Nationalizing India: A Creative Blending of Derivative and Indigenous Traditions

Bidyut Chakrabarty’s Nationalizing India constitutes exactly what the subtitle states: ’a creative blending of derivative and indigenous traditions.’ In this context, two central themes are developed: first, that Indian nationalist thinkers redefined the entire concept of nationalism in a unique and ingenious manner, unprecedented in the long intellectual history of the idea. They built a united front against a common adversary by eliciting the fundamental civilizational amity forged in unison for gaining India’s emancipation.
Second, as an outstanding and prolific scholar in this field, professor Chakrabarty explores relatively unknown innovative nationalist figures to demonstrate that the advent of nationalist thought was a collective endeavor of myriad figures, a unity in diversity. This is another brilliant study by Chakrabarty that merits inclusion among the finest works on nationalism.

(Dennis Dalton, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Barnard College, Columbia University, USA)

Dwelling on how nationalization was conceptualized by major Indian nationalist thinkers, this book breaks a new ground in contemporary studies on nationalism. In contrast with the Western notion of nationalism, this book provides an appropriate model of nationalizing India with reference to the creative writings of Rabindranath Tagore, Aurobindo Ghose, Sarala Devi Chaudhurani and Nazrul Islam. This book is a powerful intervention in the available scholarship which shows that nationalization needs to be comprehended differently in the context of India since underlying a collective India is a civilizational bond unique to Afro-Asian countries.

Bidyut Chakrabarty taught for more than three decades in the Department of Political Science, University of Delhi. He later served and retired as the Vice-Chancellor of Visva Bharati from 2018-2023. He completed his PhD from London School of Economics and has several prestigious publications to his credit.