Class, Community or Nation? Gandhi's Quest for a Popular Consensus in India

Abstract

The historian who compares the disintegration of political societies like the Dual Monarchy of Austria and Hungary with the emergence of political societies like India is immediately struck by the different meanings which nationalism can assume in different contexts. The historian who carries out such a comparison would be justified in drawing the conclusion that nationalism in Europe in the nineteenth century was quite different from nationalism in India in the twentieth century. In the former instance, nationalism led to the breakdown of societies which embraced diverse ethnic, cultural and linguistic groups into relatively homogeneous communities; in the latter instance, it ostensibly led to the fusion of peoples who spoke different languages, who belonged to different cultures, and who subscribed to different traditions, into a single nation. The nationalists of Europe pointed with pride to the close ties of language, culture and race which held together the new States of Europe; the nationalists of India, however, pointed with equal pride to their achievement in forging peoples who were racially distinct from each other, and who subscribed to distinct historical traditions, into a single political community.