Country Politics: Madras 1880 to 1930.

Abstract

Recently, a group of scholars, all either students of Anil Seal or persons very much affected by his thinking, have produced a volume entitled Locality, Province and Nation: Essays on Indian Politics, 1870–1940,1 which is reprinted from Volume VII (1973) of Modern Asian Studies. Included in it are an introductory essay by eal himself entitled “Imperialism and Nationalism in India,” two essays on U.P. by C. A. Bayly and F. C. Robinson entitled “Patrons and politics in northern India” and “Municipal Government and Muslim separatism in the United Provinces, 1883 to 1916.” There is one essay by R. A. Gordon called “Non-cooperation and council entry 1919 to 1920” and one by David Washbook entitled “Country politics: Madras 1880 to 1930.” The volume ends with two essays on Bengal by Gordon Johnson and John Gallagher entitled respectively “Partition, agitation and Congress: Bengal 1904 to 1908” and “Congress in decline: Bengal 1930 to 1939.” This volume raises issues of great substance for the study and interpretation of recent Indian history. Seal, in his essay, argues that previous historians of India (in which he includes himself) have been too much concerned with policy and with the educated elite bound together by a common ideology. Instead of looking at partnerships of fellows, we should be looking at vertical alliances. After all, according to him, these alliances were mostly cross-caste and cross-religion. “Hindus worked with Muslims, Brahmins were hand in glove with non-Brahmins; and notables organized their dependents as supporters …” (p. 3).