The Nationalist historiography and its drawbacks

The Nationalist historiography and its drawbacks

Question:-Describe the Nationalist historiography. What were the drawbacks?

Nationalist Historiography

In the colonial period, this school represented the perspective of the patriots, the nationalists, and was represented by political activists (nationalists) like Lajpat Rai, A.C. Mazumdar, R.G. Pradhan, Pattabhj Sitaramayya, Surendranath Banerjea, C.F. Andrews, and Girija Mukerji.

B.R.Nanda, Bisheshwar Prasad and Amles Tripathi have made further contributions to this approach in the recent times.

The nationalist historians, especially the more recent ones, blame the exploitation of colonialism. But more than that they feel that the national movement was truly the result of the spread and realization of the idea or spirit of nationalism and liberty.

They also take full cognizance of the process of India becoming a nation, and see the national movement as a movement of the people.

Weaknesses

The major weakness is that they overlook or underplay the contradictions in the Indian society itself both in terms of class and caste. The national movement is supposed to represent the interests of the people or nation as a whole, that is of all classes, against colonialism. But it operated only from the perspective of a particular class. And , consequently, there was a constant struggle between different social, ideological perspectives for hegemony over the movement.

Thus, though this is a school which tries to take the perspective of the Indians into consideration, this also does not give a complete interpretation.