The Thought of Bal Gangadhar Tilak


Book Description

This work is a systematic study of Bal Gangadhar Tilak's thought, focusing on his views on 'communal' relations within the Indian polity, on caste and reform in Hindu society, and on political ethics regarding violence and non-cooperation. The Thought of Bal Gangadhar Tilak adopts a contextualist approach, situating his ideas in local Maharashtrian as well as pan-Indian and global cultural-intellectual contexts. The approach blends Tilak's quotidian journalism and speeches alongside his canonical texts on Aryan history and on the Bhagavad Gita. The work marks a departure from current interpretations, emphatically arguing that he is misappropriated and/or misunderstood as a proto-Hindutva thinker. Instead, he is revealed to be a radical liberal who supports counter-autocratic violence, a majoritarian pluralist in terms of intercommunity relations, a self-strengthening reformer who focuses on masculinity, and a Brahmin supremacist who is committed to reshaping India for the challenges of modernity. This book lays emphasis on his remarkable recognition as the nation's 'founding father' and particularly demonstrates how this later appropriation by Gandhi was contested by those celebrating Tilak's approach to contest him during the crucial mid-1920s period when he was indelibly linked to re-emerging Hindutva. More recently, growing ahistorical demi-official insistence on his social progressivism illustrates a change in India's public culture, as does the use of popular or even legal pressure to de-legitimize perennial criticism of Tilak's socio-political positions.




Modern Indian Political Thought


Book Description

This book is an unconventional articulation of the political thinking in India in a refreshingly creative manner in more than one way. Empirically, the book becomes innovative by providing an analytically more grasping contextual interpretation of Indian political thought that evolved during the nationalist struggle against colonialism. Insightfully, it attempts to unearth the hitherto unexplored yet vital subaltern strands of political thinking in India as manifested through the mode of numerous significant socio-economic movements operating side by side and sometimes as part of the mainstream nationalist movement. This book articulates the main currents of Indian political thought by locating the text and themes of the thinkers within the socio-economic and politico-cultural contexts in which such ideas were conceptualised and articulated. The book also tries to analytically grasp the influences of the various British constitutional devices that appeared as the responses of the colonial government to redress the genuine socio-economic grievances of the various sections of Indian society. The book breaks new ground in not only articulating the main currents of Indian political thought in an analytically more sound approach of context-driven discussion but also provokes new research in the field by charting a new course in grasping and articulating the political thought in India. This volume will be useful to the students, researchers and faculty working in the fields of political science, political sociology, political economy and post-colonial contemporary Indian politics in particular. It will also be an invaluable and interesting reading for those interested in South Asian studies.




Indian Unrest


Book Description