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Epilogue: The Afterlives of Greater India

from Part II - The Interwar Politics of Greater India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2023

Yorim Spoelder
Affiliation:
Freie Universität Berlin
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Summary

The epilogue sketches, in broad brushstrokes, the afterlives of the Greater India discourse in the postcolonial period, with particular reference to the writings and politics of Jawaharlal Nehru, the academic realm, and the Hindu nationalist imagination. It examines how the Greater India imagination reconfigured Nehru’s understanding of India’s ancient past and future role in global politics. It also shows that the story of the ‘glorious’ spread of Indian culture became a canonized theme in post-independence nationalist historiography and was promulgated by influential historians including R.C. Majumdar and K.M. Panikkar. Yet although the ‘discovery’ of Greater India had opened a new window on the ancient past, it also marginalized histories of connection and entanglement, most notably pertaining to India’s Islamic traditions, that did not fit the master narrative that celebrated an expansive ancient India as Asia’s cultural and spiritual fount. Finally, the epilogue reflects on how the legacies of the Greater India movement are mobilized in contemporary India to bolster visions of Akhand Bharat and position India as a civilizational actor on the global plane.

Type
Chapter
Information
Visions of Greater India
Transimperial Knowledge and Anti-Colonial Nationalism, c.1800–1960
, pp. 269 - 285
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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