Nations in the Empire. The Many Faces of Indian Nationalism : Proceedings of the International Conference held in Naples, Federico II University – Department of Political Sciences, 20-21 June 2023

Maurizio Griffo; Diego Maiorano; Teodoro Tagliaferri

doi:10.6093/978-88-6887-317-2

Nations in the Empire. The Many Faces of Indian Nationalism : Proceedings of the International Conference held in Naples, Federico II University – Department of Political Sciences, 20-21 June 2023

Authors

Maurizio Griffo

University of Naples Federico II

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2481-9219

Diego Maiorano

University of Naples L’Orientale

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9535-639X

Teodoro Tagliaferri

University of Naples Federico II

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0370-6271

DOI: https://doi.org/10.6093/978-88-6887-317-2

Keywords:

British Empire, Indian Nationalism, Historiography of Colonialism, Global History, Contemporary India

Synopsis

Publisher: FedOA - Federico II University Press

Series: School of Human and Social Sciences. Working Papers

Pages: 191

Language: English

Abstract: This volume is the outcome of a conference held at the University of Naples Federico II as a part of the scholarly initiatives of the PRIN 2022 “Myths of Legitimations and Government of Difference in the European Imperial Regimes during the Modern and Contemporary Age”. The participants were invited to offer insights on one among the most crucial core-periphery relationships in 19th-20th-century world history, namely that between the British Empire and its Crown Jewel, India. Through an exploration of the nature of the conflicts as well as the collaboration and negotiation between different nationalisms and the British Empire, the Conference proposed to elucidate five main issues: How did the British Empire manage India’s diversity, and what was the response from Indian society? Has recent historiography gone beyond the dichotomous characterization of the British Raj as a project of “divide and rule” or as an impartial arbiter between conflicting communities, as the imperial myth claimed? To what extent were different nationalisms a product of India’s own contradictory modernization, and this in turn an effect of the encounter/clash with the Empire? In which sense were India’s nationalist projects genuinely “national” – as opposed to “communal” – and how did they challenge or reinforce the British imperial politics of difference? To what extent has the variegated and internally conflictual nationalist movement in India and the imperial response to it shaped Independent India discourses on national identity and societal conflicts? More specifically, the contributors develop analyses grouped around two perspectives. Firstly, the comparative examination of different “religious” nationalisms, in particular Hindu and Muslim; and, secondly, the role of key figures representing different strands and different phases of the Indian nationalist movement, from Gandhi to Tilak, from Bhagat Singh to Ambedkar. In addition, the concluding essays aim to provide the reader with key elements of the historiographical background of the ongoing debates and controversies about the Indo-British relationship, namely the contribution and the evolution of the so called “Cambridge School” of colonial and global history.

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Author Biographies

Maurizio Griffo, University of Naples Federico II

Maurizio Griffo is full Professor of History of Political Doctrines at the Department of Political Sciences of the University of Naples Federico II. He is the author of L’India coloniale dalla “autocrazia” costituzionale alla proto-democrazia. Il dibattito sulle riforme e l’Indian Civil Service, 1908-1919 (Milan 1999). He has edited, with Teodoro Tagliaferri, From the History of the Empire to World History. The Historiographical Itinerary of Christopher A. Bayly (Naples 2019).

Diego Maiorano, University of Naples L’Orientale

Diego Maiorano is Associate Professor of Contemporary Indian History at the University of Naples L’Orientale. He is also Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore. He is the author of Autumn of the Matriarch: Indira Gandhi’s Final Term in Office (Oxford 2015) and co-author of The Politics of Poverty Reduction in India (with J. Chiriyankandath, J. Manor, L. Tillin, Hyderabad 2020).

Teodoro Tagliaferri, University of Naples Federico II

Teodoro Tagliaferri teaches Global History and Contemporary Historiography at the University of Naples Federico II. He is a member of the Doctorate in Global History & Governance of the Scuola Superiore Meridionale and PI of the PRIN 2020 “Myths of Legitimation and Government of Difference in the European Imperial Regimes during the Modern and Con- temporary Age”. Among his works La nazione, le colonie, il mondo. Saggi sulla cultura imperiale britannica (Rome 2018), La persistenza della storia univer- sale (Rome 2017), Alle origini dell’Organizzazione Internazionale del Lavoro: governo mondiale e pace universale («Diritti Lavori Mercati», 2021/2).