From the pages of arthasastra! Hoarders, Blackmarketeers & Smugglers!
By A.N.Kandasamy
“merchants and pirates were for a long time one and the same person. Even today mercantile morality is really nothing but a refinement of piratical morality.” When Nietzsche, the German philosopher, uttered these words in the nineteenth century, he was actually echoing the views of that kautiliya of Arthasastra held on the same matter about 2,250 years before him. For Kautiliya in his Fourth Book of the Arthasastra entitled the Removal of Thorns has devoted the entire second chapter of the book to the protection of the people from the avarice and trickeries of the trading classes. In fact the name of the chapter itself is Protection against Merchants. By the use of the carefully chosen word “Protection,” Kautiliya clearly suggests to us that he considers the merchant as an enemy of society and that people should be afforded protection against his onslaughts on them in the same way you provide protection against pestilences, famines and fire. While one may hesitates to endorse either Kautiliya or Nietzsche completely in their considering the trader as an enemy of the people or a pirate, no one would disagree in classifying the hoarder, the blackmarketeer, the smuggler, the adulterator and the swindler who uses short weights and measures among them as No.1 enemies of the public and treat them as such. These public enemies become the more odious when they practice their hateful activities in the field of essential stuffs especially in the field of trade in food materials.