Nationalist Discourse in the Colonial World: The Indian Uprising of 1857 Vis-à-Vis the Ambivalent Middle-Class Intelligentsia of Bengal

Abstract

The paper addresses and contributes to one of the core debates concerning the usage of terminologies such as ‘loyalists’ and ‘rebels’, often ascribed to actors involved in the anti-colonial movements across the world. By taking the case of the Indian rebellion of 1857, the paper argues that moments such as this, more often than not, have subtle and nuanced reflections, and the trajectories of responses transcend simplistic categorisations. In the mid-nineteenth century colonial Bengal ‘loyalism’ of the middle-class intelligentsia towards the foreign rule contained internal contradictions, which was far more nuanced than has been portrayed in the last one and half centuries. Based on the contemporary reports, memoirs, and writings, the paper argues that while the nature of opposition and resistance were reflected in a rhetoric that was different, they emanated from similar sets of discontents, and would play a pivotal role in shaping the later-day discourse of nationalism in South Asia.