Synopses & Reviews
“The Mahatma Misunderstood” studies the relationship between the production of novels in late-colonial India and nationalist agitation promoted by the Indian National Congress. The volume examines the process by which novelists who were critically engaged with Gandhian nationalism, and who saw both the potentials and the pitfalls of Gandhian political strategies, came to be seen as the Mahatma’s standard-bearers rather than his loyal opposition.
Review
“Richly historicized and rigorously attentive to form, this book evades stale theoretical assumptions and makes an important contribution to the study of Indian English fiction. Inviting a reconsideration of the problematic of anticolonial nationalism, Shingavi offers lucid and erudite Gramscian readings of significant texts and their engagement with the fraught hermeneutics of Gandhi as Mahatma.” —Dr Priyamvada Gopal, Faculty of English, University of Cambridge
Synopsis
“The Mahatma Misunderstood” is a study of the fiction about Gandhi produced in his lifetime, and explains why novelists both vehemently critiqued and lovingly collaborated with the Mahatma simultaneously.
About the Author
Snehal Shingavi is Assistant Professor in the Department of English at the University of Texas, Austin, where he specializes in the teaching of English, Hindi and Urdu literature from India and Pakistan.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments; Introduction; Chapter 1: The Mahatma as Proof: The Nationalist Origins of the Historiography of Indian Writing in English; Chapter 2: “The Mahatma didn’t say so, but …”: Mulk Raj Anand’s “Untouchable” and the Sympathies of Middle-Class Nationalists; Chapter 3: “The Mahatma may be all wrong about politics, but …”: Raja Rao’s “Kanthapura” and the Religious Imagination of the Indian, Secular, Nationalist Middle Class; Chapter 4: The Missing Mahatma: Ahmed Ali and the Aesthetics of Muslim Anticolonialism; Chapter 5: The Grammar of the Gandhians: Jayaprakash Narayan and the Figure of Gandhi; Chapter 6: The Mahatma Misunderstood: The Arrested Development of the Nationalist Dialectic; Conclusion: Dangerous Solidarities; Notes; Bibliography; Index