Colonial, Nationalist and Marxist Approaches to Modern Indian History

At a Glance

• What it is The three main ways in which historians have explained British rule and the freedom struggle
• Colonial Shaped by the ideology of domination; James Mill, Mountstuart Elphinstone and Vincent Smith
• Nationalist A response to the colonial approach; Dadabhai Naoroji, R.C. Dutt, R.C. Majumdar and Tara Chand
• Marxist Focus on the contradiction of interests; Rajni Palme Dutt and A.R. Desai
• Exam link UPSC Prelims, Modern History: Historiography

Where Does It Fit?

This is the third topic of the category on sources and approaches. The first two topics covered the evidence. This topic and the next cover the lenses with which historians read that evidence. The next topic covers the remaining approaches. Previous topic: Memoirs, Travel Accounts, Newspapers, Oral Evidence, Literature and Paintings as Sources. The ancient counterpart is in Modern Historians of Ancient India (Colonialist, Nationalist and Marxist Approaches).

What Is Historiography and Why Does It Matter?

Historiography is the study of historical interpretation. It asks how and why histories were written, not only what happened. The starting point for understanding the history of a society is therefore familiarity with its historiography. This gives a picture of the intellectual context of history and shows that history is more than a narration of events.

For convenience, the modern history of India is read under four broad approaches: the colonial or imperialist, the nationalist, the Marxist and the subaltern. Others, such as the communalist, Cambridge, liberal and neo-liberal, and feminist interpretations, have also influenced writing on modern India. This topic covers the first three, and the next topic covers the rest.

What Is the Colonial Approach?

For the major part of the nineteenth century the Colonial School held a high position in India. The term has two senses. One relates to the history of colonial countries. The other refers to works influenced by the colonial ideology of domination, and it is in this second sense that most historians use it today.

The practice of writing about colonial countries by colonial officials was linked to a desire for domination and for justifying colonial rule. Such works therefore criticised indigenous society and culture, praised Western culture and values, and glorified the individuals who built colonial empires. The histories of India written by James Mill, Mountstuart Elphinstone and Vincent Smith are typical examples.

What Is the Nationalist Approach?

The nationalist approach tends to add to nationalist feeling and to unify people across differences of religion, caste, language and class. It sees the national movement as a movement of the Indian people, which grew out of their growing awareness of the exploitative nature of colonial rule. It developed as a response to, and in confrontation with, the colonial approach.

Before 1947, nationalist historiography mainly dealt with the ancient and medieval periods. Nationalist historians of modern India did not exist before 1947. However, in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, nationalists such as Dadabhai Naoroji, M.G. Ranade, G.V. Joshi, R.C. Dutt, K.T. Telang, G.K. Gokhale and D.E. Wacha developed a detailed and scientific critique of the adverse economic effects of alien rule.

The early accounts of the national movement were written by nationalist leaders and not historians, such as R.G. Pradhan, A.C. Mazumdar, Jawaharlal Nehru and Pattabhi Sitaramayya. After independence, the school turned to modern India, and R.C. Majumdar and Tara Chand are noted nationalist historians of modern India.

What Is the Marxist Approach?

The Marxist approach in India began with two classic books: Rajni Palme Dutt’s India Today and A.R. Desai’s Social Background of Indian Nationalism. India Today was written for the Left Book Club in England, first published there in 1940, and published in India in 1947. Desai’s book was first published in 1948.

Unlike the colonial approach, Marxist historians see the primary contradiction in the interests of the colonial masters and the subject people. Unlike the nationalists, they also notice the inner contradictions among different sections of Indian society. A.R. Desai traced the national movement in five phases, each resting on particular social classes that supported it.

The approach has been criticised from within. Some historians, particularly Rajni Palme Dutt, could not fully combine the primary anti-imperialist contradiction with the secondary internal ones, and tended to set the anti-imperialist struggle against the class struggle. They tended to see the national movement as a bourgeois movement and missed its open-ended, all-class character. Sumit Sarkar criticised Dutt’s model as a “simplistic version of the Marxian class approach”. He viewed the nationalist leaders as an intelligentsia that acts as a kind of proxy for passive social forces with which it had little organic connection.

How Do the Three Approaches Compare?

As an analytical point, each approach asks a different main question: whether British rule helped India, how the Indian people came together against it, and which classes gained or lost.

Why Is This Topic Important?

• Core of historiography questions Prelims often asks which historian belongs to which school
• Mains depth Knowing the approaches lets a student explain why the same event, such as 1857, is read in different ways
• Link to later topics The nature of the 1857 revolt and the economic drain are explained differently by each approach

What Came Next?

The next topic covers the subaltern, communalist, Cambridge, liberal and feminist approaches. Next topic: Subaltern, Communalist, Cambridge School, Liberal and Feminist Approaches.

Key People and Terms

• Historiography The study of how history is written and interpreted
• Pax Britannica The colonial claim that British rule brought law, order and peace
• White Man’s burden The colonial idea that rulers had a duty to guide a stagnant society
• India Today Rajni Palme Dutt’s Marxist classic, first published in England in 1940
• Social Background of Indian Nationalism A.R. Desai’s Marxist work, first published in 1948
• Social Darwinism The idea that the fittest are meant to rule, used to justify British superiority

Exam Corner

Mains Angle

Questions usually ask for a comparison of approaches or an evaluation of one. These points help.

• Colonial bias The approach served the ideology of domination and treated Indian society as stagnant
• Nationalist strength It built a scientific critique of the economic effects of colonial rule
• Marxist contribution It shows class conflict within Indian society, though critics say it overstates the bourgeois character of the national movement