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Peasants in India's Non-Violent Revolution
Practice and Theory
First Edition
- Mridula Mukherjee - Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India
Volume:
5
September 2004 | 560 pages | SAGE Publications Pvt. Ltd
At a time when a majority of scholars engage in studies on class, religion, ethnicity and gender, this study forcefully demonstrates that peasants as a category and their problems continue to excite considerable academic debate.
Divided into two parts, the book first reconstructs the political world of the peasants of Punjab and forms the empirical base on which rests the subsequent theoretical and methodological discussion. It captures their struggles at the national level as well as their everyday struggles on purely class or peasant issues.
The second part makes important interventions in the theoretical debates regarding the role of peasants in revolutionary transformation in the modern world. The author argues that the automatic association of revolution with large-scale violence has resulted in the refusal to recognize the non-violent yet revolutionary political practice of peasants in the Indian National Movement. The author subjects to critical scrutiny a wide range of theoretical models and argues that the political practice of the Indian peasants cannot be fit into any theoretical straightjacket.
Divided into two parts, the book first reconstructs the political world of the peasants of Punjab and forms the empirical base on which rests the subsequent theoretical and methodological discussion. It captures their struggles at the national level as well as their everyday struggles on purely class or peasant issues.
The second part makes important interventions in the theoretical debates regarding the role of peasants in revolutionary transformation in the modern world. The author argues that the automatic association of revolution with large-scale violence has resulted in the refusal to recognize the non-violent yet revolutionary political practice of peasants in the Indian National Movement. The author subjects to critical scrutiny a wide range of theoretical models and argues that the political practice of the Indian peasants cannot be fit into any theoretical straightjacket.
Series Editors’ Preface
Introduction
PART ONE: POLITICal PRACTICE IN RURAL PUNJAB: THE 'HEROIC' AND THE 'EVERYDAY'
Peasants Protest
Emergence of Modern Peasant Organizations and Fashioning a Peasant Agenda, 1924-29
Marching with the Nation
Consolidating Peasant Politics
Peasant Upsurge
Anit-War, People's War and Post-War
Peasant Protest in a Non-Hegemonic State
PART TWO: INTERROGATING PEASANT HISTORIOGRAPHY: PEASANT PERSPECTIVES, MARXIST PRACTICE AND SUBALTERN THEORY
Peasants and Anti-Colonial Nationalism
Peasants and Non-Violence
Peasants and Outsiders
Mapping Peasant Consciousness
In Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
Mridula Mukherjee`s book presents an interpretation of Gandhi`s contribution to the national movement…essentially from the standpoint of a relatively well-placed stratum of the agrarian population.
The author has taken much care to document a detailed evaluation of the process of peasant radicalization through participation in national-level leadership…Mukherjee’s study greatly enriches our understanding by questioning some long-accepted assumptions about the role of peasants in rural Punjab.