Seal, Anil, “Imperialism and Nationalism
in
Note – this is an important essay on methodology.
The author concludes
“Imperialism built a
system which interlocked its rule in locality, province and nation; nationalism
emerged as a matching structure of politics. The study of local situations, the
components of these larger wholes, cannot by itself identify a bedrock
reality. The Raj had smashed the autonomy of localities; the historian of
British rule cannot put it together again. Indian politics have to be studied
at each and every level; none of them can be a complete field of study on its
own. Each of them reveals only that part of social action which did not depend
upon interconnection. As that part became caught up by the linking forces of
Indian history, it steadily...shrank.
In
no colonial situation can government's part be ignored. We have suggested that
much of the crucial work of connecting one level with another came from its
impulses. This hypothesis can explain many of the problems of linkage.”