Partha Chatterjee: Nationalism's Passive Revolution

Dr Philip Holden, University Scholars Programme, National University of Singapore

Anticolonial nationalism achieves what Chatterjee terms a passive revolution. The middle classes take over the apparatus of the colonial state, but no fundamental political revolution occurs. Much of the space which was occupied by civil society institutions in the colonial era comes to be occupied by institutions of political society with a close affiliation with the state.

Last Modified: 19 April, 2002