Gandhian discourse in terms of difference. His own framework, however, does not adequately the nature and impli problematize cations of the encounter between Indian and Western thought in terms of difference. Partha uses India, into modern India, however, particularly in the and also deployed the notion of of the most influential subaltern historians of on discourse one Chatterjee, the concept of difference in his seminal work on Indian na tionalism only as it relates to the origin of the discourse of national identity.9 For him, difference as a marker of the divide between India and the West becomes im portant for nationalist discourse at the “moment of departure” or origin, as it sought to make the civilizational difference of India the foundation of national identity. 16 What he called the greatest of all “super stitions” has also emerged as the most important and enduring intellectual legacy in India: of colonialism the belief that because the West is the sole source of cat egories in the modern world, English is the sole language of thought as such in India. By bringing the two traditions under each other’s critical gaze, we can, at least potentially, think in new ways about freedom in the modern world, ways that can take us far beyond the limits and spec ificities of South Asian history or scholarship.6 of the question of difference as it relates to the nature and implications historical encounter between Indie and Western cultural and intellectual traditions The in two ways: difference as iden under the British Empire can be broadly approached tity and difference as thought.

9 See Partha discussion of the thought of Bankim Chandra in Nationalist Chatterjee’s Chatterji World, 54-81. Thought and the Colonial 10 Ibid., 85-125. 11 Ibid., 125. American Historical. Because 2 For extends much farther than the historical so much of the critical discourse moment in the social it seeks sciences to and the the most works that have emphasized the distinctiveness of Gandhian important thought in Indian nationalists, see Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist World: Thought and the Colonial A Derivative Discourse? (New York, 1986); Ashis Nandy, The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism See also Tridib Suhrud, of All but Love: First (Delhi, 1983). “Emptied Gandhiji’s Public Fast,” in Debjani and John Docker, eds., Rethinking Gandhi and Nonviolent Ganguly Relationality: Global Perspectives Two recent essays that have stressed the difference between (London, 2007), 66-79. Gandhi’s liberalism are Ajay Skaria, “Gandhi’s Politics: Liberalism and political thought and Western the Question of the Ashram,” South Atlantic and Faisal Fatehali Quarterly 101, no. 4 (2002): 955-986; relation to other of Prejudice: Gandhi’s Politics of Friendship,” in Shail Mayaram, M. S. S. Pandian, Devji, “A Practice and Ajay Skaria, While eds., Muslims, Dalits, and the Fabrications of History (New Delhi, 2005), 78-98. their essays are insightful, both of these historians reduce the categories in the Gandhian deployed movement to the person of Gandhi and see no antecedents for these categories in Indian intellectual Gandhi’s Indeed, from they derive the categories they deploy to analyze thought and practice intellectual recent developments in European traditions, associated particularly philosophy with the writings of Jacques Derrida and Emmanuel Levinas.

See his Indian National Movement: The Long-Term Dynamics (Delhi, 1988), 1-5. Other Marxist works include R. Palme and A. R. Desai, Dutt, India representative Today (Bombay, 1949), Social Background of the Gan of Indian Nationalism 1954). For the Cambridge (Bombay, interpretation dhian movement, see John Gallagher, Gordon and Anil Seal, eds., Locality, Province and Na Johnson, tion: Essays in Indian 1870-1940 and Judith M. Brown, Gandhi’s Rise to Politics, (Cambridge, 1973); Power: Indian 1915-1922 Politics, (Cambridge, 1972). 8 Shahid as Mahatma: in Ranajit Amin, “Gandhi District, Eastern UP, 1921-2,” Guha, Gorakhpur Studies III (Delhi, Dominance without Hegemony, ed., Subaltern Na 1-55; 1984), mahadev cricket club, wwa.l.r.u.scv.kd@zvanovec.net, Guha, Chatterjee, tionalist Thought and the Colonial World. Western discourse life.27 and the challenge posed by the that brought renunciative freedom discourse of freedom, indigenous rule in India of British colonial It was the advent introduction figures in Indian of freedom thought. Yet none of the four major schools of historiography on modern India-Marxist, extended this notion of difference to the Cambridge, nationalist, and subaltern-has toward non-Western discourse of freedom associated with the Gandhian nonviolent resistance movement This is a surprising omission, given the striking ways in against British colonialism. Beyond noting in passing some char acteristic features of the movement as reflective of “peasant he consciousness,” makes no serious attempt to problematize Gandhian discourse in its precise nature and origins.10 In his view, the real historical significance of the Gandhian movement as a tactic to mobilize the peasantry against lay in its use by the Indian bourgeoisie the British Empire even as it denied them any share in the postcolonial state.11 Chat in his analysis to two kinds of identity-class and nation- terjee reduces discourses and so feels no need to problematize discourse as thought.

In the discourse as thought, on the other hand, difference functions as a marker of the nature and specificity of thought, its origin and historical significance. The answer lies in the fact that even as much discourse was grounded in the idea of imperial justice, it also came of anticolonial if by reflex-in the Indie traditions of ascetic renunciative free to be anchored-as of justice and goals of freedom and liberty had come to be a part the categories India they had been of political discourse and practice in the West, in precolonial and practice.23 a part of spiritual and religious discourse dom. Delhi, 1969); and Jawaharlal shares the nationalist Nehru, The Discovery of India (Delhi, 1989). The Marxist historian Bipan Chandra tool nationalist devised view on Gandhi. See Parekh, and Reform: An Analysis of Gandhi’s Colonialism, Po Tradition, litical Discourse Others who have emphasized the indigenous Delhi, sources of Gandhi’s (New 1989). with Mahatma Gandhi: Liberal Pantham, thought are Thomas Political “Thinking Beyond Democracy,” A. L. Basham, “Traditional Influences on the Thought 165-188; of Mahatma Theory 11, no. 2 (1983): in Ravindra Politics: The Rowlatt Satyagraha Gandhi,” Kumar, ed., Essays on Gandhian of 1919 (Oxford, and Suhrud, of All but Love.” 17-42; 1971), “Emptied 4 he comes to the topic from a different angle, the political scientist Dennis Dalton is to Although the only scholar to have noted and focused on the distinctive nature of the Indian my knowledge idea of freedom as it related to some of the most important Gilmore figures in Indian history.