We finally started with the Modern India today. I had decided to talk about Modernity in Modern India in general and the discuss the various aspects and phases of it first. We started our discussion by briefly touching upon many schools of thought with their own unique way of looking at Modern India. So, there is no The Modern India but there are many Modern Indias depending upon where you look from.
We then talked about the various aspects of the whole freedom struggle and tried to deconstruct them into interacting bits. The simple fragmentation like Moderate (1885-1905), Extremist (1905-1920), Gandhian (1920-1947), though easy to grasp, is very misleading. We have many components like tribals, peasants, working class, business class - all of them with diverse interests. Convergence of views and objectives is not always possible. Similarly, we have lefts - socialists and communists - sometimes inside Congress and sometimes outside it, sometimes with Congress sometimes opposing it. Then we have women's movement, lower caste movements, romantics and revolutionaries and finally princely states. All of them evolved, over time and not with the same pace. So the interaction of all these components as we saw was very complicated - amongst themselves as well as with the umbrella struggle against the British. At various moments in the struggle (like NCM, CDM, QIM), some of them were with Congress some were not - and the togetherness did not go long enough. So the takeaway was - please consider the faultlines beneath a common struggle against the colonial power while reading any book.
As was earlier decided, we devoted today's lecture to pre-Congress era. We discussed the breakdown of Mughal Compromise and various theories behind it. We then traced the emergence of many regional powers - successor states, rebel states and principalities. We talked about each of them - their autonomy, ascendancy and gradual subjugation. I tried to place the whole situation in India in a global perspective to some extent. The British home politics, European disputes, collapse of the First Empire, the Great Game, all of these affected the unfolding of events in India. This later part of the discussion consumed almost whole of the lecture.
We could not discuss two points today - Firstly the dual system, Cornwallis code as well as Subsidiary Alliance. Additionally, the discussion about the Metropole and Periphery - the unrolling process of subjugation of India - these two topics could not be covered today. I will try to touch upon them briefly tomorrow and we will then move on to the other topics.
I know that a lecture without photos and videos may be a little drab. Especially more so as you already know the story. However, there are many finer points and connecting linkages which are important and easy to miss. Efforts are to bring those forth. And imagining modern times should not be difficult.
Good night.
We then talked about the various aspects of the whole freedom struggle and tried to deconstruct them into interacting bits. The simple fragmentation like Moderate (1885-1905), Extremist (1905-1920), Gandhian (1920-1947), though easy to grasp, is very misleading. We have many components like tribals, peasants, working class, business class - all of them with diverse interests. Convergence of views and objectives is not always possible. Similarly, we have lefts - socialists and communists - sometimes inside Congress and sometimes outside it, sometimes with Congress sometimes opposing it. Then we have women's movement, lower caste movements, romantics and revolutionaries and finally princely states. All of them evolved, over time and not with the same pace. So the interaction of all these components as we saw was very complicated - amongst themselves as well as with the umbrella struggle against the British. At various moments in the struggle (like NCM, CDM, QIM), some of them were with Congress some were not - and the togetherness did not go long enough. So the takeaway was - please consider the faultlines beneath a common struggle against the colonial power while reading any book.
As was earlier decided, we devoted today's lecture to pre-Congress era. We discussed the breakdown of Mughal Compromise and various theories behind it. We then traced the emergence of many regional powers - successor states, rebel states and principalities. We talked about each of them - their autonomy, ascendancy and gradual subjugation. I tried to place the whole situation in India in a global perspective to some extent. The British home politics, European disputes, collapse of the First Empire, the Great Game, all of these affected the unfolding of events in India. This later part of the discussion consumed almost whole of the lecture.
We could not discuss two points today - Firstly the dual system, Cornwallis code as well as Subsidiary Alliance. Additionally, the discussion about the Metropole and Periphery - the unrolling process of subjugation of India - these two topics could not be covered today. I will try to touch upon them briefly tomorrow and we will then move on to the other topics.
I know that a lecture without photos and videos may be a little drab. Especially more so as you already know the story. However, there are many finer points and connecting linkages which are important and easy to miss. Efforts are to bring those forth. And imagining modern times should not be difficult.
Good night.
