Question

Discuss the nationalist approach to the study of nationalism in India

Answer 1

In reaction to the colonialist view, nationalist views were influenced on Indian nationalism & national revolution. Although the nationalist authors acknowledged some of the view of colonialist literature, they responded strongly to Indian and its people's colonial degradation. The Nationalist historians took an idea-centered approach, as opposed to the instrumentalistic approach of several colonial historians.

Explanation:

• There are two opinions among them: some claim that the nationalist ideals were introduced under Western influence and some claim that they had evolved since ancient times. At the height of the national revolution, mainstream nationalists usually felt that this independence ideology came mostly from Western forces. Western schooling and freedom theories are, according to these scholars, largely responsible for the creation of the national consciousness.
• Later, as it rose in scale in the national movement, authors started to quest for indigenous origins. Both of them remained in the work of numerous nationalist historians. Often in their various books, the same historian will express different opinions. Thus, these methods should essentially be marked as thoughts instead of historians separating them.
• In the first perspective, the fermentation produced in India as a result of western ideas formed a nationalism of the English-educated middle classes. Their love for freedom and liberty reinforced their patriotic sentiments. The National Congress of the Indians was the product of a quest for ways to articulate oneself and to assert oneself, that is, "self-expression and self-assertion".
• Certain nationalist leaders represented India as a society where diverse outsiders came and were assimilated, such as the Greeks, Shakas, Huns, Turks, Persians, the Afghans etc. in its cultural and enrichment. Therefore India was not only a political entity, but had a much larger civilisation and cultural structure. In this "inclusive & assimilative spirit, not in the troubling political struggle,  the national identity" of India and made it distinct from European nationalism.
• In accordance with the spirit of independence, a broad range of influences relating to the emergence of the nationalist uprising are being stressed by the nationalist historians, the traditionally unfriendly conduct of the colonial figures, Vice-Christ Lytton's reactionary strategy, the conflict of Ilbert Bill, modern culture, the print media, modern literature. The sense of racial supremacy exhibited by the English people in India and the official policy of racial segregation humiliated the Indians in some instances.
• The nationalistic historians have outlined economic conditions that caused the Indians to feel disaffected. These were exploitation of agriculture, high profits on land, forced indigo and other cash crops and the draining of capital, excessive Indian money investment to retain large-scale armed forces against the Indians, insurgency, and so on.
• Nationalist scholars have pointed out that the imperialistic law contradicts the Indian people as a whole. In so doing, they extended the full spectrum of inconsistencies of ethnicity , race, linguistics, regions and faith in Indian culture, portraying a whole-India anti-imperialist front. The national movement was a movement of all classes in the Indian community, according to the nationalist historians. The national movement reflected the Indians' feelings toward imperialism, as the whole country contradicted imperialism.
• The nationalist historians commonly assumed that the people were unable to behave independently and that the leaders of the middle class needed to be mobilised. It is the educated middle class in every nation that drives the drive for political equality or progressive change. 'The power in the newly trained middle classes was that of the All-India campaign. The national revolution, thus organised by the Congress, embodied both the middle classes' socioeconomic ambitions in India and the supreme need for democracy and racial justice.
• The nationalist historians conclude that the nationalist leaders were idealists motivated by "patriotism & national well-being". In this view, even though nationalist leaders came from the middle class, they were committed to the cause of their country and the Indians, without personal or party or class concerns. They behaved as selfless, silent majority spokesmen who couldn't speak for themselves. They served all races, individuals and cultures and promoted progressive, liberal and national political policies.

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