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This chapter focuses on plotting the historical and intertextual course of what is known of Aurobindo's and Sister Nivedita's partnership, particularly their cross-nationalist connections text —the traces of their relations, in other words, as these may be detected in their writing as well as in their political work. Thus, the chapter includes an investigation of their own particular disposition towards cross-border or cross-national connections. It then discusses the time right after the concentrated 1902-10 period, wherein Nivedita and Aurobindo contributed to the same like-minded journals on related issues to do with Hindu revival and self-realization, and their intertextual awareness of one another was safeguarded and promoted rather than obstructed by the anonymity they attempted to preserve. It also explains the lines of their cross-referentiality on both religion and politics, indeed of their demonstrable interdiscursivity, thus tying them together, as do the shared if largely silent pages of their collaborative history.

The last chapter of the book looks at the religious and political developments in India after the arrival of the British colonialists. The chapter focuses primarily on the Hindu response to missionary and economic pressures and the changes introduced into Hindu theology as a result. Men such as Rammohun Roy, Mohandas Gandhi, and Aurobindo Ghose receive the greatest attention in the discussion over religion, politics, and ethics. The chapter ends with the founding of India.

This chapter investigates the anti-imperial collaboration between Aurobindo Ghose and Sister Nivedita during the critical time in the fortunes of the British Empire. It considers some of the definitive aspects of Nivedita and Aurobindo's anti-colonial self-making or self-translation, focusing on their different investments in the cross-border nationalism of Bengal. Particular notice is given to Nivedita's militancy and to her Kali-worship as the culminating sign of her self-assimilation to neo-Hinduism, for Nivedita's process of Hinduisation was probably the more dramatic make-over, givern her Europeannes.

The first chapter examines the development of civil forms of protest in India under the rubric of ‘passive resistance’. This method was devised initially by nationalist activists who were impressed by the success of campaigns of what was then known as ‘passive resistance’ in Europe. These European campaigns are appraised in their historical context, showing how they inspired Indian nationalists involved in the Swadeshi Movement of 1905-09, with its rallying cry of Bande Mataram (Victory to the Motherland). The important contribution of the Bengali nationalist, Aurobindo Ghose, in the development of this strategy is analyzed. The focus in these campaigns was on efficacy rather than ethics. This tradition continued in India into the Gandhian period, and it is one of the tasks of this book to show how this created enduring tensions within the movement.

This chapter considers the work of three nineteenth-century Indian writers at various stages of the long Bengali Renaissance: Michael Madhusudan Datta (1824–73), Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941), and Sri Aurobindo Ghose (1872–1950). All belong to the long Bengali Renaissance, during which time starkly contrasting views about how Indians might relate to the cultural and political impact of British colonialism emerged. The chapter argues that Dante's appeal to these nineteenth-century Indian writers must be understood in light of the colonial cultural and political situation of the time. Under British domination and in a climate of political and cultural renewal in the nineteenth century, Indian intellectuals and writers were immersed in the western literary traditions as they were represented in the English literary canon (from Homer and Virgil to Shakespeare and Milton), but they also began to become interested in Italian poetry, and specifically in Dante.

This chapter talks about spiritual nationalists Swami Vivekananda, Aurobindo Ghose, Mohandas Gandhi, and Rabindranath Tagore, who constructed a Hindu identity that are in conflict with the Indian railway and wrote against the ideology of modernization. It interprets the political and creative writings of the spiritual nationalists in order to reveal an historical counter-narrative of modernity that is rooted in religion, but articulated in a discussion about technology. For Vivekananda, Ghose, Gandhi, and Tagore, the train’s status as an icon of Western culture is a critical context in which culture had become an instrument of domination, and represented as an alien way of being mechanistic or devoid of moral truth.

This chapter focuses on dissensions within the Indian National Congress. The crisis in the Congress was partly due to the revolt of the younger generation against its leadership. Gokhale’s friend G.A. Natesan, the Madras publisher, argued that the crisis could have been averted by greater flexibility on the part of Pherozeshah Mehta in conceding a democratic constitution for the Congress. By October 1906, the Calcutta session had become an occasion for a trial of strength between the two parties in Bengal. The Congress presidency was the chief bone of contention. The Extremists, led by B.C. Pal and Aurobindo Ghose, favoured Tilak, but the Moderates refused to accept him.

The themes of the book are summarized and there is a discussion of the two main forms of nonviolent protest developed by Indian nationalists during this period: the pragmatic use of it as a political tacticin particular circumstances, as theorized by Aurobindo Ghose, and the Gandhian emphasis on nonviolence as an absolute moral principle, as seen in his concepts of satyagraha and ahimsa. The way that Gandhi promoted a secular, rather than Hindu form of nationalism, is discussed. Notions of national honor and levels of leadership of the movement are also examined.

Discussing how jails in India have always been a site of horrendous violation of human rights, norms, and standards, this chapter reveals that problems like overcrowding and ill-treatment of prisoners continue to plague the prison system even today. The chapter mentions that the present volume recounts the struggles of political prisoners and their experiences in prison along with their creative writings, striving to acquaint the present generation with their trials and tribulations.This introductory chapter also provides an overview of the prison system in India during the British colonial rule. Looking at the setting up of the prison in the Black Waters (Kala Pani), this chapter recalls the experiences of people who pined away in the distant shores for years and discusses how going to the prison became an act of glory during India’s freedom struggle. It also traces how scholars have, over the years, approached the topic of prison system and prisoners in their works.

This concluding chapter summarizes the book’s main arguments concerning India’s political prisoners and what they had to go through under the British colonial system, which it says refused to recognize the bravest and most daring freedom fighters because it suffered from what the historian C. A. Bayly calls ‘Information Panic’. It cites the freedom fighters’ willingness to go to jail in order to make India a better place for the toiling masses. It considers how the experience of imprisonment opened up new windows of thought and vision for political prisoners. However, going beyond the glorification of jailgoing during the freedom struggle, the chapter raises important questions and asks if the politicians and historians of today remember the contributions of those who put up with slights and indignities and walked willingly towards the prison cell or the gallows.