Author: Peter Heehs
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2000
Language: English
Pages: 174
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0195653025
Description
This volume of essays examines some of the more important and problematic aspects of the Swadeshi movement such as the relationship between terrorism and non-violent resistance.
Nationalists of the Swadeshi period (1905-12) enunciated the aim of complete independence and developed methods of resistance - non-violent and violent- that would be taken up by Gandhi, Bose and others after 1920. This volume of essays examines some of the more important and problematic aspects of the Swadeshi movement such as the relationship between terrorism and non-violent resistance.
It contains an analysis of the first group of Indian terrorists, and the relationship of Aurobindo Ghose to this group and to terrorism in general. Also examined here are foreign influences on Bengal terrorism and the nature of Bengali 'religious nationalism'.
The author also devotes himself to a theoretical study of communalism. The essays, based on original research in primary sources in English, Bengali and French, are informed by but not limited to the approaches of the major schools of interpretation.
This volume, written in lucid style will be of interest to historians of modern India, students at the postgraduate level and general readers interested in modern Indian history and current affairs, both in India and abroad.
Contents
CONTENTS
Preface
Introduction: Terrorism and the National Movement
The Maniktala Secret Society: An Early Bengali Terrorist Group
Aurobindo Ghose and Revolutionary Terrorism
Foreign Influences on Bengali Revolutionary Terrorism
Bengali Religious Nationalism and Communalism
Indian Communalism: A Survey of Historical and Social-Scientific Approaches
Appendix: Myth, History and Theory
Index