Historiography of National Movement: A Case of ‘Indian India’

Abstract

Modern Indian historians has focused most of its attention on writing history of British India and discourses on the princely states or ‘Indian India’ was left to the margins. The Princely states which consisted of at least half of population and region in the pre-independent times did not experience the strength of national movement. There were two contradictory responses from the states. On the one hand the rulers were believed to be in cahoots with the colonial government and on the other people of some of the princely states went against their own rulers and supported the Indian national movement. This paper highlights various writings on the idea of nationalism in the princely states and its binary responses.