Ricerc@Sapienza

While the choice of ancient India as an area of research is in itself legitimate, as a matter of fact it complied with the British Orientalistic assumption that the only significant period of India’s civilization was confined to the remote past. The question then arises as to the opinion some Italian Indologists (Formichi, Tucci, Suali and others) had formed about Indian modernity, and their awareness of the political implications of their professional attitude.

This study thus aims at throwing light to alternative notions of India’s cultural, social and economic renaissance which were circulated during the final decades of the colonial period and in various ways contributed to the vision of India that would come into being after independence. It focuses on Bengal’s response to Gandhi which was significantly conditioned both by certain regional cultural traits, as well as the colonial constraints faced by Bengali urban elites as they approached the ‘rural question’ as part of their own idea of ‘nation in the making’.