ECONOMIC NATIONALISM and INTELLECTUAL AND SOCIAL RESISTANCE

ECONOMIC NATIONALISM IN INDIA

In 1830s the idea was mooted by Raja Rammohan Roy, Bhaskar Pandurang Tarkhadkar, Govind Vitthal Kunte ( known as Bhau Mahajan) and Ramkrishna Vishwanath against the Economic exploitation by the British on all fronts.

• In 1870s major economic critique of the colonial rule on poverty problems,under developed industris, taxes in public finance, agri-crisis, export and  political economy of nationhood were Dadabhai Naoroji(drain of wealth), M. G.  Ranade(dependent colonial economy), Romesh Chunder Dutt, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, G. Subramaniya Iyer, G.V. Joshi, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Surendranath Banerjea.
• It has been documented in The Poverty of India(1876), Poverty and Un-British Rule in India (1901) by Dadabhai Naoroji, Prosperous British India (1901) by William Digby, Some Economic Aspects of British Rule in India (1903) by G. S. Iyer, Economic History of India (1903) by R. C. Dutt.

INTELLECTUAL AND SOCIAL RESISTANCE

• The Indian intellectuals analysed colonialism in the mixed way in context of their own society, being not fully hostile or colonial mimicry towards it. Synthesis of Orientalists and Anglicist occurred.
• Example:  Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar (1820-91), being a practicing Brahmin, but also being deeply impressed by Western rational thought became an agnostic. He did not opposed John Locke and David Hume on Manusamhita but himself disregarded the Parasara Sutra and also worked for women emancipation.
• Swami Dayanand Saraswati(1824-83) and Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902) acknowledged the ideas and values from the West even being of their image as orthodox revivalists, who believed contemporary Hinduism has moved away from Vedas and Gita wisdom.
• Raja Rammohan Roy supported western instead of oriental education in fields of mathematics, natural philosophy, chemistry, anatomy,  science etc, whereas Dayanand Saraswati advocated infallibility of Vedas but avoided supernatural questions.
• Henry Louis Vivien Derozio had an aggressive rationalism at Hindu College in Calcutta where the young western educated students of the college questioned superstitions and irrationality.
• Akshay Kumar Dutt as editor in Tatva Bodhini Patrika tried to use rational principles to explain orthodox questions.
• Lokhitwadi Gopal Hari Deshmukh advocated reform in religious practices to suit contemporary reality.