Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T22:59:31.387Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Class, Community or Nation? Gandhi's Quest for a Popular Consensus in India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Ravinder Kumar
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The historian who compares the disintegration of political societies like the Dual Monarchy of Austria and Hungary with the emergence of political societies like India is immediately struck by the different meanings which nationalism can assume in different contexts. The historian who carries out such a comparison would be justified in drawing the conclusion that nationalism in Europe in the nineteenth century was quite different from nationalism in India in the twentieth century. In the former instance, nationalism led to the breakdown of societies which embraced diverse ethnic, cultural and linguistic groups into relatively homogeneous communities; in the latter instance, it ostensibly led to the fusion of peoples who spoke different languages, who belonged to different cultures, and who subscribed to different traditions, into a single nation. The nationalists of Europe pointed with pride to the close ties of language, culture and race which held together the new States of Europe; the nationalists of India, however, pointed with equal pride to their achievement in forging peoples who were racially distinct from each other, and who subscribed to distinct historical traditions, into a single political community.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 3 , Issue 4 , July 1969 , pp. 357 - 376
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1969

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 SirCraddock, Reginald, The Dilemma in India, London, 1929, p. 259.Google Scholar

2 SirLyall, Arthur, Asiatic Studies, 2 Vols., London, 1899.Google Scholar

3 See SirRisley, Herbert, The Tribes And Castes of Bengal, 4 Vols., Calcutta, 1891Google Scholar and The People of India, London, 1908.Google Scholar For an excellent exposition of Risley's views see Rothermund, D., ‘Emancipation or Re-Integration’, in Low, D. A. (ed), Soundings in Modern South Asian History, London, 1968.Google Scholar

4 Vide a paper presented by Professor Basham, A. L. on ‘Traditional Influences on Gandhi’ at a seminar on India in 1919 held at the Australian National University, Canberra, in 1966.Google Scholar

5 See the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol. XIII. Hereinafter C. W.Google Scholar

6 C. W., Vol. XV, pp. 296–97. Also see Vol. XVII, p. 506.Google Scholar

7 C. W., Vol. XVII, p. 44.Google Scholar

8 C. W., Vol. XV, p. 203.Google Scholar

9 Mann, H. H., Land and Labour In A Deccan Village, Bombay, 1917, pp. 152–3.Google Scholar

10 Sedgewick, L. J., Census of India, 1921, Vol. IX, Part I, p. 21.Google Scholar

11 Karve, I., ‘On the Road’ in Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. XXII, Part I, p. 22.Google Scholar

12 Parvate, T. V., Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Navajivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad, 1958, p. 220.Google Scholar

13 Quoted in Karnik, V. B., Strikes in India, Bombay, 1967, pp. 50–51.Google Scholar

14 The Bombay Chronicle, 22 January 1919.Google Scholar

15 C. W., Vol. XV, p. 191.Google Scholar