Revolutionary Nationalism

The dawn of revolutionary nationalism can be traced to the end of the 19th century which remains a witness to the proliferation of secret societies in several parts of India like Maharashtra, Bengal etc. like Mitra Mela by Vinayak Savarkar and Ganesh Savarkar in Nasik (1899). Revolutionary Nationalism has been a novel methodology to counter the oppressive British raj through individual heroism and at times provided a formidable challenge to the raj. This paper, therefore, attempts to comprehensively analyze various aspects of revolutionary nationalism. Its emergence crests and troughs in different phases have been studied. The paper also delves deeper into its ground-level impact both in the short run and the long run primarily in the context of the Indian struggle for freedom. Although Revolutionary nationalism remained popular and relevant only for the first three decades of the 20th century yet during this journey it coexisted with several historic events, starting from the Swadeshi boycott movement in 1905, tiding through the First World War (1914-1918) and non-cooperation movement (1921-22) and collapsing eventually by1930. Thus an enquiry into its role in the Indian freedom struggle deserves substantial attention which has been attempted in this paper. Through an analysis of this scheme of individual heroism vital insights have been drawn highlighting major causes of its early collapse. Further, the unidirectional evolving ideological overtones of this approach have been distinctly stressed. Finally, the paper strives to draw out some crucial learnings from the spirit of this system of protest in the current context of time and space.