

They held their power in spite of flagrant violations of the law of Islam ; they abandoned them· selves to wine, women and song and still held their empire together. Even Akbar, model of Indian sovereigns, owed much of his success to his open disregard of Islam.

The Moghul empire had till now been governed by men of the world and their governments had been efficient enough.

There was nothi~g but his o:vn ~onscience to prevent Aurangzeb from adoptmg t .he eclectic Dinlllahi of his great-grandfather, Akbar, the lu.xurioue1 profligacy of his grandfather, J ehangir or the splendid ease of his father, Shah Jehe.n. The Hindus would have preferred anyth · t

M

.

mg o a ushm zealot. Most probably any other Moghul prince would have followed in the step~ 59 of his forefathers and emulated the indolence and vice of the court in which he had received his earliest impressions.

“Aurangzeb did none of these things. For the first time in their history, the Moghuls beheld a rigid Muslim in their emperor-a Muslim as sternly repressive of himself as of the poople around him ; a. king who was prepared to stake his throne for the sake of the Faith. He must have known that compromise and conciliation formed the easiest and aafeat policy ~n an empire composed of heterogeneous elements of race and religion. He was no youthful enthusiast when he ascended the throne at Delhi but a. ripe man of forty, dooply experienced in the policies and prejudices of the various sections of his subjects. He must have been fully conscious of the dangerous path he was pursuing and well aware that to alienate Hindu 1entiment, to displease hie Persian adherents, to enrage hie nobles by suppressing the luxury of a jovial court was to invite revolution. Yet he chose this course and adhered to it with un~nding resolve throughout the fifty years of his unchallenged sovereignty.

“AJJ of this he did not from any scheme of policy but from sheer conviction of moral righteousness. Aurangzeb was born with a.n indomitable resolution. He had formed hie ideals early iu life and every spring of his vigorous will was stretched at full tension in the effort to attain it. His was no ordinary courage. That he was physically bravo is only to say he was a Moghul prince of the old lion-hearted 1took. But he was among the bravest even in their valiant rank,

Once on the battlefield when the enemy ‘like locusts and ants’ hemmed him in on every 11ide and steel swords were clashing all around him, the setting sun heralded the ho11r of evening prayer and Aurangzeb, unmoved amid the din of fighting, dismounted and bowed himself 1>D the bare ground in the complicated ritual of Islam as composodly as if he had been performing tho Salal in the mosque at Agra. The King of the Uzbeks noted the action and exclaimed, •To fight with euc [^1]

a man is se]f. destruotion I’ 60 “We may read about Aurangzeb’a ideal of enlightened rule in bis reply to one of the nobles who remonstrated with him on his incesiant application of Islam to the affairs of state: He wrote : ••I was sent into the world by Providence to live and labour not for myself but for others ; it is my duty not to think of my own happiness except so far as it i~ inseparably inter· twined with the happiness of my people. It is the reposo and prosperity of my subjects that it behooves me to consult; nor are theso considerations to be sacrificed to anything except the d~mands of justiro, the maintenance of State authority and the security of the country.’ Jn tho same spirit, he wrote to his father, Shah Johnn ns follows: ‘Almighty God bestows His trusts upon be who discharges the duty of cherishing his subjects and protecting the people. 1t is manifest and clear to the wise that a wolf is no fit shepherd, neither can a faint· hearted man carry out the great duty of Government. SOVEREIGNTY IS THE GUARDIANSHIP OF ‘l’HE PEOPLE, NOT SELF INDULGENCE AND PROFLIGACY.’ And these were not merely abstract sentiments but his guiding prinoiplei for practical affairs. NO ACT OF INJUSTICE ACCORDING TO THE LAW OF ISLAM, at least after his accession, BAB EVER BEEN PROVED AGAINST HUI. Ovington, who waa informed by Aurangzob’s least impartial critics, the English merchants at Bombay of the hated East India Compaoy, confessed that the Croat Moghul is an ‘ocean of justice.’ In hie travelogue, Voyage ofSuratintheYtar1689,’ he wrote: •He generally determines the case with exact justice and equity for there is no pleading of peerage or privilege before the emperor _but the meanest man is as soon heard by Aurangieb as the chief of the nobles which makes the nobles vecy circulII· 11pect of their actions and punctual in thoir p~ymenta.’ “Alone he had lived and alone he made ready to die. He had all the puritan’s sense of sin an\<l unworthiness_ and his creed inspired a terrible dread of what might befall hiru after dcat~ in the next world.

He poured out h.is troubled heart to hiss

· h.

_•s

I .

ons in nst letters which show the paternal Jove which even all his su’lpicions against them could not uproot.

61 “Peace be with you and yours,’ he wrote to Prince Azzam. ‘I have grown old and weak and my limbs are feeble. Many were around me when I was born 91 years ago but now I am about to die alone. I know not why I am or herefore I came into the world.

I bewail the moments which I have sp1;mt forgetful of God’s worship. I have not done well by the country or its people. My years have passed profitless. God has always been in my heart but yet my darkened eyes have not recognized His li~ht. Life is transient and the lost moment never returns. There is no hope for me in this life. Tho fever has gone but only skin and dried Bosh aro mino. Tho army is confounded and without heart or help, even as I am apart from God with no rest for the heart. They know not whether they have a king or not. Nothing I brought into this world but I carry away with me the burden of my sins.

I know not what punishment be in store for me to suffer in the next wor Id. Though my trust is in the mercy and goodness of God, I deplore my sins. When I have lost hope myself, how can I hope in others 1 Come what will I have launched my bark upon the waters. Farewell I Farewell I Farewell I’ “To his favourite son, Kam Bakhsh, he wrote : ‘Soul of my heart my son, now I am going alone. I grieve for your helplessneBS. But what is the use l Every torment I have inflicted, every sin I have committod, every wrong I have done, I carry the inevitable consoquonco with mo. Strange that I came with nothing into tho world and now go away with this stupendous caravan of sins I Wherever I look, I see only God. I have greatly sinned and know not what torment a.waits me. Let not Muslims be slain and reproach fall upon my useless head. I commit you and your sons to the care of God and bid you farewell. I am sorely troubled. Your sick mother, Udaipuri, would fain die with me.

Peace I’ “On Friday, the 4th of March 1707, in the fiftieth year of his reign and the ninety first year of his life, after performing tho dawn 8alat and repeating the creed of Islam, he gave up the ghost. In accordance with his command, ‘Carry this cteatare of duat to the noarest burial place and lay him in tho 62 earth with no useless coffin,’ he wo.s buried in all simplicity near Daulatabad bosido tho tombs of tho Muslim saints:

“Aurangzob’s life ho.d been o. vast failure indeed but he had failed grandly. His glory is that ho dared never desert the colours of his faith. Tho great puritan of India was of such st.ufI as wins the martyr’s crown.•

;r • Medieval India Under Pu.tm&11’i::;

.., l’i usfim Rule, St

I: [^0] 01, .new York, JOO:J, pp. 36G-’OO.

an ey·

&n~Poole, O. P.