India and the Raj 1919-1947

Author: Suniti Kumar Ghosh
Publisher: Sahitya Samsad
Year: 2007
Language: English
Pages: 713
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8179551148

Description

Which classes did the Congress leadership represent before 1947? What were their goals and forms and methods of struggle? What were the objects of the seemingly anti-imperialist movements they occasionally initiated? And where did they lead to – freedom or more sophisticated bondage than direct colonial relationship? Relying mainly on primary, while not neglecting secondary, sources, this book seeks to find out answers to these and related questions. The answers are wholly contrary to the basic assumption with which conventional historiography begins.

While exposing what was India’s shame, India and the Raj 1919-1947 also deals briefly with the glorious aspects of India’s anti-colonial struggle – the struggles waged by the peasantry, the working class and the urban petty bourgeoisie. These struggles, genuinely anti-imperialist, and the movements launched by the Congress leadership, were not complementary, as in generally assumed, but essentially of an antagonistic character. In the absence of a mature revolutionary party these struggles failed to merge in a broad stream powerful enough to sweep away imperialist domination and its domestic props.

Contents

Foreword
Preface
Publisher’s Note

PART – I
CHAPTER
1. ‘Domains of Politics’
2. The Indian Bourgeoisie and Imperialism
3. Goals and Strategies
4. Gandhi’s Early Experiments with Satyagraha
5. Jallianwalla Bagh to Chauri-Chaura
6. Freedom’s Warriors or Imperialism’s Collaborators?
7. The Other Domain
8. Disobedience: Civil and ‘Criminal’

PART – II
1. Towards Greater Collaboration Between Imperialist and Indian Big Capital
2. In Quest of Perpetual Friendship
3. ‘Civil Martial Law’ and People’s Struggles
4. Abject Surrender and Secret Commitments
5. ‘Partners in this Repression and in the Exploitation of our People’
6. The CPI and its Role in the Thirties
7. ‘Seemingly in the Opposite Camp’
8. ‘Quit India’: Before and After
9. Partition and Dominion Status
10. The Role of the CPI: From outbreak of war to Transfer of Power
Appendix – Gandhi and His Charisma: A Brief Note
Glossary
Select Bibliography
Index