This book is an engagingly written, chronologically ordered history of India from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. It depicts modern Indian society as structured by its responses to colonial initiatives but sadly unable to attain that perfect civic inclusion exemplified by the West because of Indians' obstinate retention of notions of hierarchy and difference (pp. xxv–vi).
Chapter 1 surveys the nineteenth century and concludes that British stereotypes shaped Indian self-perceptions: “No sooner had the British proposed that that a type existed than the ‘type’ sprang forth” (p. 41). The second chapter describes this process as resulting in fragmentation and antagonism, “just as the idea of a unified Indian nationalist movement made its debut in the form of the Indian National Congress, the putative nation was splitting into fragments” (p. 48). The nationalist movement only gained momentum when it was able to yoke constitutional politics to Hindu revivalism (p. 74)....