Hindu Civilization and Indian Nationalism: Conceptual Conflicts and Convergences in the Works of Romesh Chunder Dutt, c. 1870–1910
Year: 2023
Type: article
Abstract: This paper is about a particular construction of nationalism at the hands of Romesh Chunder Dutt (1848–1909), the well-known exponent of ‘economic nationalism’, in colonial Bengal from 1870 onwards till his death in 1909. In this construction of nationalism, which today scholars would best describe as ‘cultural nationalism’, the categories ‘Hindu’ and ‘national’ converged and became conflated. Through a discussion of Dutt’s ‘literary patriotism’, the paper seeks to answer why it was so in the case of someone like R C Dutt, and what implications we can draw from this regarding our understanding of colonial Indian nationalism and its origins. With reference to Dutt, Sudhir Chandra pointed out that the neat distinction that we draw between ‘economic nationalism’ and ‘cultural nationalism’ is fallacious. The paper reiterates and reinforces this argument by showing how cultural and political nationalisms were enmeshed together in the case of R C Dutt. Furthermore, the glorious past that Dutt reconstructed through his literary patriotism could not but be a Hindu past; he was not a vilifier of Muslims, but somehow he shelved the question of the place of Muslims in his construction of Indian nationhood.
Source: Religions
DOI: 10.3390/rel14080983
Author: Arpita Mitra
Institution: Kazi Nazrul University
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $1,557
OpenAlex ID: W4385420478