India’s struggle for independence was arguably the most momentous of the twentieth century, and central to it was the generation of powerful nationalist forces. In a series of detailed studies Anthony Low shows how the ambiguity of the British position conditioned the distinctive character of this struggle: how the British determination to hold fast to their Indian empire prior to 1942 was nonetheless complemented by their reluctance to resist their nationalist opponents in the unyielding ways of the French in Vietnam and the Dutch in Indonesia. Much that Gandhi did, Professor Low concludes, would been impossible in Indonesia and Vietnam, but astutely fitted the peculiar conditions of the nationalist struggle against the British in India. Published on the fiftieth anniversary of Indian independence, Britain and Indian Nationalism makes a major contribution to the historiography of modern India, to Britain’s relations with its empire, and to the history of decolonisation in the twentieth century.
ISBN: 0521550173
Publisher: CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Subtitle: THE IMPRINT OF AMBIGUITY 1929-1942
Author: D.A. LOW