Waiting for the People : The Idea of Democracy in Indian Anticolonial Thought

Harvard University Press

Waiting for the PeopleThe Idea of Democracy in Indian Anticolonial Thought\nAuthor(s): Nazmul Sultan\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: Harvard University Press, United States\nImprint: Harvard University Press\nISBN-13: 9780674290372, 978-0674290372\nSynopsis\nAn original reconstruction of how the debates over peoplehood defined Indian anticolonial thought, and a bold new framework for theorizing the global career of democracy.\n\nIndians, their former British rulers asserted, were unfit to rule themselves. Behind this assertion lay a foundational claim about the absence of peoplehood in India. The purported backwardness of Indians as a people led to a democratic legitimation of empire, justifying self-government at home and imperial rule in the colonies.\n\nIn response, Indian anticolonial thinkers launched a searching critique of the modern ideal of peoplehood. Waiting for the People is the first account of Indian answers to the question of peoplehood in political theory. From Surendra.