Jawaharlal Nehru’s ideals of pacifist internationalism, secular pluralism, and the welfare state were profoundly inspired by the Mauryan emperor Asoka. Nehru perceived himself as the new Asoka of the nascent Indian Republic – a ruler guided by compassion, moral conviction, and universalism rather than conquest

Alasdair MacIntyre, the Scottish-American political philosopher, theorised that the modern state is a contradictory entity – Janus-faced, with one visage turned toward political imagination and the other toward bureaucratic rationality. The first appeals to the emotions of people and claims their imaginative allegiance; the second operates through cold cost-benefit analysis and administrative engineering.

This duality, MacIntyre argued, manifests not only in statecraft but also in statesmen themselves. Jawaharlal Nehru is a perfect example of this phenomenon. His political and philosophical career had two distinct phases – Nehru the Gandhian idealist and Nehru the Nehruvian realist.

In the first episode – during the freedom struggle and the framing of the constitution – he was an idealist, preaching the Dharma (normative order) of Asoka. In the second phase, during his tenure as prime minister, he was a realist practicing the Artha (purpose) of Kautilya. Philosophically, the first phase is far more relevant today, for Nehru’s political thought was anchored in Asoka’s idealist politics rather than his later pragmatism.

Asoka in Nehru’s imagination

Nehru wrote and spoke extensively about Asoka, both in his letters to his daughter Indira – later published as Glimpses of World History and Letters from a Father to His Daughter (1934) – and in The Discovery of India. In the latter, Nehru wrote: “Asoka’s pillars of stone, with their inscriptions, would speak to me in their magnificent language and tell me of a man who, though an emperor, was greater than any king or emperor.”

Historian Abraham Eraly, in Gem in the Lotus: The Seeding of Indian Civilisation (2002), similarly observed:

“Ashoka was fulfilling his duty as a king as his Enlightened vision perceived it. He hoped that compassion, liberality, truthfulness, purity, gentleness, and virtue would spread among mankind. For all his idealism, Ashoka was a realist. He would not tolerate crime but he would be humane towards criminals. His compassion was counterbalanced with sternness.”

The attributes of Asoka, as Eraly noted – compassion balanced with firmness – match perfectly with those of Nehru.

During the Constituent Assembly debates, when national symbols were being proposed to embody the new Republic’s identity, Nehru invoked Asoka’s ideals. Two millennia after Asoka’s reign, his moral vision echoed through Nehru when the Dhamma Chakra and Asoka Stambha (the Sarnath Lion Capital) were adopted as the official regalia of the Indian Republic. These insignia from the Mauryan imperium epitomised Asoka’s concept of ethical sovereignty. Through Nehru, that imagination found modern democratic expression.

Symbol of pacifist internationalism

Commenting on the Asoka Chakra, Nehru emphasised its dynamism:

“This wheel which is a rotating thing, which is a perpetually revolving thing, indicates to us that there is death in stagnation. There is life in movement.”

He connected this symbolism to the need for India to embrace change and reform as the essence of national vitality. 

Nehru further linked the emblem to Asoka’s historical role:

“Now because I have mentioned the name of Asoka I should like you to think that the Asokan period in Indian history was essentially an international period of Indian history. It was not a narrowly national period. It was a period when India’s ambassadors went abroad to far countries and went abroad not in the way of an empire and imperialism but as ambassadors of peace and culture and goodwill.”

For Nehru, the Asokan symbol represented India’s “great internationalist spirit”– a message of “freedom and friendship to all people around the world.” Both Asoka’s and Nehru’s visions of internationalism stand in stark contrast to the parochial and jingoistic nationalisms of our own times. Their pacificist internationalism holds renewed significance in an age of religious and ethnic extremism. It demands introspection essential to humanity’s survival in the nuclear age. If the apocalypse is to be delayed, humanity must draw nearer to Asoka and Nehru.

The moral and political axis

The Dhamma Chakra carries a twofold significance. It stands for the entire repository of Buddhist values – righteousness, law, peace, non-violence, and universal moral order. Simultaneously, it symbolizes political sovereignty responsible for upholding and propagating those very values. Thus, it unites the idealist and realist aspects of the state.

Nehru expressed great satisfaction at this synthesis: “For my part, I am exceedingly happy that…we have associated with the flag of our not only this emblem but in a sense the name of Asoka, one of the most magnificent names not only in India’s history, but in world history.”

While Nehru admired Kautilya’s insights on strategy and Chandragupta’s political acumen, it was Asoka’s renunciation of violence and his Buddhist leanings that moved Nehru’s soul. His doctrine of Panchsheel, the cornerstone of India’s foreign policy, drew directly from Asoka’s pacifist internationalism.

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Beyond non-violence, Asoka’s religious tolerance and pluralism greatly appealed to Nehru. Asoka protected even non-Buddhist sects like the Ajivikas from persecution – a principle mirrored in Nehruvian secularism. Nehru’s commitment to pluralism and freedom of conscience was thus a modern continuation of Asoka’s religious liberality.

Asoka’s missions of diplomacy and monastic outreach across Asia found their modern echo in Nehru’s Asian Solidarity and Non-Alignment during the Cold War. Likewise, Asoka’s welfare measures – roads, inns, community kitchens, hospitals, afforestation, and animal protection – resonated in Nehru’s conception of a welfare state.

Nehru envisioned a bureaucracy dedicated to social progress and ethical governance, akin to Asoka’s Dharma-Mahamatras. For both rulers, moral instruction and governance were inseparable. If Buddha was Asoka’s spiritual mentor, Gandhi was Nehru’s. Like Asoka, Nehru communicated his ideas widely–through letters, speeches, and books–believing that the pen was as potent an instrument of statecraft as the sword.

Asoka Rajya and Ram Rajya

While Nehru advocated Asoka Rajya, his mentor Gandhi spoke of Ram Rajya. Yet the two ideals differ sharply in foundation and form. Gandhi’s Ram Rajya was essentially spiritual and symbolic. He explained: “I mean by Ramarajya Divine Raj, the Kingdom of God. For me Rama and Rahim are one and the same deity. I acknowledge no other God but the one God of truth and righteousness. Whether Rama of my imagination ever lived or not on this earth, the ancient ideal of Ramarajya is undoubtedly one of true democracy in which the meanest citizen could be sure of swift justice without an elaborate and costly procedure.”

Gandhi’s Ram Rajya, though ethically profound, was utopian and ahistorical. As Devdutt Pattanaik observes in The Book of Ram (2015): “Ram never questioned varna-ashrama-dharma; he upheld the rules at any cost of personal happiness… Ram’s determination to uphold varna-ashrama-dharma under all circumstances, without questioning it, presented him with ethical and moral dilemmas.”

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By contrast, Nehru’s Asoka Rajya was historical, rational, and inclusive. It offered a concrete model of governance rooted in justice, compassion, and reason – values that transcend mythology and sectarian boundaries.

At a time when both India and the world groan under the weight of parochialism, intolerance, and conflict, it is imperative to reclaim Nehru’s ideal of Asoka Rajya – a sorrow-less state, guided by reason and compassion.

Asoka and Nehru remain luminous beacons – a pharos for the adrift republic. To move toward their vision is not a retreat into nostalgia but a moral necessity. For only in the light of their ethical imagination can we hope to build a state – and a world – free from sorrow.

Faisal C.K. is deputy law secretary to the government of Kerala and author of The Supreme Codex: A Citizen’s Anxieties and Aspiration on the Indian Constitution. 

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