‘Greater India’ and the Indian Expansionist Imagination, c. 1885–1965: The Rise and Decline of the Idea of a Lost Hindu Empire

Jolita Zabarskaitė

Published by De Gruyter Oldenbourg 2023

‘Greater India’ and the Indian Expansionist Imagination, c. 1885–1965

The Rise and Decline of the Idea of a Lost Hindu Empire

Jolita Zabarskaitė

Volume 4 in the series The Politics of Historical Thinking

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110986068

Overview
Contents

About this book

This book is the first systematic study of the genealogy, discursive structures, and political implications of the concept of ‘Greater India’, implying a Hindu colonization of Southeast Asia, and used by extension to argue for a past Indian greatness as a colonial power, reproducible in the present and future. From the 1880s to the 1960s, protagonists of the Greater India theme attempted to make a case for the importance of an expansionist Indian civilisation in civilizing Southeast Asia. The argument was extended to include Central Asia, Africa, North and South America, and other regions where Indian migrants were to be found. The advocates of this Indocentric and Hindu revivalist approach, with Hindu and Indian often taken to be synonymous, were involved in a quintessentially parochial project, despite its apparently international dimensions: to justify an Indian expansionist imagination that viewed India’s past as a colonizer and civilizer of other lands as a model for the restoration of that past greatness in the future. Zabarskaite shows that the crucial ideologues and elements used for the formation of the construct of Greater India can be traced to the svadeśī movement of the turn of the century, and that Greater India moved easily between the domains of the scholarly and the popular as it sought to establish itself as a form of nationalist self-assertion.

Author / Editor information

Jolita Zabarskaite, Heidelberg University.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	I
The Politics of Historical Thinking Publicly Available Download PDF	V
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	VII
Acknowledgment Publicly Available Download PDF	IX
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	XI
Note on Transliteration and Emphasis Publicly Available Download PDF	XIII
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1 The Discovery of ‘Greater India’ by Indian Scholars and Intellectuals Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	19
2 The Institutionalisation of ‘Greater India’ (1920s–1940s): Part I Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	86
3 The Institutionalisation of ‘Greater India’ (1920s–1940s): Part II Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	141
4 Variations on a ‘Greater India’ Theme Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	188
5 The Decline, Revival and Afterlife of ‘Greater India’, c. 1945–1965 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	301
Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	383
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	393
Index of Names and Institutions Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	421

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter Oldenbourg
Audience: Historians, political theorists, specialists in the field of South Asian Studies and Indology
Pages
- Front matter: 12
- Main content: 429
Keywords: India; Greater India; colonialism; South East Asia

eBook

Published: November 7, 2022
ISBN: 9783110986068

Hardcover

Published: November 7, 2022
ISBN: 9783110997156