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Muhammad Ahmad Hasan – 21020059

SOC 432 – Colonialism and Colonial Legacies

Hassan Javid

December 20, 2020

Book Review – “Gentlemanly Terrorists: Political Violence and the Colonial State in India”

It may seem like an oxymoron to use the words ‘terrorist’ and ‘gentlemanly’ in the

same sentence. Still, Durba Ghosh has captured the essence of this paradox in her book,

“Gentlemanly Terrorists.” Ghosh sheds light on the relationship between “political violence

in interwar Bengal and the development of the post-colonial Indian state.” Early into the

twentieth century, a group of high caste Indian elites educated in the ways of the British

formed secret societies with the very aim to “terrorize the British government to leave India”

(Ghosh 1). According to Ghosh, these violent means were a strategy for national liberation,

which “reshaped the politics and laws of late anti-colonial nationalism in India” (Ghosh 10).

Her arguments force one to engage in dialogues that reflect on the repressive laws of the

colonial state, rethink the conventional narratives of the struggle for the Indians of the sub-

continent and “recognize that the Indian nationalist movement was more than just Gandhi’s

Salt March (Gandhian non-violence).” While previous studies on political violence in

colonial India were geared towards how bombings, assassinations, and robberies played in

delivering Independence, Ghosh argued that the repressive attitudes adopted by the British

shaped the post-colonial state.

The core argument Ghosh makes is how repressive legislation was part of the

constitutional reforms introduced by the colonial state to promote liberal governance. There

was emergency legislation tied to these reforms to prevent any form of revolutionary violence
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through surveillance and imprisoning those who engaged in said acts. For instance, the

Government of India Act of 1919 introduced “decentralization at the provincial level and

extended the Indian franchise.” However, the Rowlatt Act was introduced as a “preventive

measure, allowing indefinite detention and incarceration without any trial for political

dissidents.” Therefore, Ghose argues that while the colonial government introduced a plan for

self-government for the educated elites, alongside improved prison conditions, it was

supplemented by repressive legislation that aimed to “discipline the revolutionary and radical

activities the very same educated elites” (Ghosh 28-34) – a tactic mimicked by the modern

post-colonial state, using liberal governance with repressive tactics reeking of colonial

legacies. Moving forward, legislation like the Bengal Criminal Act Law caused an eruption in

the number of political prisoners detained in special detention camps under unsympathetic

conditions, putting the colonial state at odds with their subjects. Such legislations were

renewed and supplemented by “emergency legislation,” which Ghosh describes as “the

continued state of emergency became the new norm” (Ghosh 145). Such conditions not only

did not counter revolutionary terrorism but also created discontent among moderate

nationalists.

Another significant contribution that Durba Ghosh makes is shedding light on the

marginalized activists, including the “detenus – political activists/revolutionary terrorists held

under suspicion but never charged of any crime” (Ghosh 207). Specific legislation was

drafted for the very purpose of sanctioning the practice of preemptive detention in Bengal

under the colonial rule. The targets of this legislation were the (political activists) educated

middle class (bhadralok) that the colonial state failed to incorporate in the government

institutions. As a result of the rise of political violence, the bhadrolak suspected of

revolutionary/nationalist activity were incarcerated. However, the conditions that these

bhadrolak prisoners were kept in line with the environment they were familiar with
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(provision of preferred food, access to books, letters, and at times tennis facilities),

considering their status in mind and the prospect that they could be rehabilitated (Ghosh 45-

49).

The majority of the content Ghosh analyses/argues about in her book revolves around

how “both the revolutionary terrorists and the colonial administrators used historical accounts

to control the narrative about the movement.” Her account is primarily constructed from a

thorough research of archival materials that documented the “terrorist threat” and confidential

intelligence files that got declassified (Ghosh 246). According to Ghosh, the colonial

government spent a lot of time and resources to control the narrative in order to make sense

of revolutionary terrorism – in turn, manipulating events to create a sort of continuity and

assigning an ideological purpose to this “terrorist conspiracy” (Ghosh 61). On the other hand,

she draws from the accounts from revolutionary autobiographies for evidence of the alternate

perspective. Autobiographies of revolutionary activities started emerging as early as the

1920s in order to serve as handbooks for activism for their readers (“a part of their political

insurrection”) and “to represent these acts of violence as acts of self-sacrifice (Ghosh 63-65).

Autobiographies published post-independence were met with some resistance from the post-

colonial state in an attempt to silence Bengal-centric narratives. Despite the post-colonial

state’s devotion to the Gandhian non-violence and Congress narrative for Independence, in

the 1970s, these political revolutionaries were given state recognition in the shape of statues,

monuments, and endowment of pensions and other benefits (Ghosh 248-251).

While historians have always recognized Gandhian non-violence as the accepted

narrative for the Indian struggle for Independence, Ghosh’s work has brought light to a

different perspective where one may be more prepared to accept “the role that bhadlorak

dacoity played in fostering anti-colonial sentiments and eroding the colonial authority.”

While it may seem convenient to ignore the role these revolutionaries played in the struggle
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for Independence because of their relatively small number, their regional concentration in

Bengal, or the fact that they did not have much success – Ghosh depicts how the rise of

revolutionary terrorism was significant in building up Gandhi’s non-violence movement.

According to her, “the use of ‘emergency’ legislation hidden behind the façade of liberal

governance agenda were two sides of the same coin” – not just contradictory impulses to

involve the Indians in government and repressing their experiences at the same time.

Durba Ghosh makes a solid argument in regard to the post-colonial state that despite

the role revolutionaries played, the legacies of the British colonizers still haunt the

independent state of India – the use of emergency legislation to repress while fronting as a

liberal democracy. While the terrorists of the post-colonial state are not the same as those

who defied the British colonizers, any person who is a “threat” to the democratic foundations

of the state (status quo) is persecuted under emergency legislation - this includes tribal

leaders, Dalit leaders, and communists. According to Ghosh, these “parallel developments”

have created a framework that sets boundaries for “good” and “bad” citizenship in which

“patriotism requires political agreement with the state.” The Indian state uses tailored

legislation to distinguish between the freedom fighter and terrorist, which depicts the

“freedom fighter as a figure of national honor” while reducing the “terrorist” to a “figure

outside the state who cannot be treated under regular legislation” (Ghosh 245).

To conclude, Durba Ghosh presents the alternate narrative for the struggle for India’s

Independence. Her work is centered around how the repressive laws of colonial state

reshaped the politics of anti-colonial nationalism. While Ghosh mostly discusses what went

on between the revolutionary terrorists and the colonial state through state records and

autobiographies of said revolutionaries, her analysis of the events reflects on how much the

post-colonial mimics its colonial overlords and how there are several shortcomings in the

construction of modern-day democracies. She argues that “both the colonial and post-colonial
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states have used the logic of protecting democracy and democratic norms and rights as a way

of rationalizing a growing security apparatus” (Ghosh 245). This argument begs one to

question if there are global implications of observing similar patterns of repression in post-

colonial democracies and what it means for liberal governance.

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Bibliography

Ghosh, D. Gentlemanly Terrorists: Political Violence and the Colonial State in India, 1919–

1947. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Print.