44th INDICA Online Symposium | Rājadharma Applied: IKS Lens for Policy, Governance, and Leadership

About the Symposium

Rājadharma — the dharma of those who hold power and carry public responsibility — is among the oldest and most sustained conversations in India’s civilisational thought. Across Arthaśāstra and Nīti literature, the Rājadharma sections of the Itihāsa-Purāṇa, Kāvya, inscriptions and regional chronicles, the tradition reflected deeply on how decisions are made, how institutions endure, how crises are met, and who is fit to lead. That conversation is not a closed chapter of history. It is a living resource, waiting to be put to use.

In September 2025, the 43rd INDICA Online Symposium set out to widen the textual field of IKS studies in statecraft, governance and leadership beyond the prevailing focus on Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra — bringing Pañcatantra and Hitopadeśa, the Rājadharma sections of Itihāsa-Purāṇa, Kāvya works of royal biography, Nīti and Subhāṣita compilations, and lineage texts such as the Kāmandakīya Nītisāra and Śukranīti into focus. Those talks are available as a playlist on the INDICA YouTube channel. That symposium, alongside more than thirty engagements with State institutions, universities and public systems, led to the launch of the INDICA Kauṭilya Centre for Policy, Governance and Leadership in January 2026.

The 44th Symposium asks the question that naturally follows: what is this widened corpus for? Its organising theme is Application — moving Rājadharma from something studied to something usable. An IKS lens, as the symposium frames it, is neither retrofitting Indian texts as decorative precedent for frameworks devised elsewhere, nor treating them as historical objects that are studied but never drawn upon, nor applying them literally without contextual realignment. It lets the tradition’s own constructs — Rājadharma, Puruṣārtha, Yajña, Daṇḍa, Śāḍguṇya, Āpad — organise the inquiry, extracting first principles to create new knowledge for contemporary institutions.

Over two days, talks will trace a single arc — from text, to taxonomy, to translation, to present-day governance — across five connected subthemes:

1. Taxonomy and Textual Foundations — drawing functional constructs of statecraft such as Daṇḍanīti, Śāḍguṇya, Āpaddharma and Arthanīti from prescriptive śāstra, and from the dramatised narratives of Itihāsa-Purāṇa and Kāvya alike.
2. Historical Practice — how these constructs fared in lived polities, as seen in inscriptions, administrative records and regional dynastic accounts — including where statecraft broke down.
3. Conceptual Translation — mapping constructs such as Amātya, Śāḍguṇya and Kośa onto modern offices, doctrines and policy, noting differences as carefully as correspondences.
4. Contemporary Application and Institutional Design — reading present-day paradigms such as cooperative federalism, decentralisation, crisis response and diplomacy through the tradition’s lens, and proposing frameworks of our own.
5. Pedagogy and Mainstreaming — carrying this arc into the education and training of administrators, policy students and institutional leaders.

Policy, Governance, and Leadership — the Centre’s own name — are the three registers into which Rājadharma’s applied constructs resolve: policy drawing on nīti and Puruṣārtha, governance on Yajña as coordinated and sustained action, and leadership on Svadharma and Svakarma. The symposium is the Centre’s founding mandate carried forward.

Who Should Register

The symposium is open to all Indics who think about, practise, or teach in the fields of policy, governance, leadership, management, and public and institutional culture, including:

• Civil servants, public administrators and those working in State institutions
• Policy researchers, analysts and think-tank professionals
• Managers, entrepreneurs and leaders shaping organisational and institutional culture
• Academics and students of public policy, management, the social sciences and the humanities
• Anyone who wishes to see how India’s own knowledge traditions can speak to contemporary institutions

The INDICA Kauṭilya Centre invites you to join us for the 44th INDICA Online Symposium, Rājadharma Applied: IKS Lens for Policy, Governance, and Leadership, held in memory of Arthashastra Expert Dr. Radhakrishnan Pillai on 24–25 October 2026.

To read the complete symposium note, including the background and a detailed account of each subtheme, visit the original announcement.

Speakers

Scholars, thinkers, governance practitioners, public leaders and management professionals

Speakers consist of distinguished luminaries from governance, management, policy design, public and corporate leadership, and scholars who have been selected through an open call for abstracts. Detailed schedule will be published shortly.

Profiles

Shivakumar GV

Curator

Director – INDICA Kautilya Centre for Policy, Governance, and Leadership

Dr. Radhakrishnan Pillai

In Memoriam

The 44th Symposium is dedicated to the memory of the late Dr. Radhakrishnan Pillai, the renowned Arthaśāstra expert who dedicated his life to the study, spread and adoption of Cāṇakya’s Arthaśāstra.