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Lokamanya (revered leader) Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1856 - 1920), the extremist politician of Maharashtra, a region of western India, was one of the first Congress Party leaders to adopt the strategy of mass politics. Interpretations of his role and his achievement differen greatly. Some historians depict Tilak as India's first mass politician who was a creative nationalist myth-maker; other suggest that he was an opportunist who manipulated politics for selfish, elitist purposes. With an eye to resolving these conflicting opinions, Cashman related Tilak's ideology to his political organization. the author concentrates on four mass movements, studying the Lokamanya when he was engaged in political action and comparing his public statements with his political tactics. This approach provides a means of examining the manner in which Tilak redefined myths and of assessing the value of myths for purposes of political mobilization. Cashman suggests deficiencies in previous interpretations of Tilak. Arguing that the limitations of the mass movements need not be explained by the inadequacies of myths, he demonstrates that instead they reflected the transitional state of Maharashtraian society, which lacked a broad consensus. Tilak was active at a time when there was no common goal, no broader objective, in which sectional interests might be subsumed. He symbolized the uncertain striving of his society for some new direction, whose nature was yet unknown. He did not create the myth of the Lokamanya or the ideology of nationalism but, responding to social and political pressures, became a prisoner of the myths. Much writing of Indian history has been influenced either by a narrow ideological approach or by a retreat to arithmetical pragmatism. Cashman attempts to restore a balance by reexamining the relationship of myth to politics. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1975.

By the twentieth century the Bhagavad Gītā had become the single most important Hindu book. A clear indication of its popularity is that many of the major thinkers of that century wrote about it, often in book-length commentaries. In this article, we will analyze what Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Sri Aurobindo, Mohandas K. Gandhi, and Svami Sivananda have to say about caste in their books about the Bhagavad Gītā. In colonial India, caste was understood to be a problem, at once critical to Indian society and critically in need of reform. A fundamental split had developed in the nineteenth century. Some social reformers condemned caste as a divisive, and therefore pernicious, institution. Others argued, on the contrary, that caste could be a force to unite social groups, if only it were properly overhauled. All but one of our twentieth-century authors advance modern reinterpretations of caste, moving it in a unifying direction. However, ŚivŚnanda interprets the Bhagavad Gītā in a way that is traditional, striking particularly in this modern context.

The Mutiny of 1857 left a deep mark on Indian society and on the nature of British rule. Thomas Metcalf analyzes the influence of the Mutiny on many facets of Indian life and relations with Great Britain, examining social reform, education, land settlement policy, the position of the tenant and the moneylender, relations with the Indian states, the structure of the government, and the growth of racial sentiment. The author also makes an attempt to place the India of the 1860's in the broader context of Victorian liberalism. The view emerges that the relations between the British and the Indian people were decisively altered by the Mutiny. In fact the decade following the upheaval was possibly the last great creative period of British rule, and one in which the nature of many of the institutions that lasted to independence were shaped. Originally published in 1964. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

\"The Saffron Wave is an analytically incisive and insightful exploration of one of the most important social movements to have swept postcolonial India. The book is remarkable not only for the historical depth it lends to our understanding of Hindu nationalism but also for the insights it affords contemporary politics in India.\"--Akhil Gupta, Stanford University