Abstract

KENT CARRASCO, Daniel. Nationalist nativsm and left-wing thought. The debate on socialism and communism in British India during the first decades of the 20^th century. Sig. his [online]. 2018, vol.20, n.39, pp.88-119.  Epub Aug 03, 2020. ISSN 1665-4420.

In this article, I posit that the intellectual and political history of the left in contemporary India must be understood in relation to the dialectical relationship developed between the ideals behind left-wing political thought and the nativist inclinations of the nationalist anticolonial project in British India. I aim to show that left-wing thought in India, in the years in which the shock-wave of the Soviet Revolution spread through the world, developed at a disadvantage in relationship to the symbolic and ideological project headed by Gandhi, which promoted a nativist approach to nationalism and anticolonial politics.

Keywords : left; Gandhi; ideas; civilization; Marxism.