Author: Irfan Habib
K N Panikkar/Amit Kumar Gupta
Publisher: Sahmat
Year: 1998
Language: English
Pages: 135
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8186219293
Description
Nationalism is conventionally associated with the emergence of the bourgeoisie. The feudal order is characterized by localism while the hallmark of socialism is its internationalism. The growth of national consciousness and the formation of nation-states that mark the interregnum between these two epochs are the historical accouterments of the bourgeois order, in a historical sense they constitute essentially bourgeois tasks. In the third world context however, there is a curious displacement: the trajectory of development is such that bourgeois tasks devolve upon other classes as well. Since nationalism emerges in opposition to imperialism, which penetrates these societies long before they have equipped themselves with a modern bourgeois class, its first stirrings manifest themselves through the actions and perceptions of representatives of the pre-bourgeois order.
On the other side, the bourgeoisie, even when it arrives on the historical scene as a force capable of some autonomous action (which itself does not happen in many third world countries), has a contradictory attitude towards imperialism. IT attempts on the one had to carve out a space for itself in opposition to imperialism; on the other hand, being a late entrant into the scene, and a product of imperialism itself, it is acutely aware of the fact that any thorough-going attack on imperialism would rebound into an attack on the bourgeois order itself.
Contents
Introduction
The Coming of 1857
From Revolt to Agitation
Beginning of the National Movement
Defying Death:
Nationalist Revolutionism in India, 1897-1938
Civil Disobedience 1930-31
The Left and the National Movement
Appendix