Writing Revolution in South Asia
This comprehensive volume examines the relationship between revolutionary politics and the act of writing in modern South Asia. Its pages feature a diverse cast of characters: rebel poets and anxious legislators, party theoreticians and industrious archivists, nostalgic novelists, enterprising journalists and more. The authors interrogate the multiple forms and effects of revolutionary storytelling in politics and public life, questioning the easy distinction between words and deeds and considering the distinct consequences of writing itself. While acknowledging that the promise, fervour or threat of revolution is never reducible to the written word, this collection explores how manifestos, lyrics, legal documents, hagiographies and other constellations of words and sentences articulate, contest and enact revolutionary political practice in both colonial and post-colonial South Asia.
Emphasising the potential of writing to incite, contain or reorient the present, this volume promises to provoke new conversations at the intersection of historiography, politics and literature in South Asia, urging scholars and activists to interrogate their own storytelling practices and the relationship of the contemporary moment to violent and contested pasts.
This book was originallby published as a special issue of South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies.
Kama Maclean is an associate professor of South Asian and World History at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia, and the editor of South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies. She is the author of A Revolutionary History of Interwar India (2015).
J. Daniel Elam teaches in the Department of English and Drama, University of Toronto, Canada. He specialises in theories of World Literature, with a specific focus on twentieth-century South Asian literature and political writing.
Chris Moffat is a lecturer in South Asian and Global History at Queen Mary University of London, UK.
Writing Revolution in South Asia
History, Practice, Politics
Edited by
Kama Maclean, J. Daniel Elam and
Chris Moffat
First published 2017
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
2017 South Asian Studies Association of Australia
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 13: 978-0-415-78668-3
Typeset in MinionPro
by diacriTech, Chennai
Publishers Note
The publisher accepts responsibility for any inconsistencies that may have arisen during the conversion of this book from journal articles to book chapters, namely the possible inclusion of journal terminology.
Disclaimer
Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders for their permission to reprint material in this book. The publishers would be grateful to hear from any copyright holder who is not here acknowledged and will undertake to rectify any errors or omissions in future editions of this book.
Contents
J. Daniel Elam and Chris Moffat
Alex Wolfers
Sukeshi Kamra
Durba Ghosh
Snehal Shingavi
J. Daniel Elam
Roanne Kantor
Faridah Zaman
Chris Moffat
Dilip M. Menon
Kama Maclean
The chapters in this book were originally published in South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, volume 39, issue 3 (September 2016). When citing this material, please use the original page numbering for each article, as follows:
Introduction: On the Form, Politics and Effects of Writing Revolution
J. Daniel Elam and Chris Moffat
South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, volume 39, issue 3 (September 2016)
pp. 513524
Born Like Krishna in the Prison-House: Revolutionary Asceticism in the Political Ashram of Aurobindo Ghose
Alex Wolfers
South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, volume 39, issue 3 (September 2016)
pp. 525545
Law and Radical Rhetoric in British India: The 1897 Trial of Bal Gangadhar Tilak
Sukeshi Kamra
South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, volume 39, issue 3 (September 2016)
pp. 546559
Gandhi and the Terrorists: Revolutionary Challenges from Bengal and Engagements with Non-Violent Political Protest
Durba Ghosh
South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, volume 39, issue 3 (September 2016)
pp. 560576
Agyeyas Unfinished Revolution: Sexual and Social Freedom in Shekhar: Ek Jivani
Snehal Shingavi
South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, volume 39, issue 3 (September 2016)
pp. 577591
Commonplace Anti-Colonialism: Bhagat Singhs Jail Notebook and the Politics of Reading
J. Daniel Elam
South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, volume 39, issue 3 (September 2016)
pp. 592607
My Heart, My Fellow Traveller: Fantasy, Futurity and the Itineraries of Faiz Ahmed Faiz
Roanne Kantor
South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, volume 39, issue 3 (September 2016)
pp. 608625
Revolutionary History and the Post-Colonial Muslim: Re-Writing the Silk Letters Conspiracy of 1916
Faridah Zaman
South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, volume 39, issue 3 (September 2016)
pp. 626643
Bhagat Singhs Corpse
Chris Moffat
South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, volume 39, issue 3 (September 2016)
pp. 644661
A Prehistory of Violence? Revolution and Martyrs in the Making of a Political Tradition in Kerala
Dilip M. Menon
South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, volume 39, issue 3 (September 2016)
pp. 662677
Revolution and Revelation, or, When is History Too Soon?
Kama Maclean
South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, volume 39, issue 3 (September 2016)
pp. 678694
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J. Daniel Elam teaches in the Department of English and Drama, University of Toronto, Canada. He specialises in theories of World Literature, with a specific focus on twentieth-century South Asian literature and political writing.
Durba Ghosh is an associate professor in the Department of History, Cornell University, USA. Her research focuses on modern South Asia, the British Empire, gender and colonialism.
Sukeshi Kamra is based in the Department of English Language and Literature, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada. Her research focuses on British India and the attempts of the subjugated to think their way out of hegemony.