But what else do the people of Samsara have in common? A complex form of government to start with. A lot of this is decentralized. People elect their own headman and replace him when they believe he is no longer fit, or when he dies. Female headmen are pretty rare except for certain communities and in the southern provinces. A group of villages often band together in a brotherhood where inter-village disputes are solved by a group of headmen sans the headmen of the villages involved. Each group of villages reports to their respective Council which is equal to the King in legal status, even if the emotional status of the King is far greater.
So councils? Doesn't that complicate things?
Samsara was pretty traditional with Lords and a feudal system right upto about five hundred years ago. A king named Gokula was worried with the way his Lords were treating his subjects. One one hand it smacked of corruption and greed, but the people's loyalty seemed to be to the lord, and not to the King. He called for his Minister Sachi.
"Suppose you walk down a beautiful river bank and you see a man flailing in the water. He doesn't specifically scream "help", but he does not look comfortable. On one hand, he could be drowning and wishing your assistance. On the other hand, he may either be an awkward swimmer or wishing purposely to end his life, and wishing for you to go away. If you delay too much, there might be disaster, or there might now. How does an observer know what to do?"
"The observer asks him." Sachi replied simply.
Over the course of his reign, Gokul wiped out the feudal system and replaced it with the council.
The council is described by the verbose King and his even more verbose head of Legal Affairs in an impressive tome called "Ask the People". It is is six feet long by four feet wide, a full eight inches thick, and embossed with some of the first rubies from the Dronagiri mines. It ends up making the council sound very complex.
In truth, this complicated process can be explained very simply by saying the chamber consists of 5 elected Province representatives who are elected by the people of their region and 9 representatives (navagrahas) who preside over the councils of Legal, Military, Finance, Culture, Education, Religion, Trade, Internal Security and Health. Navagrahas are elected by Province representatives. These people sit in their respective Council buildings for six months of the year and at the Capital city for six months of the year.
Councils are very powerful because they have been vested with a lot of collective authority. Together, a council can declare war. They can change the laws of the land. Finally, they can unseat the King, or replace him if they have the will of the people by their side. The problem with this is that all 14 council members should act jointly. That rarely happens. While we have had two Chambers where all the Navagrahas were friends and cordial with each other, at no point in history have the Province Representatives been awfully kind to each other. This stems from attitudes that can be traced back to their provinces, itself.
Eager to visit the provinces? Me too. I'll post their "travel brochures" soon.
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