Political System of Harappan Civilisation
- Mortimer Wheeler described the Harappan civilisation as “the vastest political experiment before the advent of the Roman empire.” However, the nature and ingredients of this “experiment” remain conjectural, and open to debate.
- Many scholars have observed that the elements of warfare, conflict, and force in the Harappan civilisation seem weak compared to contemporary Mesopotamia and Egypt:
- Weapons are not a dominant feature of the artefacts found at Harappan sites.
- There are few depictions of conflict between people in the narrative reliefs on terracotta and faience tablets.
- However, fortifications — especially the imposing ones at sites such as Dholavira — cannot be overlooked.
- It is indeed possible that the element of force in the Harappan culture has been underestimated; force and conflict could not have been completely absent across such a large area, over such a long period of time.
- The fact that the Harappan civilisation lasted for some 700 years, and that its artefacts, traditions, and symbols seem to have continued more or less unchanged throughout this long period, suggests a strong element of political stability.
- There must have been groups of rulers in the various cities, responsible for the maintenance of city facilities — walls, roads, drains, public buildings, and the like.
- Some of the seals may bear the names, titles, and symbols of these elites, and could throw important light on the Harappan rulers, if only the writing could be read.
- The debate on the nature of the Harappan political system has focused largely on whether or not a state existed, and, if so, what sort of state it was — a centralised empire, a merchant oligarchy, or a network of city-states?
Different Views on the Harappan Political System
A Centralised Empire Ruled by Autocratic Priest-Kings
- Representative historians: Stuart Piggott and Mortimer Wheeler.
- Piggott (1950) suggested that the Harappan state was a highly centralised empire, ruled by autocratic priest-kings from the twin capitals of Mohenjodaro and Harappa.
Arguments for this view:
- This view was based on a number of features, including the level of uniformity in material traits, the use of a common script, standardised weights and measures, urban planning, monumental public works, and the granaries at Mohenjodaro and Harappa.
- Mohenjodaro and Harappa seemed to clearly stand out among the other settlements.
- The “granaries” at Mohenjodaro and Harappa fitted in with a view of the Harappan rulers exercising a high level of control over everything, even maintaining buffer stocks of grain to tide over times of food scarcity.
- Urban planning and monumental public works implied the mobilisation of a specialised labour force.
- The apparent lack of internecine warfare between settlements suggested that they were united under a single rule.
Arguments against this view:
- Walter A. Fairservis argued that the Harappans did not have an empire — not even a state.
- He pointed to the absence of evidence of priest-kings, slaves, standing armies, or court officials.
- According to him, Mohenjodaro was a ceremonial centre, not an administrative one.
Note: In ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, rulers are portrayed extensively in stone reliefs and sculptures; their palaces, tombs, and temples further proclaim their power.
- The Harappan case is strikingly different. The stone bust of a male figure found at Mohenjodaro has been given the label “priest-king.” However, whether he represents a priest, a king, or both, is far from certain. The same is the case with the large, damaged, seated figure found at Dholavira.
- While large houses have been found at Harappan sites, none of them matches our idea of a palace — although it is possible that certain buildings on the citadels of cities such as Mohenjodaro were the functional equivalent of palaces.
An Elaborate Village Administration
- Representative historian: Walter A. Fairservis.
- Fairservis (1967) argued that the Harappans did not have an empire, not even a state.
- He argued that the sort of control reflected in the Harappan civilisation could have been exercised by an elaborate village administration, and advocated for the existence of such a system.
- Later, he agreed that there may have been some element of centralised control, and a class structure — but he still maintained that force did not play a significant role, and that interdependence, religion, and tradition were responsible for regulating social behaviour instead.
Chiefdom State
- Representative historian: S.C. Malik.
- S.C. Malik (1968) argued that the lack of imposing monuments and supreme gods goes against the idea of a strong, centralised state.
- The Harappan polity, in his view, is an example of the chiefdom stage — transitional between a kinship society and a civil state society.
Recent Writings
- Shereen F. Ratnagar (1991), based on archaeological evidence and cross-cultural parallels with other early state societies, concluded that the Harappan civilisation was, in fact, an empire.
- Jim Shaffer (1982), on the other hand, argues against the idea of a centralised empire:
- He sees the civilisation as a chiefdom, resting on a well-established network of internal trade, and underlines the absence of huge royal tombs, palaces, and temples.
- The absence of marked social differentiation, of the kind visible in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, suggests an equality of access to wealth among villagers and city dwellers alike.
- At Harappan sites, artefacts of various types are distributed throughout the occupational levels, rather than clustered in elite residences or structures. All the typical Harappan artefacts — including ornaments of precious metals and semi-precious stones, seals and sealings, and the script — occur even in small village settlements.
- This suggests an equality of access to wealth, or to the symbols of wealth, among village and city dwellers alike — which goes against the idea of a centralised empire.
- Jacobson (1986) suggests that the Harappan state was an early state, with the following characteristics:
- A sovereign, or sovereigns, closely linked to a mythical character, and seen as benevolent.
- A military component lacking the dominance characteristic of more mature states.
- Weakly developed economic stratification.
- G.L. Possehl (2003) emphasises the corporate character of Harappan society.
- According to Possehl, Harappan society was highly disciplined, and had a strong corporate element — the Harappans may have been ruled by councils rather than kings.
- J.M. Kenoyer (1998):
- He suggests that the Harappan state must have comprised many competing classes of urban elites, such as merchants, ritual specialists, and those who controlled resources such as land and livestock, each with different levels and spheres of control.
- He also suggests that the animals on the square stamp seals represent totemic symbols, standing for a specific clan.
- At least 10 clans or communities are represented by these animals — the unicorn, humped bull, elephant, water buffalo, rhinoceros, humpless bull with short horns, goat, antelope, crocodile, and hare.
- The unicorn motif is found at almost all sites where seals have been discovered, including in Mesopotamia. At Mohenjodaro, over 60 per cent of the seals carry this motif, while it occurs on about 46 per cent of the seals at Harappa.
- The large number of unicorn seals at major cities led Ratnagar to suggest that the unicorn was the symbol of the Harappan ruling elite.
- Kenoyer, on the other hand, argues that the “unicorn clan” probably represented the aristocracy or merchants, who held an important executive role in government. In his view, it is, in fact, the less frequent motifs — such as the bull, elephant, rhinoceros, and tiger — that may have been the symbols of the most powerful rulers, at the very apex of the Harappan power structure.
Conclusion
- It cannot be denied that some form of state structure did exist in the Harappan civilisation.
- The absence of marked social or economic differences, and of tombs or palaces of the Egyptian or Mesopotamian kind, does not mean that a state did not exist — rather, that it was a different sort of state.
- The communications system, standardisation in artefacts, site specialisation, the mobilisation of labour for public works, and the establishment of the trading outpost of Shortughai, all indicate a level of economic complexity, and the existence of a state.
- So too does the level of cultural homogeneity, and the use of a common system of writing, across areas in which many different languages and dialects must have been spoken.
- The levels of social differentiation indicate some degree of class stratification; some of the buildings on the citadel complex seem to have had an administrative function.
- Centralised control is apparent in the Harappan civilisation. However, the precise degree of centralisation — whether it was an empire, a number of separate, inter-related states, or several states with different kinds of political organisation — remains a question that needs to be answered conclusively.
The political system of the Harappan civilisation, then, remains one of ancient history’s most debated puzzles — not because the evidence is silent, but because it points in genuinely different directions at once: standardisation and cultural uniformity on one hand, and an absence of the palaces, tombs, and overt symbols of kingship familiar from Egypt and Mesopotamia on the other. Whether one favours Piggott and Wheeler’s centralised empire, Fairservis’s village-based administration, Malik’s chiefdom model, or Kenoyer’s picture of competing urban elites bound together by totemic clan symbols, what unites all these readings is the recognition that the Harappans built and sustained a genuinely complex political order — even if its precise institutional form continues to elude confident reconstruction from material remains alone.
