Righteous Republic: The Political Foundations of Modern India

Ananya Vajpeyi

Published by Harvard University Press 2012

Righteous Republic

The Political Foundations of Modern India

Ananya Vajpeyi

https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674067288

Overview
Contents

About this book

What India’s founders derived from Western political traditions as they struggled to free their country from colonial rule is widely understood. Less well-known is how India’s own rich knowledge traditions of two and a half thousand years influenced these men as they set about constructing a nation in the wake of the Raj. In Righteous Republic, Ananya Vajpeyi furnishes this missing account, a ground-breaking assessment of modern Indian political thought.

Taking five of the most important founding figures—Mohandas Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, Abanindranath Tagore, Jawaharlal Nehru, and B. R. Ambedkar—Vajpeyi looks at how each of them turned to classical texts in order to fashion an original sense of Indian selfhood. The diverse sources in which these leaders and thinkers immersed themselves included Buddhist literature, the Bhagavad Gita, Sanskrit poetry, the edicts of Emperor Ashoka, and the artistic and architectural achievements of the Mughal Empire. India’s founders went to these sources not to recuperate old philosophical frameworks but to invent new ones. In Righteous Republic, a portrait emerges of a group of innovative, synthetic, and cosmopolitan thinkers who succeeded in braiding together two Indian knowledge traditions, the one political and concerned with social questions, the other religious and oriented toward transcendence.

Within their vast intellectual, aesthetic, and moral inheritance, the founders searched for different aspects of the self that would allow India to come into its own as a modern nation-state. The new republic they envisaged would embody both India’s struggle for sovereignty and its quest for the self.

Author / Editor information

Ananya Vajpeyi is a Visiting Fellow with the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi, and a Senior Fellow with the American Institute of Indian Studies.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Preface The Search for the Self in Modern India Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
Introduction Swaraj, the Self ’s Sovereignty Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1 Mohandas Gandhi Ahimsa, the Self ’s Orientation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	49
2 Rabindranath Tagore Viraha, the Self ’s Longing Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	88
3 Abanindranath Tagore Samvega, the Self ’s Shock Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	127
4 Jawaharlal Nehru Dharma, the Self ’s Aspiration, and Artha, the Self ’s Purpose Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	168
5 Bhimrao Ambedkar Duḥkha, the Self ’s Burden Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	208
Conclusion The Sovereign Self, Its Sources and Shapes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	243
Appendix A: The Indexical Complexity of Tagore’s Meghdūt Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	253
Appendix B: Thirteenth Rock Edict of Aśoka Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	255
Appendix C: The State Emblem of India (Prohibition of Improper Use) Act, 2005 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	257
Appendix D: From Ambedkar’s Published Introduction to The Buddha and His Dhamma Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	258
Appendix E: From “Gospel of Equality: The Buddha and the Future of His Religion,” 1950 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	260
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	263
Selected Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	291
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	321
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	327

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Audience: Academics, Students, Libraries, Institutes
Pages
- Main content: 360
Illustrations
- Other: 1 line illustration, 1 map

eBook

Published: October 31, 2012
ISBN: 9780674067288