Seminar Questions:

1. What role did rumour play in the making of ‘Gandhian’ politics? Did the rumours discussed by Amin simply consolidate Gandhi’s authority, or can you see other things happening in the process of the spread of rumours about his powers?

2. What does the pattern of mass mobilizations which took Gandhi for inspiration tell us about the role of 'leadership' in the anti-colonial struggle?

Seminar Readings (read both articles if you can, but at least one):

1. Gyanendra Pandey, "Peasant Revolt and Indian Nationalism: The Peasant Movement in Awadh, 1919-1922", in Ranajit Guha and Gayatri Chakraborty Spivak (eds.), Selected Subaltern Studies (1988), pp. 233-287

2. Shahid Amin, “Gandhi As Mahatma: Gorakhpur District, Eastern U.P., 1921-22”, in Ranajit Guha and Gayatri Chakraborty Spivak (eds.), Selected Subaltern Studies (1988), pp.288-348

Background Readings:

1. Sekhar Bandyopadhyay, From Plassey to Partition: A History of Modern India
2. Sumit Sarkar, “The Logic of Gandhian Nationalism”, Indian Historical Review, 3(1976)
3. Judith Brown & Anthony Parel (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Gandhi (New York, 2011)
4. Judith Brown, “The Mahatma and Modern India”, Modern Asian Studies, 3:4 (1969), pp.321-342
5. Kathryn Tidrick, Gandhi: A Political and Spiritual Life (London, 2006)
6. Bhikhu C. Parekh, Gandhi: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2001)