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Emerging Social Movements and Nationalist Politics

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Western writers in India were generally slow to recognize the importance of critiques of British rule. They also tended to be dismissive of emerging nationalist political movements, starting with the emergence of the Indian National Congress in the 1880s, and then continuing with the emergence of Gandhi as a national political force or the advent of the Khilafat and Non-Cooperation movements in the 1910s and 20s. Alongside those more mainstream engagements with nationalism, we have also been collecting materials related to more radical revolutionary movements like the Ghadar Movement in California (see our overview of that movement here)

The dismissive British attitude to the Indian nationalist movement can be seen in a short story by Rudyard Kipling, "The Enlightenments of Pagett, M.P." (1890). (A good overview of that story can be found at The Kipling Society's website here.) Essentially, writers like Kipling saw any flaws or inconsistencies in the emerging nationalist movement as signaling that Indians were not ready for self-rule. However, today one can read such dismissals with a skeptical eye -- noting that their antipathy to Indian nationalism was clearly in their own material interests.  

Among Indians, at least some of the writers featured in this digital archive were also skeptical of the nationalist movement. The most prominent of those might be Cornelia Sorabji (see our profile of her here). Though she was initially supportive, starting in the mid-1920s Sorabji kept her distance from the Indian National Congress and Gandhi. Sorabji disagreed with the Congress Party's decision to brand him as a religious figure ("Mahatma"), rather than as a mere political figure. She also disagreed with the home-spun (Khadi) movement that began in the 1930s, saying it was economically unfeasible. However, overall, Sorabji's alignment with British colonial rule stemmed from her deep commitment to feminism; she believed traditional Indian patriarchy would never on its own grant women full civil rights and personal autonomy. See her memoir, India Calling, here; our detailed summary of it here. 

By the 1920s, the rise of nationalist politics was impossible for British writers to ignore. The most famous response to the anti-colonial movement is of course E.M. Forster's 1924 novel A Passage to India. However, another roughly contemporaneous novel by Maud Diver, Far To Seek, also engages with the emergent "Young India" movement. Another important text from this period is by the author Edward Thompson, whose novel An Indian Day goes quite deeply into the thinking behind Indian nationalist politics and shows considerable sympathy for the nationalist movement -- only drawing the line at the use of violence or terrorism to achieve the movement's ends. Thompson's nonfiction book The Other Side of the Medal is also an important document from this moment, charting the lingering influence of the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny / Rebellion on political thinking in the 1920s. 

On the Indian side, a classic "political" novel from this time period might be The Home and the World. Rabindranath Tagore's Gora also has a considerable discussion of nationalist politics, though the most passionate nationalist in the novel turns out to be a young man of English descent who has been raised by a Brahmin family as one of  their own.  

In his short stories, Tagore occasionally acknowledges nationalist politics. An example might be the story "The Supreme Night," translated into English in Mashi and Other Stories. There, an ambitious young man with a childhood sweetheart the countryside goes to Calcutta to study, and gets involved with a nationalist political group. He silently pledges to remain celibate for his country, which is tested when he and his childhood night are brought together in the middle of a cataclysmic storm. They stay together silently through the entire night, and survive. 

Sarojini Naidu, in her third book of poetry, The Broken Wing (1917), also engaged quite directly with the nationalist movement -- with poems dedicated to M.K. Gandhi and M.A. Jinnah. Naidu, as is well-known, went on to play a leadership role in the Indian National Congress, though she sadly passed away before India and Pakistan gained independence in 1947. 

One of the most influential nationalist novels of the time was Sarat Chandra Chatterji's (Saratchandra Chattopadhyay's) 1926 novel, published in Bengali as Pather Dabi. That novel was banned on publication, and remained untranslated until 1993. The novel is a passionate critique of  the failures of the British justice system, and racial bias and discrimination against Indians in the British colonial hierarchy. The novel features a secret society and a charismatic revolutionary leader, Sabyasachi, who is building a revolutionary movement largely among expatriate communities (most of the novel is set among the Indian population in Rangoon, Burma). It also features a critique of patriarchal double-standards regarding the role of women in the revolutionary movement. The English translation is still under copyright, but see our detailed summary of Pather Dabi here.

This page has paths:

  1. Literature of Colonial South Asia: A Digital Archive Amardeep Singh

Contents of this path:

  1. Rudyard Kipling, "The Enlightenments of Pagett, M.P." (1890) (Short Story)
  2. Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, "Anandamath" ("Dawn Over India") (1882 / 1906 / 1941)
  3. Rabindranath Tagore, "Gora" (1910/1924) (Full Text / Ebook)
  4. Rabindranath Tagore, "The Home and the World" (1916 / 1919) (Full Text)
  5. "A Passage to India" By E.M. Forster (1924)
  6. Maud Diver, "Far To Seek: A Romance of England and India" (1921) (Full Text)
  7. Summary of Maud Diver's Novel "Far to Seek" (1921)
  8. Edward Thompson, "An Indian Day" (1927) (Full text)
  9. Summary of Edward Thompson, "An Indian Day"
  10. Edward Thompson, "The Other Side of the Medal" (1925) (Nonfiction) (Full Text)
  11. Summary of Edward Thompson, "The Other Side of the Medal" (1925)
  12. Sarojini Naidu, "The Broken Wing: Songs of Love, Death, and Destiny" (Poetry) (1917) (Full Text)
  13. Cornelia Sorabji, "India Calling: Memories of Cornelia Sorabji" (1934) (Full Text)
  14. Indian Revolutionaries in the U.S., 1913-1930: the Ghadar Movement and Young India
  15. Rabindranath Tagore, "Mashi and Other Stories" (1918 translation) (Full Text)
  16. Summary of Rabindranath Tagore, "Mashi and Other Stories" (1918)