A People’s History of India 30 – The National Movement Part 1

The volume you hold in your hand deals with the ways in which resistance to British rule developed, closing with the Revolt of 1857. It then passes on to the factors that led to the rise of national consciousness in India. This is followed by an account of the development of the National Movement from 1885, when the Congress was founded, till 1918, on the eve of Gandhi’s emergence as its undisputed leader. While giving a narrative of events, dissensions and shifting British policies, the volume seeks to understand how the National Movement, beginning as a middle-class initiative, went on to acquire a mass character with early stirrings of workers’ and peasants’ struggles.

The book has notes on themes like the concept of nation and the middle class, as well as the historiography of the national movement and the shaping of Gandhi’s early ideas. It has extensive extracts from important documents that would not otherwise be readily available to readers.