Author Description

Highlighting the pluralist nature of the Indian nation and its struggle for independence, this reader discusses all the debates related to the nationalist movement in India. The essays in this book--some of them classics, others more recent--will help to familiarize readers with these debates and are divided into eight sections: making of modern nationalism, role of Mahatma Gandhi, peasants and Gandhian mass movements, Muslim identity and political participation, nation, region, and caste, women in nationalist movement, capitalists, working class and nationalism, and the last years of British rule. The introduction provides a broad historical outline of the nationalist movement, highlight its various complexities and internal contradictions, and discuss the historiographical debates to contextualize the essays included in the volume. The volume also carries an annotated bibliography.