Nationalist nativism and left-wing thought. The debate on socialism and communism in British India during the fi rst decades of the 20th century.

In this article, I posit that the intellectual and political history of the left in contemporary India must be understood in relation to the dialectical relationship developed between the ideals behind left -wing political thought and the nativist inclinations of the nationalist anticolonial project in British India. I aim to show that left -wing thought in India, in the years in which the shock-wave of the Soviet Revolution spread through the world, developed at a disadvantage in relationship to the symbolic and ideological project headed by Gandhi, which promoted a nativist approach to nationalism and anticolonial politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]