Mughal Decline

Part II Paper 26, Week 1. I was supervised by Leigh Denault at Churchill.

Traditionally the great Mughal Empire which, at its height, covered over four million square kilometres of land was thought to have fallen into irreversible decline in the eighteenth century. Early histories, such as that by Sir Jadunath Sarkar, pointed to the breakdown of centralised administration, claiming the result was a descent into political chaos and confusion. This in turn was said to have created economic and social problems as individuals vied for power. In more recent years however this view has been strongly challenged. The increasing focus on regional studies has led to a reassessment of the buoyancy of the pre-colonial economy, and stability of social structures. Commercialisation is no longer seen as an innovation of the Europeans, with evidence of a move towards private ownership in many areas. Primarily what has been proven is that there is no easy summary that can be applied to the whole of the India; the eighteenth century experience was far from uniform.

At the very beginning of the eighteenth century the Mughal Empire was widely understood to be as strong – if not stronger – than it had ever been. Huge swathes of land were under Mughal control covering most of present day India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Early signs of change became evident however following the death of Aurangzeb, the sixth Mughal Emperor, in 1707. Bahadur Shah, Aurangzeb’s successor, not only was forced to fight off rival claims to the throne from his brothers Azum Shah and Muhammad Kam Baksh, he also inherited the task of trying to stamp out elite factionalism and overcoming hostility from the provinces over his father’s strict enforcement of Sharia law. Upon Bahadur Shah’s death in 1712 another bitter succession struggle broke out between his sons. The short and unpopular reign of Jahandar Shah was brought to an end in battle with Farrukhisyar in 1713, who then began his own reign, dominated by his advisers such as the self serving Syed brothers. This tumultuous overview provides insight into the sudden instability within the official administration. Without strong leadership from the centre it is unsurprising that local figures of authority should try and consolidate their own power.

This certainly seemed to be the case in some areas of the empire. Om Prakash highlights the example of Murshid Quli Khan in Bengal. Maintaining the level of revenue collection expected by the central Mughal administration, Khan proved himself capable and was made Subedar in 1716, giving him and Bengal effective autonomy . This kind of arrangement, whilst a sign of weakening central control, could be said to support the idea that Indian society and economy was ‘divided but buoyant’. Clearly, sufficient revenue was still being raised in Bengal and the official recognition of Khan from the centre suggests that this division was not overly problematic.

Perhaps this is a misleadingly optimistic view however. In other parts of India the situation was not so favourable. Muzaffar Alam describes how in northern India the Mughal forces struggled to defend territory from local competitors. In 1708 for example the governor of Awadh resigned, citing his insufficient authority to deal with the threat from ‘recalcitrant’ zamindars (officials employed to collect taxes from peasants) as a significant part of his reasoning. In 1709 Daruban Singh and his clansmen invaded and held Ghazipur, defeating the Mughal forces sent to remove him. This hints at the extent of the threat such individuals could cause. They often had charge of large private armies and cavalries; the Gaur Rajput rebels of Sarkar Khairbad had control over no less than 25 fortresses for example. Aside from being unable to defend territory from rebels Mughal forces were also faced with fighting between rival factions. In 1715 for example the zamindars of Samanpur and Pargana Bhagwant fought and killed the zamindar of the ri’aya of Bahramganj. In such conditions it is difficult to believe social and economic ‘buoyancy’ could have been maintained.

Traditional accounts of this period of Indian history have assumed that the impact of the late seventeenth-century economic crisis was hugely damaging. Faced with internal succession disputes and unfeasibly high taxation demands from the new local elites, it was believed that the Indian economy was failing and therefore in desperate need of European commercialism, such as that imposed by the British from the late eighteenth century. Work by the likes of Alam and Bayly has gone a long way to disproving this assumption. The scope of the so called ‘crisis’ is now questioned, and its affects are thought to have been, in many instances, negligible. In the early eighteenth century, far from being a stagnating economy, India actually possessed upwards of a quarter of the world’s total manufacturing capacity and was a major player in the world economy. Accountancy skills, formerly thought to be introduced to India by Europeans in this period, had in fact been flourishing since the sixteenth century, particularly in western India. In more social terms there is increasing evidence that the caste system was not as restrictive as has previously been believed, and that there was in fact a relatively high level of worker mobility.

The ‘modernity’ of the economy of eighteenth century India can be seen in the high level of market dependence, even amongst the peasantry. Trade was an incredibly important part of the economy, and not just with the Europeans. Large amounts of trade were also done with other parts of Asia and, of course, internally for the domestic market. Washbrook quotes for example that in a single salt season between 70,000 and 120,000 bullocks laden with goods were expected to visit each of the eight major salt trading centres along the southeast coast of India. Prakash and Chaudry maintain that economy of Bengal was prosperous throughout the first half of the eighteenth century and that, in fact, it is only in light of increasing interference from the European trading companies, the British East India Trading Company in particular, that real problems emerged. Sivakumar and Sivakumar argue for instance that real earnings from agricultural work in Chingleput were three times higher in 1795 than 1796 after the land settlement.

A case study demonstrating this model of the Indian economy can be seen in Prasannan Parthasarathi’s work on the cloth industry in South India. In the early eighteenth century cloth was already a massive business interest; in Awadh trade with the Europeans actually only represented a very small percentage of the entire cloth trade. Weavers held a lot of power within the workforce, dictating whom they worked for, for example. This situation rested on custom, the ability to negate contracts for work by weavers giving back the advance payment for instance, but also on newer trade developments. Merchants competed in the marketplace to sell cloth to the Europeans at a profit. Oppression of the weavers then was not something that had always been there as was once believed. Instead it was a situation which was created by ever tighter controls on manufacture from the British. The policy of direct advances – cutting out the merchant middlemen – from the 1760s was unpopular because up to 2/3 of the advance was paid in yarn. In addition the clause whereby a contract could be annulled by repaying this advance was soon eroded. In this way the weavers, a group of independent workers, were reduced to dependency on the Company because of its growing monopoly. This suggests that, were it not for outside forces, the Indian economy could have indeed been ‘divided but buoyant’.

The main obstacle to this interpretation comes, as does its main support, from regional studies. Contemporary Dean Mahomet devotes page after page of his travel journal to describing the differences between the regions he passes through on his journey. The Mughal Empire stretched over millions of square kilometres and, so, it stands to reason that the regional experience was not uniform. Some areas were prosperous, revenue collection in Bengal rose from around £2million in 1765-6 to £3.33million in 1770-1, the fact it was paid in full suggesting its inhabitants were well off enough to do so, even after a transfer of authority away from the central Mughal courts. Other areas struggled, for example those with unscrupulous individuals in charge and a heavy reliance on the jajmani system (whereby families of different castes were expected to perform certain services for each other.) In some areas European intervention might be welcomed, in others it would be vehemently resisted. The point is that it is hard to generalise when considering such a massive expanse of land, populated by such a wide variety of peoples.

This might seem to suggest that Mughal decline was inevitable in that the Empire had been too centralised, too determined to enforce top-down policies such as Sharia law, even in areas where it would inevitably be resented such as the Sikh majority Punjab. This has long been seen as the secret of British success in obtaining power in India. By working with local elites and seeming to be sympathetic to regional conditions, the British could gain support from the ground roots. Stein points to the practice of ‘military fiscalism’ that grew in the eighteenth century. Standing armies were maintained by the Company to protect their interests which, at the same time, provided employment in the army, or in providing supplies for it. Although, again, the success of this policy was often linked with local circumstances.

For a long time study into this area has been swamped by expectations formed from the big overarching theories of history. Washbrook suggests that because India’s story had not terminated in the creation of a modern industrial society, historians were disinclined to look at the eighteenth century Indian economy through a capitalist or commercial lens. Such developments were assumed to be European impositions, although we now have evidence for the development of an industrialist class structure before the Raj for example. Some regions such as Mysore were already controlling production in the early eighteenth century, and monopolies on goods controlled by local elites were actually fairly common.

In societal terms again there is no coherent general overview. Many areas had maintained their own character throughout the period of Mughal rule. The jajmani system had never been widespread in Bengal for example, and was close to dying out in Maharashtra and Gujerat by the eighteenth century. In many areas there was continuity, for example by the 1770s artisans in Banaras were being supported by the patronage of the new great merchant families, taking over the role traditionally held by the Mughal nobility. In this way Mughal culture and societal expectations were being preserved.

In conclusion Mughal decline was not necessarily inevitable. Had there been more competent successors to follow Aurangzeb perhaps the decentralisation of power could have been curbed. Even if it had not, greater co-operation between the rising local elites and the central power could have helped to maintain Mughal cultural dominance at the very least. What was most likely inevitable was continued regional diversity, which is what we see throughout the eighteenth century. This supports the suggestion that the Indian economy and Indian society were, to a certain extent, always ‘divided’. Whether or not it was ‘buoyant’ is a more difficult issue. In some areas economic prosperity continued, such as the south Indian cloth industry, throughout much of the eighteenth century. Yet other areas struggled; for example the older port towns which were losing out to the new European centres of trade. Above all the question should be considered in a regional context, rather than in the terms of overarching historiographical theories which have framed the study of Indian history for so long.

• Alavi, Seema. The Eighteenth Century in India, Oxford in India Readings. Debates in Indian History and Society. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002. 
• Barrow, Ian J., and Douglas E Haynes. “The Colonial Transition: South Asia, 1780-1840.” Modern Asian Studies 38, no. 3 (2004): 469-78. 
• Fisher, Michael H. “Review: British and Indian Interactions before the British Raj in India, 1730s-1857.” The Journal of British Studies 36, no. 3 (1997): 363-70. 
• Parthasarathi, Prasannan. The Transition to a Colonial Economy: Weavers, Merchants and Kings in South India, 1720-1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. 
• Travers, Robert. “The Eighteenth Century in Indian Hisory.” Eighteenth-Century Studies 40, no. 3 (2007): 492-508. 
• Washbrook, D. A. “Progress and Problems: South Asian Economic and Social History C.1720-1860.” Modern Asian Studies 22, no. 1 (1988): 57-96. 
• Maohomet, Dean. The Travels of Dean Mahomet: An Eighteenth-Century Journey through India. Edited by Michael H. Fisher. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. 
• Jodhaa Akbar. Dir. Ashutosh Gowariker, 2008.

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Part II Paper 26 Essay Topic 5: 1857 and Peasant Rebellions in the 19th Century. Third essay of Lent term 2009-2010. I was supervised by Leigh Denault at Churchill.


1857-58 has become a key date in both Indian and British history, hinting immediately at a broad and convoluted historiography. A rebellion which began as a ‘military mutiny’ has since been framed as a war of independence by Indian historians with nationalist sympathies such as S. N. Sen and S. B. Chaudhuri. Other historians, particularly those who subscribe to Marxist theory, have suggested that the rebellion was, in fact, a peasant uprising against oppression. Yet it is not just the intricacies of historical interpretation which has made the events of 1857-58 difficult to characterise. There has not even been agreement on what the events of 1857-58 should be referred to as; what remains the ‘Indian Mutiny’ in Britain is typically the ‘first war of independence’ in India, the former term being deemed offensive. In recent years it has become increasingly accepted that whatever took place was not coherent and organised as such overarching labels suggest. Instead it was the spilling over of local tensions. This essay shall seek to outline some of the issues that have hindered an easy characterisation of the events, and suggest that the huge discrepancy in the actual reality of what took place on a regional basis is the key issue.

May 1857 saw an initial mutiny of sepoys in Meerut, sparked by the East India Company policy of using lard or tallow to grease the cartridges of the new Pattern 1853 Enfield rifles. Men refusing to use the cartridges, judged by Hindu and Muslim beliefs to now be contaminated and unclean, were court martialled and imprisoned by the British. Sympathetic sepoys rose up against the British officials and released them, leading to a swift breakdown of British control in the region. The rebels, as they were now styled, marched on to Delhi and took charge of the city. Bahadur Shah, the last of the Mughal emperors, provided a figurehead around which discontent could rally. News of the events in Delhi spread quickly, with rebellion breaking out in many regions. Stokes claims that in 1857 there were 450,000 European troops in India. But the army was slow to react, misjudging the number of men needed and failing to bring the rebellion to a swift conclusion. By this time the empire was a matter of British national pride, it is clear that they would have a vested interest in shaping the way it was remembered when they regained control.

In some areas the rebellion stretched on for months, the fates of those in the besieged cities of Delhi, Kanpur and Lucknow were followed closely in the British press. A planned evacuation of the British from Kanpur descended into mayhem, huge numbers being killed. The survivors, along with other hostages, were held by the Nana Sahib until it became clear the European forces were going to regain control. In a last show of defiance a mass execution of the hostages, numbering around two hundred women and children, was ordered, an act which was later to be described as a massacre. It was this violence which was to shape much of the immediate evaluation of what had happened in 1857-58, and indeed has continued to play a large part in how historians have framed events. From a British perspective it changed the way Indian society was understood, and provided a basis for justification of British rule. Similarly it has occupied Indian historians as they attempt to provide explanations for what became seen as mindless acts of violence.

During the rebellion itself and in its immediate aftermath it was accepted that there were a number of contributing factors. Disraeli told Parliament in July 1857 that they were witnessing ‘a national revolt’, giving credence to the idea that this was a war of independence. The rallying of support behind traditional leaders such as Bahadur Shah further suggests that the rebels wanted an end to British rule. Roy claimed that the rebels of Bundelkhand had a relatively uniform vision in that they wanted to remove European oppression, and an 1858 British enquiry into the events at Lucknow concluded that: “the object of the mutineers was… not so much to disgrace our name, as to wipe out all traces of Europeans, and of everything connected with foreign rule.” However this was evidently not the case everywhere; many native rulers remained loyal. In Bengal, where British presence was comparatively very influential, there was little unrest, suggesting that resentment of European rule was not intense across India.

This is not to say that the rebellion of 1857 was in fact a ‘peasant rebellion writ large’. Other reasons brought forward suggest that the reality was far more complicated. In Muzaffarnagar Stokes points to widespread resentment of the landowning money-lenders. In Bhukaheri for example 23,000 acres were parted with in the run up to the rebellion, 18,000 acres of this land was bought up by the money-lenders. Stokes says that, here, rebellion “bore the outward and immediate signs of tax rebellion.” In the countryside surrounding Delhi however the violence centred around factionalism, and the fight for control by local elites like the Meos and the Gujars. Many British officials singled out religion as the main factor. Dalhousie’s reforms, such as the widow remarriage act of 1856, were thought to have been an imposition on native religion which led to hostility. Yet the Hindoo Patriot, an English language paper of the native Bengali elite, pointed the finger of blame at British annexing of Oudh and land settlement of the North Western provinces. What emerges from these contradictory claims is that there was no single explanation for the rebellion. What for one rebel was a fight for freedom from British rule was, for another, an opportunity to reclaim land from neighbouring elites or simply a chance to air local grievances concerning tax or living conditions.

Take for example the issue of religion. The British governors had been placing a lot of emphasis on English language schooling, institutions which often had heavy involvement of missionaries and evangelicals. Although religious instruction was strategically ignored at these schools, conservative Indians feared the British were attempting to force conversion to Christianity upon them. The widow remarriage act seemed to confirm this as it undermined a basic principle of the Hindu faith. In the aftermath of the rebellion the act was widely cited as a contributing factor to unrest. However between the passage of the act and the outbreak of rebellion only 16 women had actually made use of it, most of these living in or on the outskirts of Calcutta. In addition the main source of religious conflict came from Muslims rather than Hindus, the former uniting against the British. This shows that even with an issue that at first seemed straightforward, here religious tension caused by British interference, was actually more complex and based on a variety of local affairs.

Throughout the rest of the nineteenth century the British continued to describe the rebellion as a ‘military mutiny’. This implies a small scale disturbance, confined only to one sector of society. Whilst this was true of the very initial stages of the unrest in Meerut, it denies the reality of the situation as it developed and expanded. However by consistently framing the rebellion as a military matter, perhaps it helped to exonerate the British of any heavy handed punishments that were dispensed. The sepoys were punished for their actions, rather than Indian society as a whole. 1857 became a matter of British national pride, the bravery of British citizens behind enemy lines applauded. The British thus had a vested interest in portraying the rebellion as a mutiny, rather than the beginnings of a nationalist movement, something which would make Indian actions during the rebellion ideologically justifiable.

As time passed the events of 1857-58 took on an almost mythical quality. For the British it remained hugely significant, both as a cautionary tale of strict rule, and as a way of justifying the continued British presence in India. Any poor treatment of Indian nationals was believed to be a result of the events of the rebellion, rather than something that had incited it. However in the early twentieth century 1857 began to be appropriated by the Indian Nationalist movement. The nationalist poet V. D. Savarkar framed the rebellion as a war of independence in 1909 for example. Historians began to re-examine the rebellion and identified resentment of foreign rule and the fear of enforced Christianity as the driving factors behind it. S. N. Sen made the link explicit in his 1957 official sponsored history, claiming that “what began as a fight for religion ended as a war of independence.” The British wanted to downplay the role of nationalism, India was keen to exploit it above all other factors. This display of political motivation provides an obvious reason why there is little agreement over how best to characterise the events of 1857-58.

This level of emotional investment in the rebellion can be seen in the dispute between Barbara English and Rudrangshu Mukherjee over the Kanpur massacres in Past and Present. English accused Mukherjee of attempting to justify the massacre, to excuse the actions of Nana’s army. She claimed that Mukherjee over emphasised the mistreatment of Indian sepoys by the British before the rebellion for example. Mukherjee in retaliation accuses English of being overly critical of his evidence, and of refusing to accept what is widely known to have been the case. That this correspondence took place in the 1990s gives a little indication of how volatile the issue was in the past, when the events at Kanpur were not quite so distant. By imbuing the historiography of 1857-58 with nationalism (from both sides) it made it difficult for historians to look at events objectively and remain detached from motivations that had later been ascribed.

The historiography has been made more complicated still by the work of historians who ascribe to alternative historical models. Socialist and Marxist historians have looked to the role of economics in the rebellion, rather than nationalist sentiment. It was not until Stokes explicitly drew attention to the regional differences in the rebellion that these overarching frameworks began to be abandoned as a means of explanation for the events of 1857-58. The likes of Mukherjee have drawn attention to the fact that the surviving documentation is British, something which possibly obscures true motivation from us as the British sought a single answer for what had occurred. Subaltern theorists continued to work with this new model of diversity. This has served to prove that there is no single explanation for the rebellion.

In conclusion the events of the 1857-58 rebellion have been difficult to characterise for a number of reasons. Firstly, the rebellion whilst initially starting as a military mutiny quickly expanded and mutated. In some areas, such as the recently annexed Oudh, it became a fight against unwanted British rule. In others, like Muzaffanargar, it evolved into disputes over land and taxation. This regional diversity meant that any single explanation for the rebellion would never be comprehensive. In addition the way the events were to be remembered became a political issue. As Indian nationalist sentiment grew 1857-58 was appropriated from the British. No longer was it an example of British courage in the face of adversity, but an example of British oppression; the uprisings the first steps towards a true Indian consciousness. It is only in recent years, thanks to the work of Stokes and that of Subaltern theorists that it has become accepted that there is no neat way to characterise the events. Instead it is recognised that 1857-58 was a series of regional rebellions, each with its own goals and reasons.

• Mutiny on the Margins: Essays and Primary Sources. [ http://www.csas.ed.ac.uk/mutiny/ ]
• Stokes, Eric. “Traditional Resistance Movements and Afro-Asian Nationalism: the Context of the 1857 Mutiny Rebellion in India.” Past & Present 48, no. (1970): 100-18. 
•  Stokes, Eric and C. A. Bayly. The Peasant Armed: The Indian Revolt of 1857, Oxford, Clarendon, 1986. 
• Bayly, C. A. Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire, chapter 4. 
• Ranajit Guha, “The Prose of Counter Insurgency”, ch. 11 in Dirks, Nicholas B., Geoff Eley, and Sherry B. Ortner. Culture/Power/History: A Read in Contemporary Social Theory, Princeton University Press, 1994. 
• Roy, Tapti. “Visions of the Rebels: A Study of 1857 in Bundelkhand.” Modern Asian Studies 21, no. (1993): 205-28. 
• Metcalf, Thomas R. The Aftermath of Revolt: India 1857-1870. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1964. 
• English, Barbara. “The Kanpur Massacres in India in the Revolt of 1857.” Past & Present no. 142 (1994): 169-78. 
• Mukherjee, Rudrangshu. “”Satan Let Loose Upon Earth”: The Kanpur Massacres in India in the Revolt of 1857.” Past & Present no. 128 (1990): 92-116. 
• Mukherjee, Rudrangshu. “The Kanpur Massacres in India in the Revolt of 1857: Reply.” Past & Present no. 142 (1994): 178-89. 

Supervision Comments: This is your strongest essay yet, you write and argue persuasively that 1857 has been difficult to characterise precisely because, from the first, the 'meaning' of the rebellion was deeply controversial. It might be useful to focus a bit more on both the longer-term socio-economic reasons for the revolt (the rebel's manifesto) and on the aftermath - Queen Victoria's speech is a telling commentary on the Crown's opinion of Company rule. Mukherjee is representative of a new trend, in examining not only the British deaths, but the massive Indian loss of life during and immediately after the uprising. This perspective is captured in the harrowing early photographs of Italian Felice Beato, who documented the punitive mass executions that followed the rebellion. Overall, good work in sorting through a demanding historiography - your task for revision will be to try to bring some of the sources that we do have back into the story.

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A/N: Pt II Paper 26. Essay Topic 15: Imagining India: Indian Nationalist Thought. Week 4 essay, I was supervised at Churchill by Leigh Denault. 



In the latter part of the nineteenth century Indian nationalism began to emerge as a concept. Attempts were made by intellectuals to create a coherent history of India, a history that could unite its people and encourage a unified identity. This spilled over into administration, and politics began to take on an overtly nationalist flavour. In 1986 Partha Chatterjee declared that Indian nationalist thought was, in fact, a ‘derivative discourse’, implying that it was simply modelled on British nationalist thought. This essay argues that whilst aspects of British political movements were taken on board by Indian nationalists, it is overly simplistic and dismissive to claim that Indian nationalist thought was ‘a derivative discourse’.

Indian nationalist thought certainly looked to British examples to establish itself. Nandy for example describes how, in the early stages in particular, Indian writers sought to frame traditional Indian stories in a way which would make them be taken seriously by the British. Bankimchandra Chatterjee for instance reinterpreted the story of Krsna, portraying him as ‘a normal non-pagan god who would not humiliate his devotees in front of the progressive westerners’. Again in the work of Michael Madhusdan Dutt there is a reframing of Indian mythology to better fit a western world view. Nandy points out his retelling of the Bengali epic Ramayana as being especially westernised. Rather than three genders being apparent in these new stories, purusatua (masculinity), naritva (femininity) and klibatva (hermaphroditism), there is a clear male / female divide. Evidence such as this would seem to add credence to the idea that Indian nationalist thought at this stage was simply ‘a derivative discourse’.

There were attempts to codify Hinduism into a coherent national religion, rather than a disparate network of beliefs bound by common rituals. This has been seen by some historians as an example of the ‘christianization’ of Hinduism. Perhaps however this is a disservice to what reformers were hoping to achieve by their actions. Making religion more easily accessible and understandable may have been restrictive on the one hand; the attempt made by the British to catalogue scriptural doctrine and apply it as law, as with the case of sati, provides an example here. But, on the other, it also provided a rallying point for Indian nationalism. Self-identification is an important part of nationalism, and by installing a more coherent structure of belief people could feel they had more in common with each other. This suggests that whilst the idea may have come from Christianity and the west, it does not mean that these early reformers were merely attempting to carve out a religion in the same mould as Christianity.

This use of western methods for Indian ideals can again be seen in the work of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. Throughout the 1860s for example he worked on simplifying the Bengali alphabet, thus making it easier to put into type. He embraced modern – western – science and translated the biographies of eminent scientists such as Newton and Herschel into Bengali. At times he even seemed to go against the principles of Hinduism by insisting that all Indians, regardless of caste, should receive a good education. However, by taking on board western knowledge and principles Vidyasagar sought not to ‘westernise’ India as we might understand it today. Rather he sought to create a sense among the Indian people of belonging to India, of being Indian. Vidyasagar supported the Widow Remarriage Act of 1856, something which was believed to go against the fundamental principles of Hinduism. This is not simply an example of agreeing with British thought on the subject. It is instead an example of how British thought could be appropriated; Vidyasagar believed the act would provide a better quality of life for Hindu women, and thus create a greater sense of pride for and self-identification with the faith.

The form which the Indian Independence Movement was to take might seem to support the idea that Indian nationalist was ‘a derivative discourse’. The National Congress, a political party established in 1885, seems to have much in common with western movements. British domestic protest was usually political in nature by this time, the Chartism movement for example had attempted to unite the middle and working classes around a political rallying point. The Indian National Congress grew throughout the final years of the nineteenth century to eventually become the leading voice in the struggle for freedom from British rule. By the early twentieth century people were looking to the party for leadership.

However the National Congress also provides an example of the way in which Indian nationalist thought was a divided discourse, regardless of whether or not it was derivative. The party was split over attitudes towards the British in 1907 for instance, into the Garam Dal and Naram Dal factions. The Khilafat movement, for protection of the Ottoman Empire, again split the party, resulting in a number of key figures leaving to establish the Swaraj party. This shows that even in a discourse that took its cue from western models, there was still great variation. Religious divides between Hinduism and Muslim beliefs were to become increasingly important.

This can be seen clearly by looking at the great central figures of Indian nationalism like Gandhi and Nehru. Nehru wanted to unify the Indian people behind a discourse of modernity, whereas Gandhi sought to emphasise the past. At first it seems as though this is a simple case of Nehru being more ‘westernised’ in his outlook than Gandhi. Indeed in many ways Gandhi seems very traditional, for example his refusal to accept the Smritis as set in stone. This reflects the reality of older Hinduism, which was relatively fluid. This meant that he could stand against the caste system with some justification, arguing that it was ‘contrary to universal truths and morals’. However Gandhi had been educated in Britain, and was close friends with C.F. Andrews, an English Christian cleric. Gandhi knew how to work within the British system of administration, for example making public appearances and framing his arguments in terms which were easily understood by foreign nationalists.

The idea of peaceful protest was not something unique to India, nor unique to Hinduism. Romila Thapar shows how ‘historic’ Hinduism was a construct of Indian nationalists of this period, seeking to present a structured vision of the past which suited their present circumstances. Saivite persecution of the Sramanic sects is pointed to as proof that Hinduism was not the strictly peaceful religion it later came to be portrayed as. What we see then is an appropriation of the western practice of writing history to fit with modern preconceptions for nationalist purposes. This means that whilst nationalist thought apparent in such work is in one sense derivative, it is also separate in that it provides a uniquely ‘Indian’ history for nationalism to grow around.

Thapar argues that a Hindu community was an essential requirement for mobilisation of nationalist sentiment. There needed to be some common cause for people to rally around. However this could be as divisive as it was cohesive. Focus on Hinduism alienated members of other faiths, particularly evident in the schisms in the National Congress with Islam. Later this would again be witnessed over language for example. Agreement that English should be ousted as the official language was broadly reached, yet in favour of what remained a problematic question. There was no ‘national’ language that could easily replace it, the ‘majority’ languages such as Hindustani were still only spoken in relatively small areas of India. Here we see that not all nationalist discourse was derivative. Language had never been a major focus for British nationalism for instance, even in areas where other languages were spoken such as Wales and parts of Scotland. So a derivative system – the political party – is employed to solve Indian issues.

That derivative discourse should be a part of the story of Indian nationalist thought is perhaps unremarkable. Many of the intellectuals who were to take up the cause had been educated with western methods, or even in Britain itself. Aurobindo Ghose for example was sent to Britain at a young age to be educated, only returning to India over twenty years later, having made his way through the British education system, including a stint at King’s College, Cambridge. Even when he turned against Britain, joining the fight for Indian independence and, later, concentrating on a more spiritual existence the impact of this British upbringing would have remained with him. For Aurobindo and many of his contemporaries, using a western discourse to promote nationalist thought would have come naturally. This was a result of the importance placed on Western education by the Indian middle classes, such as the Bengali Bhadralok, and the permutation of western culture into Indian life.

Shruti Kapila argues however that just because a western model is used, it does not necessarily mean that it remains foreign. Instead the model is transformed as it is applied to its new problem. Chatterjee highlights this in his discussion of Kedourie’s work. Kedourie claims that ‘Nationalism as an ideology is irrational, narrow, hateful and destructive. It is not an authentic product of any of the non-European civilizations…’ Chatterjee suggests that this isn’t the case. Just because the form nationalism has taken has at times been destructive in Europe, for example in Nazi Germany, it does not mean that all instances of nationalist discourse should be looked upon equally as negatively. In India European ideas of nationalism were utilised, but then changed by the leaders of the Independence Movement. Divides within Indian nationalist thought serve both to reflect its unique Indian origins. For example the splits over religion and language. But also to highlight the fact that this was a model that had been applied elsewhere. Political activism regularly resulted in schisms over policy, as in the contemporary women’s suffrage movement in Britain for example, or the early Chartist movement.

In conclusion Indian nationalist thought was a derivative discourse. It looked to western models of framing nationalist sentiment, and sought to recreate them in India. For example the publication of reworked histories and myths. However the term ‘derivative discourse’ seems overly dismissive. The tools utilized by Indian nationalists were the obvious ones for them to choose. Many had been educated within a westernised system and, in any case, the effectiveness of political parties and ‘propaganda’ literature had already been proven successful. They did not just copy from what had gone before, instead they altered it to fit their own purposes. It also ignores the divides within the nationalist movement, for example between Hindus and Muslims. It was derivative, but still complex.

• Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse, Delhi, 1986 
• Romila Thapar ‘Imagined Religious Communities? Ancient History and the Modern Search for a Hindu Identity’ Modern Asian Studies, 1989. [JStor] 
• Sunil Khilnani, The Idea of India, London, 1998 
• Ashis Nandy, The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism, Delhi, 1983 
• Shruti Kapila, ed. Special Issue, ”An Intellectual History for India” Modern Intellectual History April 2007. [See introductory essay.]