Author: Salil Misra
Publisher: Sage Publications
Year: 2000
Language: English
Pages:
ISBN/UPC (if available):
Description
An important work based on confidential documents and contemporary newspapers and with an essentially politico-ideological focus, this work will be of considerable interest to all those interested in the formative period of modern Indian politics.
The promulgation of the Government of India Act of 1935 not only reinforced the phenomenon of separate electorates on the basis of religion but led to a dramatic change in the nature of communalism in the Indian subcontinent. This is the story of how the different political forces in Uttar Pradesh - the Congress, the Muslim League, the landlords and the Hindu Mahasabha - responded to the new political context, the how they strove to establish control over the available political space.
Distancing himself from the study of communal violence or a theoretical understanding of communalism, the author provides, instead, a vivid narrative of communal politics, ideologies, leaders, strategies and political processes in Uttar Pradesh over a three-year period. Salil Misra begins by presenting the significant developments with regard to the growth of communal politics in India till 1936. He then discusses the processes, strategies and contestant involved in the first major elections held within the framework of provincial autonomy, the battle for thee political allegiance of groups and communities, the victory of the Congress, and the consequent polarization of diverse forces.
The post election uncertainty regarding the question of taking office and the reluctant formation of a government in Uttar Pradesh by the Congress is described in the context of the question that is often asked: Had the Congress formed the government in alliance with the Muslim League, would partition still have taken place. While narrating the activities of the Muslim League during the tenure of the Congress Ministry in Uttar Pradesh, the author pays particular attention to Jinnah's evolution into the Quaid-I-Azam and describes the making of an ideologue, strategist and mass leader. He also draws attention to a controversial aspect of Congress politics in this period - the hiatus between its programmatic content and ideological commitment to secularism on the one hand, and its social composition with a majority of Hindu members on the other. Finally, the author introduces the third protagonist in this battle for power - Hindu communalism and the Hindu Mahasabha.
This seminal work is a significant departure from other studies of the period, in that it addresses communalism as an independent force, acutely conscious of its interests and very keen preserving itself, and not allied to either the Congress or the British.