URGENT response

ASIAN POLITICAL THOUGHT

TIMOTHY J. LOMPERIS

Saint Louis University

S cholars of Westem political thought have .not dis-puted the fact that there is a rich body of political thought in Asia. They lmve just not bothered to incorporate it into their corpus. This chapter seeks to pro- vide long-overdue recognition to this body of thought by calling attention to the fact that despite its heavy religious content (until modern times), the encounter with political ideas in Asia is just as profound as it is in the West. In fact, since these ideas in Asia are heavily fertilized by their Western colonial legacy, the West has much to learn about itself from these Asian borders to the West's material and intellectual reach.

In this presentation of Asian political thought, what will emerge is that the such central ideas as democracy,ji-eedom, and equality were forn1ed in a historical context different from the West. In the West, these ideas were expressed and then refined through a prism of small city-states in Greece, the universal empire of Rome, the subsequent collapse of this imperium politically but its persistence intellectually in the Thomist medieval synthesis, the smashing fem1ent (both intellectually and institutionally) of the Renaissance and the Reformation, and the birth of the modern nation-state in the twin crucibles of the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) and the French Revolution (1789-1795).

In Asia, these same ideas have been definitionally fil- tered through a different historical stage in a play of three acts. The first act is the traditional or classical era before the Westem contact. We will see what from this period endures as a mark today of"Asianness." The second act is

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a scrutiny of the trauma of the colonial expericm:e. l Ji.,c vast majority of Asian societies, either directly or mth, rectly, came under Western eolonial eonlrol ur unikJ spheres of Western influence. Ilow to react to thi:. in1m.:,;,11n1 precipitated a major ctisis but also resulted in a rid1 1md, lectuaI fennent that produced the first articulu!il ,,i,. ,•I• Asia's nationalisms. The third act is the modern t'-Cn<"'I from the end of World War II to the present, when Asi,l ,,.,,,,. set free on its own independent course. This has raised the question, Whither modern Asia? Is Asia no dilforcnl lh•.m a common globalizing world, or docs something llbtut.:, tively Asian remain about its political thought'!

In these three acts, we will examine Asian conct.•p!s tiflhc state and of statecraft, as well as or military grand s1m1cg1e:"' and views on social equity and gender as they relate Ill th1..""' three concepts. The focus will be on India um! Chinn because these two ancient polities form the foundalillm1l p1J, lam of Asia. Japan will also be given considerable atlcntiun. along with some references to Korea. Southeast Asia will be considered not so much as individual countries but us a region tl1at has always been a tempestuous battleground between Indian and Chinese ideas and institutions.

Theoretical Approach

Insofar as the political thought of Asia crune to the atten~ tion of Western political theorists, it tended to be painted.in the broad brushes of overgeneralization. Karl Marx, In

outlining the global stages to his class struggle, wrote ol' an "Asiatic mode of production" (quoted in Tucker, 1972, p. 5), which he chanu.:terizcd as a labtir-inlcnsivc agricul- tural society. Writing in this tradition, Karl Wlltfogcl (1957) spelled this out as a form of "Oriental despotism" ari::dng from the need to secure the necessary c()rvcc lnbor to support the rice culture of what he termed "hydrau I ie soci- ety." Taking a more cultural perspective, F. 8. ( •. Nm1hrnp (l 946) distinguished Asia as having a more aesthetic weltanschuuung than the scientific West. Ruther than the clear subject object divide in the West, Asia, Northrop contended, charted rculity along a mme l'lisctl aesllwtk continuum, thereby creating different logics aml perel!p· tions about the world.

More recuntly, such politit.:al scientists .is Lucian Pye (1985) nml Duniel Bell (2000) have rl!nmrked on thu <lit:. fcrent conceptions Asians bring to politics. To both, these differencus require dcmocruey, in pnrticu lur. ltl undergo considemble modiliculion for uny sm:ccssful transplanta- tion to Asia. For Pye, the dwnges will have to allow for a more dependent and paternal understunding (and accep- tance) of pnwer. And ftir Bell, for Asia to be 1:0111fortable with dcmocmcy, democracy will have tll give a special place to knowledge over and above mere de111ucmtk egalitarianism.

This is because idem; of <lcniocrncy, lh.:cdt1111, and equality have developed llUt 01'11 historical context dillcr- ent frnm the West':-. This conh:xt has led to cnndusions nn the grnunding or these idl!as that are also ditforcnt from the conclusions or the West. Put simply. We!itcrn pulitkal thought is grounded in the individual as Liu: hash.: unit nf politics, and in equality, in stm1c liirm, as the al·t·cptcd basis for human relations ,md pnlitiL'al ruk. In the Asian context, political thtiu~ht came lo h1: tn1t11Hk•d in the group, not the individual. and in hicmn:hy. nut cqual1ty. As shall be dear from the dL1scrir1tio11 ol' thi.: Ct\lltcxt nr thn:L· historical nets. the contact or the idem; ot' dcnwL·mcy. fret.·· dom, and equality with Asia calls liir some rcformulatiun. In line, thi:; elrnpter explains that in 1\assing these ll1rcL~ ideas lhrnugh an Asian histurical t:ncmmtcr. rnlL' L',111 ant n• at l'icbl.!1\ nmlticulturnl dcliliitions of sul'h scl'n1111~ly 11111- versal political ideas.

Classical Asia

Asia has provided an arena for all the wnrld's value sys- tems. Hinduism is the oldest. Its earliest forms wcrc similar to the religion and idt:us or the ancient tircck:i. Perhaps the Indo-Aryan invaders llf the lndiun subcun- ti nent effaced the smne Triple Cfoddess m errun by Jason and his Greek Argon11uts in the Black Seu city of Colchis. In any case. Hinduism emerged in the first mil· Jenni um BCE as 11 religion and political culture of conquest. Buddhism amse later as a sort of L.utl1eran relbnnation to Hinduism. ll held distinctly gentler political ideas. This gentler failh, however, was literally obliterated by Muslim

Asian Political Tlumgllt • 561

invasions inlo the subcontinent that began in the 8th cen- tury CE. (Buddhism went on lo thrive in China, Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia.) These new invaders oscil- lated between two upproaches in !heir new dominions. One was lo extenninule opposition and fon:c Islam by the sword. The other wai; to cooperate with local power groups and rule by accommodation. As it spread to Southensl Asia, Islam became more modcrule and diffuse in its ideas uml practices.

In ( 'hina around the 6th century llCE, Confucianism devdopcd its own order among society, nature, and the cosmos. This onlcring ririnciple, ul' the dual forces of yin and ynng, was nn early portrait or u hisloricul dialectic sim- ilar to that in the writings or I leraclitus, l Jegcl, und Marx. Whill! ( 'onl'udanism prnpoundcd a rigidly hiernrchicul sociopnlitkal order, the "turning or the wheel" from I h1ddhism .ind the "rt.:version or the Dao" from Daoism i1HrmluL:ed the idea or redprndty. Mencius politicized the mlc or the emperor by entrusting him with the Mm1datc of I leaven, but in tying this mandate lo rcciprodty, Mencius also gave the pt.!nplc lhe right of revolution. Daoism aducd the 111ystic:il and th\! mugical to this mix. For all its order, this ancient C 'hine:-.c system g.iw hirth lo II rom:111cc or prntcst, with sage-knights :11.:ting as Robin I lomls. These liilk hemes later inspired modern revolutionaries such ns Man Zi..•dung ( Sehwarl/, I t>H5).

In this Asim1 tlranm. us in Europe. !here has been a grad- ual gnmch ll( sl!cularism. But motkrn seculari:m1 has lll'\l.'I' been ,umplctcly succcssfiil in lndiu, and religion has never d11:d III C 'hi1111. ln India, religion rl!prcsc11ts ll com- pktL' ,alue system. This llca\:ily religious value system, hmn.'\ er. did nut predutk lengthy and systl!mmic trcal- 1111.•111 or p111iti17;d qucsti1111s. Tiu: cpk M11//ahh,m11a eon- 1.1111, lung 11nhtiL'al t!ssa;·s 1111 st,ltl.'cra Ii, kingship. and n11 ll1,1ry sllalcg~. One .mdcnt text. Kautilya 's :lrtlwshustm. mtrndun::, all Mm:hiavdli's i,kas ;ibmu puliticul sur,,ivtd nH11~· th,111 a lhm1sand yl!:11s carlii:r than The flrifl<'<' cBasham. I ll~<lJ. < 'hma ,lc111t111stratcd a 1111)rc rnhust tradi- 111111 111' sc\·ularism, partly bc,·imsc t\innu:ianism never r,•ally addn:s~cd the ,111est11m ti!' ( iud. Buddhism lilied this ~.:ap 1111: I i:}lahsrs a11cmptl.'d t11 plan' law as a hight'r prin- dpk of stil'.1al urdcnllJ! than cosntiL' rhytluns uf yin and yan~i Bui d;,n;1stic mkrs prd~m:d the mnhiguitics or the ,:m,rnus to th1: l'.i1ncrch: l'Ullstraints ur the law. ln C 'hina, 11111, as tn ;111 Asia, r1.•ligion stayed on lop, li1:-i11g society am.I pulitks tu thL' sum:lity. sam:tiuns. und politicul pmtcc- lltHI ur the ~.mb ( Schw.ir11. I tJX5 ).

Mme than 1m lop. lhc Y.um1111 cl.Ill in .htpan proclaimed thl'llh,dH:s to he g.utls. In their :-;uccc:;s, they lmvc provided Jupan with the lungcst single line nfldngs in world history irnd 11 scnsL~ uf natkmalis111 and ethnic ic.lt::ntity thut runs very dccf1. Although "divinely" rnled, the Japanese never !MIW themselves us holding lhc gntewuy ttl heaven. They were. then, nut averse tCl btim1wing, and they k1oked to C'onfuchmism and Buddhism to order their slate and mean• ing system. lronfo:nlly, integn1ting this borrowing into indigenuus Shinto belie£.. became men's work. The further

562 • POLITICAL THOUGHT

development of Japanese culture-its novels, ceremonies, and haiku poetry-was left to the creative talents of women. Although gods reigned, warriors m led and warred in Japan. A strong knightly code of Bushido steeled the rul- ing samurai class in the political culture of the warrior- ruler-knights (Yuzan, 1941).

Meanwhile, great kingdoms arose in Southeast Asia, mostly on borrowed Hindu ideas transmitted by Theravada Buddhism from Sri Lanka (Ceylon). There was the Kingdom ofTen Thousand Elephants in Laos, Borobuddur and Bali in Indonesia, and the Khmer empire in Cambodia. The latter's capitol, Angkor Wat, is still the largest reli- gious building complex ever built. Political ideas and insti- tutions in this porous, vulnerable region were mostly Indian (the Chinese influences in Vietnam were the notable exception), but the societies of much of Southeast Asia were ethnically Malay and were held together mainly by their customa1y adat, or customs. These customs set up three social classes (a ruling aristocracy, free land holders, and slaves) bound together in a network of mutual obliga- tions and responsibilities. In this adat, property and author- ity could be held and inherited just as easily by women as by men. When the Muslims came to Southeast Asia in the 13th and 14th centuries, they had about run out their polit- ical tether and lacked the vehemence that they displayed in India. They superimposed the veneer of their sultanates on Malaya and Indonesia but were content to have the sultanates upheld by Hindu and Buddhist political princi- ples and by tl1e Malay social adat (Tambiah, 1976).

In classical Asia, then, politics were decidedly authori- tarian, and more specifically tegal, rather than democratic. In India, nevertheless, besides just guaranteeing order, or danda, kings were obliged to promote the welfare of the people. In China, this promotion extended to the principle of reciprocity and even to tl1e right of the people to rebel. Nevertheless, freedom in classical Asia was more of a reli- gious goal than a political right: freedom from the cycle of rebirths in India and in the cultivation of an inner peace of the soul in China. Thus, in both societies, freedom was a private preserve separate from the crush of public (com- munal, religious, and political) responsibilities and duties. ln these feudal systems of Asia, these responsibilities were mainly to hierarchically ordered groups. Equality, then, was a relative value and was tied to the status and position of one's group compared with others. Any equivalence to modem Western ideas of equality could be procured only within one's group (and primarily for one's family), not outside it.

Colonial Asia

The conquests of Western imperialism shattered this order. Most of Asia was directly colonized. Even those who escaped direct rule--like the Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, and Thai-were still pulled into an international political

and economic system dominated by Western imperial powers. Because Asian polities had unbroken insliluti<mal histories for two millennia (in some cases), punclmllcd hy their own moments of glory, the question ol' how to h<1th accommodate and account for this Western imposi1inn and superiority provoked deep soul-scan:hing among Asians.

Nowhere was this more deeply felt than in India, which became the crown jewel of the British Empire ur 50 colonies worldwide. Some Indians embraced Western civ· ilization. The British Viceroy, Lord Thomas Macuulay, was pa1tial1y successful in creating "a class of pen.tin!>, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinion. in morals, and in intellect" (Spear, 1961, p. 257). L,ucr. these scions were called "Brown Sahibs." In lllrtl1emncc uf this strategy, the British invested in a modern u11ivcr:s1ly system for India. A proud accompl ishmenl or tit is sysl~m was the Nobel Prize for Literature in I 9 l3 won hy the Bengali intellectual Rubindranath Tagore, writing in the King's English (Metcalf~ 200 l ).

Following in the wake of the British nti were legions l!f Christian missionaries who preached their "good news" nnrd practiced their social gospel with institutions tif Slll.'.utl reform. Beyond a nationwide network of sclmols, !he) :-11.*l up hospitals, orphanages, homes for widows, lcpru:owm· ums, demonstration farms for peasant laborers, and s<l('1;1I services for outcasts. Many Hindus, nlthough leery tif Ill< "good news," eagerly took up this cause or social rcfnrm and, in the Bmhmo Samaj of the 19th century. launched their own social gospel of reform or some or the ills ,md neglects of Hinduism. Muslims displayed a split rc.ic1nin to the Empire. Since they were lndia's previous ruler,.., some resisted, and they went down to defeat in the Mulm~ of 1857. Others, such as Sir Sayccc.l Ahmntl Khan. anii.:u, lated a path of accommodation with the British, insisun~ that Islam had no objections to at least the polith!ul culturlZ of the West. Indeed, as a monotheistic "religion ur thi: Book," Islam was the more naturnl ally of this culture th;m was polytheistic Hinduism. Still othern were nol so ~ur~ of either the Hindus or the British {Pye, 19K5). It \~;1, Mohammed Iqbal--poet, theologian, aml political thcmbt who gave eloquent voice to a separate destiny !hr Mm,hm~ in the subcontinent (Malik, 1971 ).

Although never a directly ruled colony, the reacliun m China was equally intense. Tiananmen Square in Bcijini was an architectural declaration that it wus the gateway h1 Heaven. British gunboats brought a string of military humiliations that shattered this gateway. A man who dreamed that he was the younger brother of Jesus Chri~t proclaimed a new portal and led the biwrre Taipinl:l, Rebellion of the 1850s and 1860s. The movement also preached equality for women and, at first, democracy. In its suppression, it might have been dismissed as one of those oddities of history, were it not for tho subsequent influence the rebellion had on Mao Zedong and other rev- olutionary modernizers (Ogden, 2002).

Meanwhile, the Qing Dynasty, Chinn 's last, made earnest attempts at rcthnn. Western education replaced classical texts for imperial civil service examinations. Principles of constitutional democracy and parliamentary elections were introdul!cd, as were modern railroads, mili~ tary academies, and financial institutionH. ln 1911, the mixture of protest and reform exploded into a nationalist revolution and a nearly 40-ycar interregnum of ehaos. Intellectually, the boiling cuuldron of this ferment was known ns the Muy Fourth Movement. In I.he lrnmilintion of the demands of the upstart .lapuncse for the Shamlong Peninsula al the Peace Conlcrcncc at Vcrsail lcs in May 1919, Chinese intellectuals dcspcralcly cast about for :1 prescription for modern power: in the prnginalism and lib- eralism of John Dewey and the United States, in the mi li- tarism from Germany und Japan, in language rel'nrm and mass education, in physical culture and the cmtmdpalion of women, in the assassirrntions und eomnurncs ol' mwr- chism, and even in the communism of Karl Marx and the Bolshevism or Russia (Zhou, I %0).

Then: was ferment in Southeast Asia as wdl. Pemmnts, in a series of protests a Iler World Wnl' I. decried the col- lapse of 11 trnditional social and political order guaranteed by a royalty and l'cudal rctuincrs lhut used to sali!guard their livelihoods and provide a sense of place anti security by the Mandate ol' lh:avcn (in Vietnam), tile will tif Alluh (in Malaya and lndoncsiu), the mandalu pallcm t1f pnlitks and international relations ( in Thailand und Camhmlia ), and u transl'ernl or mcril from Buddha (in Burma anti Laos). Arter an initial. if reluctunt, uccommodatiun with Western power and political institutions, these peasants and emerging intcllcctuuls searched for thdr own h:rms nf modern survival. The Cao Dai sect in Vietnam, whkh wnr- shippcd nn all-seeing cosmic eye as interpreted hy Vklor Hugo, Jesus Christ, Confucius, l.no Till, and foan uf An:. il!ustrntcd this perplexity. The mood of rcsil,!nation lo thl'sc confusing, but powerllil, outside forces was captmcd h~ the popult11· J tJth-century cpk pnl"m in Vietnam. K.mr nm Kie11. This poem was a creative remake of :rn oltl ( 'him:sc stmy nf n liliu I daughter who slays lrnc !ti her 1mtk:scn inµ folhcr in a lire of untold sulforing but stcmlfosl ticvnlmn. These r,casant protests, then. grew out ol' lh1:-.tr;itinns 1i\ 1.•r their dcvoli(lll lo u traditional structure that could no lunger i;ccnre this order ( Kershaw, 200 I),

In Japan in IX53. the conuncrciid viiiit or the ll.S, naval communder ( 'ommodurc Matthew Purry found the Japanese nt a moment in their history when they were ready for an opening frorn the outsil.le. Their mature lcu- dal order had reached a point of stugnutitm. A knightly class of samurai undergirded an aristocracy that hdli the emperor ho::.tage, even a:. this monarchy as an insliluticm provided continuity, identity, and n sense of co::.mic pluce for all Japanese. In the name or restoring the emperor to real power (somwjoi), aristCJcratic modernizers overthrew this samurai-dominated regime in what was called 1he Meiji Restoration. The Meiji Constitution established a

Asian Political Thm1gltt • 563

liberal parliamentary system in the name of the c11111cror. But for all this constilutiomdism, the fapancse actually modcrnizcc.l through a military path of war with China lirsl ( 1895) uml then Russia ( 1905; Gluck, 1985 ). Along with these impressive manilestations of modem power, the continued hold of samumi vnlucs, for all this Mcij i "liberalism," wus nurtured by the.: education of all Japuncse school children in rne Stm:v <!l tlw 47 Ronin, in which linal loyalty was still given to extreme profossinns of honor, in the nmnc of the cmpcrur. It was u path that tumbled Japan into World Wur [I, its grculcst national disaster (Bcncdict, 1946).

The fonnent touched off by European imperialism in Asia was uot exclusively one wny. Eumpcans who had prolonged coutad with Asian srn.:ictics were ol'tcn sur- prised at what they saw. Despite their political wcuknusscs, thc:;c sm:ictics revealed sophisticated and well-articulated cultures. A lwst or scholars called "Oricnlnl ists," muny of whom had served us colonial mlministrutors, begun to trm1sl:rte hack for Eumpcun m1dicnces the ''pearls of the Orient": thc philnsophk Upam):lwcls und the twin epics, lite Me1lwhlwratll und the Ramaymw. from India, and tl1c Analects 11( C1111/iwiu.~ nnd the J.>cw d<• Jing of Luo Dzc ( Lao Tzu) from C'hinn. Thc 111,ist mnbiti11us ,1 l' these rro- jccts wai; thl.' I 11lh-ccntury "Ooldcn Bough" i,;crics of trans- lations into Fnµlisl1. sponsm·cd by I lnrvard University, of nwsl of' Asi,1 's linesl truditional work$. Thb impact, hnw- evcr, was nmrc llum just inlhrmntivc. tdcas Ihm, these trnnslatinns wor'ked their way into the transl:cntlcntulism of the New Fn~land liM·ati (particularly on Ralph Waldo Fmcrsun \ "m,crsntil"), us well us into lhc philosophic syst~·ms o!' Martin l lcidcggcr and Fl'icdrich Nictzscl1c and cwn into the 1111vcl:,; of' I krman flcssc, among others tUarkc, PN7J.

l ln/<Htunatcly, some uf this nunantic "llricntulism" tumi.nl p\·ncrsc. ln thi:-. disc1wcry ,11'thc deep 1.:ulll1ral ronls ,11' Asta. so1111.: Wcstcm sdmlars. partirnl.irly Uennau, bt:g.111 h1 s1.•c llwmsclvl.'s ,ls dc!>ccndants or an elite lndo- Ary,111 hru1h1:rhoud thal 1.•xtcmlcd from lhl.' Indus River hi tht• Rhme ( M ulkr, It) 19 t ( icnnan natitmal sncinlism sub- scqmmtly appr,1priatcll th!.' andeut I lrndu symhnl li.1r uni- versal hrnthcrhnnd ns the i:cntcrptcL·e lo iii; !lag, !he s,~ astil-.a

At lirst lfollcrcd by this ,11tcnlio11, mrnlcrn Asi,1n inkl- kduals for their part hi.'.gun to resist this drnrnctcrizutiun of a si:p.iwtc t1ric111albm us 1ant:111m11nt to u i.:ivilizutimrnl dismiss,11 similar tn the "sep,1rntc but cquul" kg:il <lm:trine in the t Jnitcd States lhut scrvcll In perpchmlc racinl dis- crimination. Whether intdlcdual trnditions prnduuc cul- turally distinct idem, nr whether universal ideas fhrm uml recllmbinc tlu~mselvcs 11rnuml different inlellectual tnu.Ji- tions is II pervasive isi.ue of cpisternolt1gy. For the !ltudy of political though! in Ash1, however, the unfortunate effect of c,ricn1ali:.m has been to dismiss pol itic11I Lhllughl in Asia as being lou cfosely Lied to religious constructiuns to be worthy of secular analytical scrutiny.

564 • POLITICAL THOUGHT

Modern Asia

World War II (1939-1945) brought disaster to Europe. Even in victory, the power of Britain and France collapsed, and, with that collapse, their empires unraveled and their hold over Asia ended. In independence, not always easily gained, Asia was now free to find itself and define politics in ways authentic to a free Asia and to the particular set of traditional legacies and aspirations of each of its societies. In this mix of the traditional and the colonial, what set of political ideas and institutions would serve independent Asian nations still having to fend for themselves in an international system of Western creation and continued dominance? In Asia's postwar trajecto1y of growing eco- nomic prosperity and rising global political influence, answers to this question have produced rich and innovative contributions to the ongoing development of political thought per se.

After World War II, all of Asia wanted to regain what Asian counh·ies saw as their lost importance in the world. Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India, expressed these hopes for all Asians when, in his exultant Independence Day speech on August 15, 194 7, he declared, "Long years ago, we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge" (cited in Hardgrave & Kochanek, 2000, p. 53). Colonialism, he argued, had drained the wealth and ener- gies of Asia, and now it would just flow back (Nehm, 1959). Although it certainly did not flow back right away, in the opening years of the 21st centu1y, this tryst with a recaptured Asian global importance seems well within reach.

The Indian subcontinent, however, has been plagued by serious differences both as to how to attain an independent India and as to what it would look like. The towering fig- ures in this agony were Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi was the moral father of modem India. After travel- ing around India for 4 years after his return from South Africa at the age of 41 in 1915, Gandhi discovered his three themes of poverty, unity, and indepe11dence. As he made the continuation of British rule untenable, he won-ied about an India "in pursuit of Lakshmi" (wealth), freed from the moderating restraints of religion. Thus, even as he dete1mined to entrust the future course of India to Nehru, he was troubled by the younger man's Hamlet-like agnos- ticism (Gandhi, 1957),

Nehru epitomized Macaulay's "Brown Sahib," and Nehru's highly cerebral autobiography, The Discovery of India (1946/1959), was really an m1iculation of his own divided soul. His professed admiration for the ancient Hindu scriptures and epics was profoundly philosophical and somewhat idealized. He prefen·ed to highlight the moments of unity and power and gloss over the divisions and wars oflndia's past. He could not bring himself to take this philosophical appreciation to a spiritual awakening. For Nehru, the influences of a secular English liberalism

were too strong for this. To him, the best (ll' India lay in ii, moments of unity around a clwkravarti11, or unh·cr::;.;tj emperor, such as Ashoka, Harsha, or Akbar. lkcatbC or India's deep religious and social divides, Nchm felt that this unity could come, in modern times, only under a ~c, ular India united by Western principles of lihcrnl <lcmoc~ racy. The Congress Party was rounded with this as its cor~ credo. Unfortunately, Nehru dulled his ccom1mks h~ embracing the socialism of the British Fuhi:ms 11nd lh~ Russian Bolsheviks (he expressed a continual admimtii1ri for the accomplishments of the 5-year pluns of the Smil.'!t Union). Under Nehru's lcadcrshi11 as prime 1m1w,ter (l 947-1964), Lakshmi, the goddess or wt:ullh, rcmainql aloof (Nehru, 1946/1959).

Although Gandhi and Nehru were the gi,mh, ,•1111:r voices arose in the subcontinent. lronknlly cm111f.!h. Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the father or mmh:rn P.iJ..1,tiln. shared Nehru's secularism cwn as he insislcd utt .1 ""r-t- rate Muslim state. 01hers in Pakistan ct1llcd for thi., ,1a1c !11 be subservient lo the Jslmnh: Shari'a. This tlni~Ml h;t~ brought the country to the brink of im11lnsiu11 o',;:f the never-healing sore ol' Kashmir and the recent rc\.:rhtr.1. tions of Islamic radicalism lhm1 Al'glmnishm ,md d•.:. where in the Muslim wmld. There huvc 1-»!cll ~t,nl voices in Hinduism a.s well. The terrorism c"~m,<J B. K. Tilak heforc World Wur I and the foi.l.'.bm ul :,iubt,Jt, Chandra Bose in World War II round exprc,,u,n 111 Hindu commtmalism or !-;anlar Vullahhhlmi fl,itd, S<ltni co-prime minister in tht: lirst 2 yc.ir.. ol' imkf"Cltt!,;rt;,;,t Patel died of u heaii attack, but these :-;c\·cral d1\ MH" ~,~i1~.h collected into the I lindu nationalism or Mr .. l . \ :\tlur,,i the Bharaliyu Janata Prniy, whkh is now a crn:,10,1! 11,~,i,,,i, •• r rival to the secular Congn.:ss Party, J ndia :md l',1!..1~tu1 confront each other us nuclear powl.'r,. ;m~I ,a,1,,>f-h,;r. chnkrnvartin, in this lcnxe sube~intinent. b n,•\\ h~~.: i:i (Mehta, 1996).

ln China. the lirst coherent voit:I..' tu nrlt\:'11t1t\· ..;i modernization out or the swirling slt;1ml, nl Fourth Movcnicnl was Sun Y,ll·scn, \\ht1 ,hl1.,i,,,.l1c~£ 1 min cl111yi (thrnc people's prindplci.l tit' l"'-'''l'k',. hoot!, people's rule, aml pcopk:'s na1i111rnli"m lh.: to uphold China's traditional Mandatc ul' lk.1\'l'.!I lt,i: was translated into rural lil'c as "lm1d tu the U!lt·11" 1,H:~0;r:..: that the communists later tried to cull their 1m nl t second principle, tkmocrm;y, Sun culkd l!if ;1 to constitutional democracy in ('hinu th1,•uih 1IM:i,i stages of tutelage. In pructic<!, Sun's p-ohtn;;:il Gumnindang, could not pull it utl It hin.::b'l;d between the Christian sucial gospel of the Nt'iil Movement and an Italian-like fascism or Bill(;' ShtJ1 pline, all the while continuing in a reluclJUlOI: •~ power. Even as Sun's ideology tailed in ChtnL rl the basis for the subsequent ecunomic mime:le <m It also desctibes the long path taken by South economic prosperity and a lagged followint4, of perity to full democracy (Wells, 200 I),

r I

Another failure was the Hu Shih liberals, who embraced linguistic reform and lJ.S."style demrn.:racy. This faction was discredited by President Woodrow Wilson's treachery at the Treaty of Versailles (in acquiescing to granting the Concession of lhe Slrnndong Peninsula lo Japan, mther than his public promise that it would he returned to China), even us it went on to discredit itself domestically by joining with the left-wing branch of the Guomindang in the strategic historical error of siding with the Japanese in their puppet stnlc of Manchukuo.

The communists were the ultimate victors in holh the civil war with the Guomindang um] in the articulation of modern China. Although the form or government came straight from Lenin, Mm1 Zedong; frirmulaled u 110vel strat- egy of revolution-e•people's war an<l introdw.:ed :;cveral innovative political projects and organizations, most or them disastrous. It was Deng Xiao Ping. the architect ol" China's unprccl.!denled current economic gmwth, who reintroduced to China a pragmatism worthy or both Machiavelli and Adam Smith. This was reflected in his legendary question about the importance of the color oflhe cal as long as it could cutch mice. The credit !hr this prag- matism, however, lay in the Four Modernizations of Deng's earlier protector, Zhou Enlai, who quietly made a career of fixing many of the excesses or Mao ·s zeal. It was an uneasy Gandhi-Nehru-like relationship. and China st!I'.. fored for it- -but might have suffered more without it (Goldman, 1994).

The truly novel definition or modernity in Asia came from Japan. Utterly dcl'catcd in World War 11 and under foreign occupation afterwurds { l 945 1952) fnr the lirst lime in its history, Japan, in Article IX or its new constitu- tion, outlawed war as an instn11nent ur li.ireign policy and forbade the country to have a11ything hut a minimal "Sdr- Defensc Force" as a militury institution. l\s a sovereign state, in what was called the Yoshida Dm:trine, Japan placed its security in the hands of the llnitcd States and dedicated its own energies exclusively toward Cl'Olllllllil.' prosperity. Si nee then, in tile era alkr the ,.:old war, scwral intcllcctuul and political voices have gmwn rcstin.' umler this nrrungement. One popular political writer. a limnl.'r mayor of Tokyo, titled his recent hook • .lust ,\'11y .\'11 lo the United States. Others question the concept orrmtional· ity us an unwekomc Western transplant even us they mlil·· ulate a distinctive identity and place for Japan (Sakai, de Bary, & Toshio, 2005 ).

Southeast Asia has continued to lament its strategic weakness. For nearly all Southeast Asian natkms. modem· ization has been :iccompanied by ou!bursls o!' imlig.cnous violence. It was convulsive in Indonesia in I 965 und again in 1998-1999. Burma, Thailand, Philippim:s, Mu layu, Vietnam, Cambodia, an<l Laos ull were wracked by immr- gencies. Except for Malaya, the United States intervened in all ofthem, massively so in Vietnam. In these struggle:;, each country sought lo define its own modem national identity in attempts to fashion integnitive polities that

Asf1111 P<Jlititx,l Tlwug!,t • 565

coul<l overeome the separatist groups and ideologies fuel- ing lhc insurgencies. With most of these convulsions over by the start of the new millennium (2000 ), these countries have now endeavored to integrnte regionally. Their organi- zation, the Association of Soulh!.!ast Asian Nations, repre- sents an interesting institutional countcrpt1ise in intcniational !'elations lo the more developed European Union.

Conclusion: Cultural Grounding of Concepts

This considcmtion of the politicnl thought of Asia as it has responded to the three contextual challenges of the classi- cal. colnuial, and nrndcrn pcriods brings us to the question or an Asian distinctiveness regarding nwdcrn Asian con- ccplinns nl' denwcracy and its emnpaninn ideas of li·ccdom and equality. i\lllmugh the constitutions ol' many Asian slates, those ol' l11diu and Jap:m in particular, hear the imprint of Western ideas and institutions, lite sources or these idem; emerge from dillbrent cultures and hi:,;torical cxpcriern.:cs. Asian ones. t\t rnol, although there is nothing in Asian experience or culture to preclude democracy itself: what may require ~lill'crcnl institutional expression of rhis 1irim:iple is the fundnmcntal di ffercncc hclwcen Asitt and the West over the balance between the individual uml !he family. In ull Asian countries. fornily anti its tics to the stnh.• and its loyalties come before the freedom lo churl individual destinies. In the West, on the other hand, indi- viduals arc cm.:ourngcd to cut loose from family tics lo frcdy chart their individual fi.irlm11.:s with mi inequalities in status dtlwr wilhin the thrnily or in the larger sncicly (nl 11.:ast in tlwnry l. This di ffcrcnl hahml'C calls for a dillcn:nt ddinitiunal rl•l:11innship uf freedom an,I etJuulity tn dclllol·ral·y. Nt1 rnic hus made this dislinctilln more clear titan I.cc Kw.in Yew, the former prillll' minister of Sinµaplln.'. wlw hils insisted that dcnu11:racy in Asia must still hi.' ~11h111dinah.· to fomily tlisl·iplinc and lhcrcliirc lllalk no apnloµics for authori1inµ the: p11blk caning or Western ;alnlcst:cnts for vandalism in the streets nfhis city (lkll. ~(J(l(I)

J fcnt:l'. to dtsrnss dcmrn:r.11:y 111 Asia. Wl' need to bring utl11:r words aml Clllll'Cpls inl11 play. Jh:ally, dl·moerncy in Asia should he .\i:l in a disl'Ussilln of :-.talcnafl and politi· cal authority. llu:st: bsucs. in Asia, were fticuscd on creat- ing order a11d preserving sol.'ial hiL·1-.irchy. altlmugh nil Asian polith:al li;ts!crns rccu1,1ni1cd that statccrun and political authority were he~! scrn:d hy reciprocity and the legitinmting nf 1hcir uctions in ways that earni!d public supr,ori. untl uppmval. There ,m..' cuntcxtuul gmunds, then, for th.:mocniL:y in A:.iu, but not on the sumc cguli!uriun friundations us in the Wt:st. Pye ( l lJX:'i). for example, tulks nt'dcmocracy in Asia us best urising out of u hishirical con- tcx;l of paternal authority and what he culls 11 politics <f de/H!lltlt•m·,•. Hell (2000) has pmposed an Asian bicameral legislature, willl one house bused cm popular egnlilarian

566 • POLITICAL THOUGHT

representation and the other on knowledge, a "House of Scholars." Parenthetically, this notion brings us around the intellectual circle to Plato's insistence on ultimate rule by philosopher-kings (Lomperis, 1984).

Similarly, the Westem centerpiece, freedom, needs to be recast in Asia as well Rather than all the human rights guaranteed to individuals in the West through a constitu- tional Bill of Rights and the like, freedom in Asia has been differently defined in at least three ways. First, in Asia, freedom is more of a group concept than an individual one. Indians could pursue swanlj (self-rule) against the British, but to its greatest champion, Gandhi, for indi- viduals swaraj meant more communal responsibilities to autonomous little communities (ashrams), not more indi- vidual human rights.

Thus, second, freedom for the individual boils down to relative degrees of autonomy from the multilayered oblig- ations of these all-encompassing social structures. The overarching value here is responsibility. Freedom is the leftover. Daoist knights-errant and Hindu kshatriya war- riors had the freedom of battle and of strategy, but only within the parameters of their larger duties to the Heavenly Mandate in China and the cosmic dharma (duties) of their souls in India. In the Indian epic Mahabharata, the hero Arjuna was not allowed the freedom to be a pacifist and opt out of the cosmic baitle at Kurekshetra because the duty of his kshatriya caste compelled his martial service to uphold order. For women, duties were equally stark. In China, the vittues of high-class women were secured by footbinding. High-caste widows in ancient India had the "freedom" of avoiding the dejected status of widowhood or humiliating pollution of remarriage by committing suttce (self-immolation on a funeral pyre).

Third, the fullest expression of freedom in Asia is reli- gious. In China, Buddhism offered release, or nirvana, from the world and its politics. Daoism cultivated a free- dom of the soul within the external responsibilities and rituals of Confucianism. And in India, the householder (the responsible citizen, in Western pal'!ance) could hon- orably flee to the forests, after discharging his many social and political duties, and seek moksha, the release that comes from enlightenment. Until the insertion of Western politics and ideas, freedom, in Asia, did not lie in politics.

Finally, the overarching Western ethos of equality has had a strong impact on all Asian societies. Indeed, this idea became the linchpin to undennining the Western imperium itself. But even with this wave of Western egalitarianism, Asian societies retain an even more profound rootedness in hierarchy. Western ideas of equal treatment and equal dignity have woven their way into the fabric of all Asian societies. But the "rightness" of hierarchy remains (Dumont, 1970). Gandhi, for example, called members of the "untouchable" caste haxijans, or "children of God," but still supported the moral virtue of the hierarchical caste system itself. Echoes of the old Confucian hierarchy

remain strong in China, as do patterns of the samurai ritual and hierarchical obligations in Japan, particularly in its unique corporate culture. Thus, equalily in Asia, with lhis hierarchical persistence, is better rendered as equity. which is a word that gives more mom for social laddern in a for- mulation of fairness and justice.

Illustratively, then, in passing these three universal political concepts of democracy, freedom, and equality through the analytical prism of the historical context of Asia, we find that all Asians persist in holding onto two anchors. First, Asians retain a strong rrelcrence for groups, particularly the extended family, over individunls ns the primary unit of society. Second, in this preforcncc lbr groups, Asitms continue to choose a hierarchicnl ordering of these groups over any comrrehcnsive notions of l'ull social equality. The persistent hold (lf these two tinclmrs necessitates an Asian rcfonnulation or these corn.:cpt:,;, which have heretofore been defined only l'rom a Western context. Thus, the expression of individual lhicdmn or rights from the West must in Asia be tcmpcrcll by a greater consideration for group rcsronsibilities so lhat freedom in Asia is merely a relative autonomy from them. Similarly, the penchant for hierarchy in Asia imposes equity as an appropriate expression of fairness, rather than equality. Tuming to politics from these two reformulations, ,kmoc~ racy in Asia, therefore, will need lo be constrw.:tecl and expressed in political arrangements that value groups aml legitimate hierarchy. Thus, the cultural scllings of such seemingly universal politicul conccpls as dcmocrncy. free- dom, and equality achieve richer meaning and nmmcc when analyzed comparatively through their cvt1lutiun in other cultures, including those in Asia.

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