1). King’s excellence, Qualities and Duties: (39 – 46):

1). King’s excellence, Qualities and Duties: (39 – 46):

It was Tamil tradition to consider the king as the life and soul of society. “A king is one who possesses the following six things: an army, a people, wealth, ministers, friends and a fortress; he never fails in the following four qualities: fearlessness, liberty, wisdom and energy; he is a man of modesty and virtues, and refrains from all vices; he is free from pride, anger and lust; he does not praise himself; he should be a man of self control; he acquires wealth, guards it and distributes to people; he is accessible and kind to all; he cares for his people, protects all who come to him; his friends are men of virtues and knowledge; he makes them his own; he considers his ministers as his own eyes; he examines their character and qualification before appointing; he shows respect even to his enemies; and Unkind kings are a burden to the earth.”

This section is a lesson on good governance. There are three sources of income to the king: unclaimed wealth, taxes which subjects pay, and customs collection from foreigners. In Valuvar’s world, there were three channels of equitable distribution of wealth: Defence; Public works and Social service. These three cover the legitimate public expenditure for distribution. All the kurals are primarily addressed to the king, but many of them will be equally applicable to all people. In modern times, democracies have replaced Kingdoms and political parties and ministers have replaced kings. The qualities Thiruvalluvar attributes to kings are naturally expected to be found in our leaders: Ministers, MPs, MLAs, diplomats, planners, policy makers, public office-holders and so on.

A few years ago, John Major, ex-British Prime Minister appointed a committee under the leadership of British lawyer, Lord Nolan to draw up a Charter of Governance in public life. This committee drew up seven principles under the Charter: 1) Selflessness in service; 2) Integrity in life; 3) Objectivity; 4) Accountability; 5) Honesty; and 6) Leadership. These are very similar to qualities of kings and ministers (dealt in section 3), which we have just seen in the Kural. In the spirit of Kural, today’s administrators must become popular not by their money power, but by their easy access to the public and the alert performance of their டுடிஎஸ்

Corruption in governance is the root cause of many evils today. It brings down the quality of governance. A survey of seven government departments conducted in 2002 in five metros in India rated Delhi’s Customs and Excise Department, scoring 8.6 on a scale of 10, the most corrupt. Leaders need to be service-minded and people oriented, going beyond caste, religion, region and party, and see only the good of the country and society.