Book Description

The imagination of the colonial north Indian landscape has been shaped immensely by the scholarship of C.A. Bayly. This omnibus brings together landmark writings providing a sense of the wide range of subjects and their multiple dimensions examined by one of the finest living historians of British India. Exploring the maze of political and economic networks of politicians and influential local groups in the significant constituency of Allahabad, The Local Roots of Indian Politics describes the linkages between local and national politics during 1880-1920. This is complemented by an analysis of rural Allahabad district in his 1986 essay ('Rural conflict and the roots of Indian nationalism') which had been left out from The Local Roots. Bayly's exposition of social organization, ideology, and politics of 'Indian middle classes' in north India during the crucial late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in Rulers, Townsmen, Bazaars remains a significant moment in Indian historiography. This volume has inspired many studies of the period. The third volume in the omnibus, Origins of Nationality in South Asia analyses the moral and cultural antecedents of the regional patriotisms which became a key feature of Indian nationalism. It discusses the origins of Swadeshi; pre- history of 'Communalism'; nature of the British Military-Fiscal State and indigenous resistance; and, the role of the British factor in modern south Asian history.