Shyamji Krishnavarma: Sanskrit, Sociology and Anti-Imperialism

265 Pages·2014·7.34 MB·English

by  Harald Fischer-Tiné

[An] outstanding and compelling study of the nationalist and F
revolutionary Shyamji Krishnavarma [that] throws much light on a IS
critical phase of Indian nationalism when [ . . . ] Indian liberalism was C
transformed into radicalism and then violent anti-colonialism. H
C. A. Bayly
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[The] book restore—s d ebates abo,u Ut nthivee urtsiiltiyty o of fC vaimolebnricdeg teo, tUhKe −
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historiography of Indian nationalist thought [ . . . ] problematising the
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binaries of east and west, cosmopolitanism and nationalism, that have N
ordered recent histories of transnational networks É
Kama Maclean
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—Fis cher-Tiné paints, aU cnoivmeprseiltliyn ogf p Noerwtra Siot uotf hK Wrisahlnesa,v Aaurmstara —lia
intellectual, exile, nationalist revolutionary. S
David Arnold h
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— , University of Warwick, UK
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This book is the �irst critical biography on Shyamji Krishnavarma —
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scholar, journalist and national revolutionary who lived in exile outside
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India from 1897 to 1930. His ideas were crucial in the creation of an
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extremist wing of anti-imperial nationalism.
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The work delves into a fascinating range of issues such as colonialism and i
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knowledge, political violence, cosmopolitanism, and diaspora. Lucidly h
written, and with an insightful analysis of Krishnavarma’s life and times, n
this will greatly interest scholars and researchers of modern Indian a
history, politics, the nationalist movement, as well as the informed lay v
rHeaardaelrd. Fischer-Tiné a
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is Professor of Modern Global History at the Swiss
Shyamji Krishnavarma
Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zürich). a
Sanskrit, Sociology and Anti−Imperialism
Cover photograph courtesy of the author.
Jacket design by Silika Mohapatra.
ISBN 978-0-415-44554-2
Harald Fischer-Tiné
www.routledge.com
Shyamji Krishnavarma
Pathfinders
Series Editor: Dilip M. Menon
Professor of History and Mellon Chair in Indian Studies,
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
This series explores the intellectual history of South Asia through the lives and
ideas of significant individuals within a historical context. These `pathfinders’
are seen to represent a break with existing traditions, canons and inherited
histories. In fact, even the idea of South Asia with its constituent regions and
linguistic and religious divisions maybe thrown into crisis as we explore the
idea of territory as generated by thought. It is not cartographic limits that
determine thinking but the imagining of elective affinities across space, time
and borders. These thinkers are necessarily cosmopolitan and engage with a
miscegenation of ideas that recasts existing notions of schools of thinking, of
the archive for a history of ideas, and indeed of the very notion of national
and regional limits to intellectual activity. The books in this series try to think
beyond the limited frameworks of colonialism and nationalism for the modern
period and more generally of histories of societies that are told through the
prism of the state, its institutions and ideologies.
These slim volumes written by leading scholars are intended for the
intelligent layperson and expert alike, and written in an accessible, lively and
authoritative prose. Through telling the lives of celebrated names and lesser
known ones in context, this series will expand the repertoire of ideas and
individuals that have shaped the history and culture of South Asia.
Also in the Series
Javed Majeed
Muhammad Iqbal: Islam, Aesthetics and Postcolonialism
ISBN: 978-0-415-44578-8
Lakshmi Subramanian
Veena Dhanammal: The Making of a Legend
ISBN: 978-0-415-44611-2
Kris Manjapra
M. N. Roy: Marxism and Colonial Cosmopolitanism
ISBN: 978-0-415-44603-7
Savithri Preetha Nair
Raja Serfoji II: Science, Medicine and Enlightenment in Tanjore
ISBN: 978-0-415-53504-5
Brian A. Hatcher
Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian
ISBN: 978-0-415-73630-5
Shyamji Krishnavarma
Sanskrit, Sociology and Anti-Imperialism
Harald Fischer-Tiné
LoNdoN New York New deLHI
First published 2014 in India
by routledge
912 Tolstoy House, 15–17 Tolstoy Marg, Connaught Place, New delhi 110 001
Simultaneously published in the UK
by routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2014 Harald Fischer-Tiné
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication data
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-0-415-44554-2
To Mala
Page Intentionally Left Blank
Contents
Plates viii
Abbreviations ix
Glossary x
Acknowledgements xiii
Introduction xv
1. knowledge 1
2. Cosmopolitanism 53
3. Violence 110
4. Conclusion and epilogue 183
Bibliography 193
About the Author 223
Index 224
Plates
Map 1.1 North-western Gujarat during the late nineteenth
century showing krishnavarma’s home town Mandvi in
kutch (black diamond) 2
Plate 1.2 Humble beginnings in Mandvi: Shyamji krishnavarma’s
birthplace and residence for the first 13 years of
his life. The black memorial plaque was installed
in 2003 4
Plate 1.3 Shyamji during the investiture ceremony for
de Gubernatis 27
Plate 2.1 Front page of the controversial September 1908 issue
of The Indian Sociologist 60
Plate 2.2 The ‘India House’ in 65, Cromwell Avenue in Highgate,
North London in February 2013 63
Plate 2.3 Man in black: Krishnavarma during his London
years, c. 1905 89
Plate 3.1 krishnavarma’s collaborators (and rivals) in Paris:
Bhikaji rustomji Cama 114
Plate 3.2 S. r. rana with his German life partner Therese
Liszt (c. 1905) 114
Plate 3.3 Lady Curzon wyllie trying to help her dying husband
while witnesses of the murder are overpowering
M. L. dhingra. Contemporary reconstruction of the
‘London outrage’ in a painting by Cyrus C. Cuneo 157
Plate 4.1 The replica of the Highgate India House and statues
of Shyamji and Bhanumati krishnavarma at the
Krāntitīrth in Mandvi 189
Plate 4.2 The Global meets the Local: relief of Gujarat showing
the route of the vīranjalī yātrā 190
Abbreviations
AAA Archiv des Auswärtigen Amtes, Berlin
AeG Archives d’État de Genève
AN Archives Nationales, Paris
APAC, Ior British Library, London, India office records
CAB Cabinet Papers
eUr MSS european Manuscripts
HkP-ZMo Horst krüger Papers, Centre of Modern oriental
Studies, Berlin
HSP Har Bilas Sarda Papers
INC Indian National Congress
NAUk National Archives of the United kingdom, kew
NMML Nehru Memorial Library, New delhi
rPB Private Collection of rajendra Singh rana
SdF Social democratic Federation