India’s Nonviolent Freedom Struggle is a groundbreaking book that offers a fresh perspective on the Indian freedom struggle. It focuses on the Thomas Christians, a group of Christians in South India who waged a nonviolent struggle against European colonization during the politically volatile period of 1599–1799.
The book has three related objectives and unique characteristics. First, it offers a comprehensive study of primary sources that scholars have referenced but rarely studied in depth. Second, it argues that the Thomas Christian narratives provide a unique position to challenge prevalent estimations found in canonical and postcolonial critical discourse on the nation. Third, the book considers how an account of a nonviolent struggle by Thomas Christians further complicates received ideas of the postcolonial nation.
The book sheds light on the often-overlooked contributions of the Thomas Christians in India’s nonviolent freedom struggle and challenges readers to reimagine the complex and often contentious relationship between colonizers and colonized.
A unique contribution to the study of Indian history, this book is an essential read for scholars of colonialism, anticolonial movements, and the history of India.
Table of Contents: Preface; 1. Introduction: The Nonviolent Freedom Struggle; 2. Anticolonial Archives of the Sixteenth Century; 3. The Freedom Fighter as Heretic in the Seventeenth Century; 4. "We Are All Indians": National Discourse in the Eighteenth Century; 5. Conclusion: Nonviolent Decolonialism in Recent Times; Index
