If one is going to articulate a vision, agenda etc for a "Dharmic" state then one ought to acknowledge the current state of the state and its values, implementation deficiencies notwithstanding. Truth is not an unknown value of the current state. IMO: The focus ought to be on what is it that "differentiates" this envisioned Dharmic state from the current one?
Pragmatism, reality and challenges of execution can be discussed separately. It will be good to focus on the thread title and articulate an alternative vision that is as clearly differentiated as possible from current vision.
The differentiators can come in the form of functions, benefits and features. (Carl ji can take the blame for introducing ITVity verbage in the picture
) Those further inclined can articulate changes in governance models and legislation.
Also, unclear are why should it matter to the common man. How do these changes affect the common person, families and communities.
The focus on the "external" threats and defeating current ideas of the state, do not provide answers to any of the above except to say, we need to secure ourself first and that is the only thing on the table as we are still under a state of siege. Some may not be able to think beyond this perceived need but those who can should articulate this differentiated vision.
The Yogi example is utterly flawed for the current state does have an answer for murderers and criminal threats. It points to an issue of effective governance and nothing else. What I have heard so far is nothing universal in its vision and agenda but largely sectarian and at best ethno-national. These approaches are destined to fail the same way Savarkar's Hindutva failed - even before MKG's assasination and the current set of ideologues for the Hindutva cause are at best apologetic and their political arm has NO agenda or vision to show for it - beyond good governance.
If one is going to talk about a dharmic agenda and vision, which has a chance of success then one has to accept the failed approaches and be honest on what has worked and what has not.
From a vision perspective, why not start with the vision of what Sri Aurobindo had in mind, which are lucid and clear, especially from his early writings which are temporal as opposed to his later works, which were largely spiritual. Bande Mataram although written in a different context would be a good start, for those who have not gone through it for it contains gems, that I have not seen in any other works for what the elements of a vision of a "Dharmic" state ought to be. B JI should certainly have some views on his ideas.
A relevant excerpt below.
The New Ideal
THE need of a great ideal was never more keenly felt than it is in India at the present day. Nowhere have so many weaknesses combined to stand in the way of a nation in the whole range of history. Nowhere have the rulers reduced their subjects to so complete, pervading and abject a material helplessness. When the Mogul ruled, he ruled as a soldier and a conqueror, in the pride of his strength, in the confidence of his invincible greatness, as the lord of the peoples by natural right of his imperial character and warlike strength and skill. He stooped to no meanness, hedged himself in with no army of spies, en- tered into no relations with foreign powers, but, grandiose and triumphant, sat on the throne of a continent like Indra on his heavenly seat, master of his world because there was none strong enough to dispute it with him. He trusted his subjects, gave them positions of power and responsibility, used their brain and arm to preserve his conquests and by the royalty of that trust and noble pride in his own ability to stand by his innate strength, was able to hold India for over a century until Aurangzebe for- got the Kuladharma of his house and by distrust, tyranny and meanness lost for his descendants the splendid heritage of his forefathers. The present domination is a rule of shopkeepers who are at the same time bureaucrats, a combination of the worst possible qualities for imperial Government. The shop- keeper rules by deceit, the bureaucrat by the use of red tape. The shopkeeper by melancholy meanness alienates the sub- ject population, the bureaucrat by soulless rigidity deprives the administration of life and human sympathy. The shopkeeper uses his position of authority to push his wares and fleece his subjects, the bureaucrat forgets his duty and loses his royal character in his mercantile greed. The shopkeeper becomes a pocket Machiavel, the bureaucrat a gigantic retail trader. By this confusion of dharmas, varnasankara is born in high places and the nation first and the rulers afterwards go to perdition.
This is what has happened in India under the present regime. The bureaucracy have ruled in the spirit of a mercantile power, holding its position by aid of mercenaries, afraid of its subjects, with no confidence in its destiny, with no trust even in the mer- cenaries who support it, piling up gold with one hand, with the other holding a borrowed sword over the head of a fallen peo- ple. It has sought its strength not in the mission with which God had entrusted it, nor in the greatness of England, her mastery of the ocean, her pride of unconquered prowess, her just and sym- pathetic principle of government, but in the weakness of the peo- ple. The strength of England has been held as a threat in the back- ground, not as a source of quiet and unostentatious self-confidence which enable the rulers to be generous as well as just. The liberal principles of English rule have been chanted as a sort of magic mantra to hypnotise the nation into willing subjection, not used as a living principle of government. What have been the real sources of bureaucratic strength? An Arms act, a corrupt and oppressive police, an army of spies, a mercenary military force officered by Englishmen, a people emasculated, kept ignorant, out of the world's life, poor, intimidated, abjectly under the thumb of the police constable or the provincial prefect. Such a principle of rule cannot endure. It contradicts the law of God and offends the reason of man; it is as unprofitable as it is selfish and heartless.
The nation which has passed through a century of such a misgovernment must necessarily have degenerated. The bureauc- racy has taken care to destroy every centre of strength not sub- servient to itself. A nation politically disorganised, a nation mor- ally corrupted, intellectually pauperised, physically broken and stunted is the result of a hundred years of British rule, the ac- count which England can give before God of the trust which He placed in her hands. The condition of the people is the one an- swer to all the songs of praise which the bureaucrats sing of their rule, which the people of England chorus with such a smug self- satisfaction and which even foreign peoples echo in the tune of admiration and praise. But for us the people who have suf- fered, the victims of the miserable misuse which bureaucrats have made of the noblest opportunity God ever gave to a nation, the song has no longer any charm, the mantra has lost its hypnotic force, the spell has ceased to work. While we could we deceived ourselves, but we can deceive ourselves no longer. Pain is a ter- rible disillusioner and the pangs which had come upon us were those of approaching dissolution. It was at the last moment, when further delay would have meant death, that a higher than earth- ly physician administered through a proud viceroy the potent poison of Partition and saved the life of India. The treatment of the disease has been drastic and will continue to be drastic. There are those who dream of mild remedies, whose beautiful souls will not bear to think of the fierceness of strife, hatred or agony which a revolution implies; but strong poisons are the only sal- vation in desperate diseases and we fear that without these poi- sons India will not easily or ever recover from the fatal and con- suming disease which has overtaken her. What will support her under the stress of the agony she will have to undergo? What strength will help her to shake off the weaknesses which have crowded in on her? How will she raise herself from the dust whom a thousand shackles bind down? Only the strength of a superhuman ideal, only the gigantic force of a superhuman will, only the vehemence of an effort which transcends all that man has done and approaches divinity. Where will she find that strength, that force, that vehemence? In herself. We have seen Ramamurti, the modern Bhimasen, lie motionless, resistant, with a superhu- man force of will-power acting through the muscles while two carts loaded with men are driven over his body. India must un- dergo an ordeal of passive endurance far more terrible without relaxing a single fibre of her frame. We have seen Ramamurti break over his chest a strong iron chain tightened round his whole body and break it by the sheer force of will working through the body. India must work a similar deliverance for herself by the same inner force. It is not by strength of body that Ramamurti accomplishes his feats, for he is not stronger than many athletes who could never do what he does daily, but by faith and will. India has in herself a faith of superhu- man virtue to accomplish miracles, to deliver herself out of ir- refragable bondage, to bring God down upon earth. She has a secret of will power which no other nation possesses. All she needs to rouse in her that faith, that will, is an ideal which will induce her to make the effort. That ideal is now being preached by Srijut Bepin Chandra Pal in every speech he delivers and never has it been delivered with such beauty of expression, such a passion of earnestness and pathos, such a sublimity of feeling as at Uttarpara on Sunday when he addressed a meeting of the people in the compound of the Uttarpara Library. The ideal is that of humanity in God, of God in humanity, the ancient ideal of the sanÀtana dharma but applied, as it has never been ap- plied before, to the problem of politics and the work of national revival. To realise that ideal, to impart it to the world is the mis- sion of India. She has evolved a religion which embraces all that the heart, the brain, the practical faculty of man can desire but she has not yet applied it to the problems of modern politics. This therefore is the work which she has still to do before she can help humanity; the necessity of the mission is the justifica- tion for her resurgence, the great incentive of saving herself to save mankind is the native power which will give her the force, the strength, the vehemence which can alone enable her to real- ise her destiny. No lesser ideal will help her through the stress of the terrible ordeal which she will in a few years be called to face. No hope less pure will save her from the demoralisation which follows revolutionary strife, the growth of passions, a vi- olent selfishness, sanguinary hatred, insufferable licences, the disruption of moralities, the resurgence of the tiger in man which a great revolution is apt to foster. Srijut Bepin Chandra speaks under an inspiration which he himself is unable to resist. The public wish to hear him on Swaraj, Swadeshi, Boycott, National Education – the old subjects of his unparalleled eloquence, and he himself may desire to speak on them, but the voice of a prophet is not his own to speak the thing he will, but another's to speak the thing he must. India needed the gospel of Swaraj, Swadeshi, Boycott and National Education to nerve her to her first effort, but now that she is drawing nearer to the valley of the shadow of Death she needs a still mightier inspiration, a still more en- thusiastic and all-conquering faith. The people have not yet un- derstood, but the power to understand is in them, and if any voice can awake that power, it is Bepin Chandra's.
Bande Mataram, April 7, 1908
and called it a draconian measure.