Nationalism in India During the Early Twentieth Century: A Study of Muslim Scholars’ Response

N ationalism is relatively a modern political doctrine. Its early propounder was Rosseau, an European thinker who held that good community was because of homogenous population. The doctrine, however, flourished not in France but in Germany. Its writers like Hereder and Fichte advocated nationalism as a legitimate basis of statehood. To them, it was the language that became the repository of their national character and heritage and their expansion as a specific nationality took place on this account. Hans Kohn, too, associates nationalism with the masses and popular forms of politics. The phenomenon of nationalism is found also in the eastern countries although it is sometimes termed as ‘alien’, ‘ethnic’ and ‘undemocratic’ by the Western scholars. On the contrary their own nationalism is described as ‘authentic’, ‘liberal’ and ‘democratic’. The various types of nationalism have got gradually manifested in history like Turkish nationalism, Arab nationalism and Indian nationalism. Nationalism in India assumed a complex form in the twentieth century. It was partly due to the infiltration of the Western ideas and partly due to the co-existence of diverse cultural and ideological groups existing in India. In the early twentieth century the Indian freedom movement was in its full swing and various socio-religious movements and organizations were involved in it. Indian National Congress was the biggest of all these movements. It stood for the cause of Indian nationalism that the freedom should be for the geographical and the cultural integration of Indian people. The movement also discerned the two trends of nationalism – one represented by Hindu orthodoxy and the other by moderates and liberals (consisting of both Hindu and Muslim elites). So one layer of it was secular nationalism or united nationalism. The other was extremist one that took place among the staunch Hindu religious groups like Arya Samaj and Shudi Sangatan and Mahasabai. The Muslims who had been rulers of India before the British dominated it and whose role in the first war of independence against the British in 1857 was pioneering one and they were not outrightly ignorant about these trends of Indian nationalism. The Muslim elites were conscious about the nature and implications of the various types of nationalism and its movements during the twentieth century India. That is why the Muslim scholars, not withstanding their strong advocacy for the freedom of India, responded to the growing trends of nationalism in India. Their response was, however, varied and multidimensional. Politically, too, the phase of early twentieth century was very crucial as it was this very nationalism and its trends and responses that shaped the future course of Indian history