Between Hindu and Indian: the nationalist thought of Lala Lajpat Rai
<p>This thesis undertakes the first ever systematic intellectual study of the nationalist thought of Lala Lajpat Rai. In doing so, it strongly contests the dominant scholarly interpretation of his nationalist thought as representing the nascent stage of Savarkarite <em>Hindutva</em>...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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2018
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| _version_ | 1797104119963451392 |
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| author | Bhargav, V |
| author2 | Devji, F |
| author_facet | Devji, F Bhargav, V |
| author_sort | Bhargav, V |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | <p>This thesis undertakes the first ever systematic intellectual study of the nationalist thought of Lala Lajpat Rai. In doing so, it strongly contests the dominant scholarly interpretation of his nationalist thought as representing the nascent stage of Savarkarite <em>Hindutva</em>. Through a fine-grained textual analysis of his entire oeuvre on nationhood, it uncovers the multiple, internally distinct nationalist narratives that Lajpat Rai articulated in the four broad historical phases of his intellectual life. These reveal that while for much of his life, he switched between ‘Indian nation’- and ‘Hindu nation’-based nationalist narratives, in the latter phase of his life, he settled firmly into narratives grounded in the notion of a ‘secular’ Indian nation. </p> <p>In unearthing Lajpat Rai’s complicated intellectual trajectory, this study makes larger intellectual claims. By demonstrating that, despite apparent similarities with <em>Hindutva</em>, his own ‘Hindu nation’-based narratives remained substantially distinct, it draws attention to the variegated nature of ‘Hindu nationalism’. By showing that Lajpat Rai eventually moved towards Indian nationalist narratives, it further undermines the assumption that all ideas of Hindu nationhood necessarily culminate in <em>Hindutva</em>. By outlining the different internal structures of his Indian nationalist narratives, this thesis uncovers space for properly discerning the internally differentiated nature of ‘Indian nationalism’. In recognising commonalities across his different ‘Hindu’ and ‘Indian’ nationalist narratives, it rejects the sharp binary conventionally drawn the two, and by showing that Lajpat Rai endeavoured to organise a ‘communal’ politics to establish a ‘secular’ Indian nation-state, it reveals how ‘communalism’ can be engineered in service of a ‘secular’ Indian nation. Finally, instead of reading Lajpat Rai’s thought through the purposes for which others might have utilised it, this study insists on understanding it in its own right, thus constituting an argument that the political thought of a thinker must be understood independently of reductionist teleological narratives.</p> |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T06:29:20Z |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oxford-uuid:f56e58b0-f5c9-4bb0-b421-c373b5d442e9 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T06:29:20Z |
| publishDate | 2018 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:f56e58b0-f5c9-4bb0-b421-c373b5d442e92022-03-27T12:27:15ZBetween Hindu and Indian: the nationalist thought of Lala Lajpat RaiThesishttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_db06uuid:f56e58b0-f5c9-4bb0-b421-c373b5d442e9Indian intellectualsEnglishORA Deposit2018Bhargav, VDevji, F<p>This thesis undertakes the first ever systematic intellectual study of the nationalist thought of Lala Lajpat Rai. In doing so, it strongly contests the dominant scholarly interpretation of his nationalist thought as representing the nascent stage of Savarkarite <em>Hindutva</em>. Through a fine-grained textual analysis of his entire oeuvre on nationhood, it uncovers the multiple, internally distinct nationalist narratives that Lajpat Rai articulated in the four broad historical phases of his intellectual life. These reveal that while for much of his life, he switched between ‘Indian nation’- and ‘Hindu nation’-based nationalist narratives, in the latter phase of his life, he settled firmly into narratives grounded in the notion of a ‘secular’ Indian nation. </p> <p>In unearthing Lajpat Rai’s complicated intellectual trajectory, this study makes larger intellectual claims. By demonstrating that, despite apparent similarities with <em>Hindutva</em>, his own ‘Hindu nation’-based narratives remained substantially distinct, it draws attention to the variegated nature of ‘Hindu nationalism’. By showing that Lajpat Rai eventually moved towards Indian nationalist narratives, it further undermines the assumption that all ideas of Hindu nationhood necessarily culminate in <em>Hindutva</em>. By outlining the different internal structures of his Indian nationalist narratives, this thesis uncovers space for properly discerning the internally differentiated nature of ‘Indian nationalism’. In recognising commonalities across his different ‘Hindu’ and ‘Indian’ nationalist narratives, it rejects the sharp binary conventionally drawn the two, and by showing that Lajpat Rai endeavoured to organise a ‘communal’ politics to establish a ‘secular’ Indian nation-state, it reveals how ‘communalism’ can be engineered in service of a ‘secular’ Indian nation. Finally, instead of reading Lajpat Rai’s thought through the purposes for which others might have utilised it, this study insists on understanding it in its own right, thus constituting an argument that the political thought of a thinker must be understood independently of reductionist teleological narratives.</p> |
| spellingShingle | Indian intellectuals Bhargav, V Between Hindu and Indian: the nationalist thought of Lala Lajpat Rai |
| title | Between Hindu and Indian: the nationalist thought of Lala Lajpat Rai |
| title_full | Between Hindu and Indian: the nationalist thought of Lala Lajpat Rai |
| title_fullStr | Between Hindu and Indian: the nationalist thought of Lala Lajpat Rai |
| title_full_unstemmed | Between Hindu and Indian: the nationalist thought of Lala Lajpat Rai |
| title_short | Between Hindu and Indian: the nationalist thought of Lala Lajpat Rai |
| title_sort | between hindu and indian the nationalist thought of lala lajpat rai |
| topic | Indian intellectuals |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT bhargavv betweenhinduandindianthenationalistthoughtoflalalajpatrai |