Waiting for the People reconstructs how the debates over peoplehood defined Indian anticolonial thought, and a bold new framework for theorizing the global career of democracy. This book is the first account of Indian answers to the question of peoplehood in political theory. From Surendranath Banerjea and Radhakamal Mukerjee to Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, Indian political thinkers passionately explored the fraught theoretical space between sovereignty and government. In different ways, Indian anticolonial thinkers worked to address the developmental assumptions built into the modern problem of peoplehood, scrutinizing contemporary European definitions of “the people” and the assumption that a unified peoplehood was a prerequisite for self-government. Nazmul Sultan demonstrates how the anticolonial reckoning with the ideal of popular sovereignty fostered novel insights into the globalization of democracy and ultimately drove India’s twentieth-century political transformation.
Nazmul Sultan is an Assistant Professor of Political Theory in the Department of Political Science at the UBC. His research interests include the history of political thought, empire and anticolonial thought, popular sovereignty, and ideas of the global. His next book-length project seeks to theorize the global condition of modern political thought. Through a reconsideration of the global histories of a key set of political ideas (equality, patriotism, colonialism), the book will explore the formation of the modern account of the globe: one, interdependent, dynamically integrated, and yet stubbornly hierarchical. Articles related to the project have appeared in the American Political Science Review and Review of Politics
Participants are asked to read the Introduction and Chapter 2 of Waiting for the People. The book can be accessed and downloaded via the UBC Library: https://go.exlibris.link/5XgGd1WL. If you encounter trouble accessing the readings, please email qhuang98@mail.ubc.ca to enquire about PDF files.
The conversation will begin with brief remarks from Professor Sultan about the motivation behind the book. Participants will be invited to share their own reflections, thoughts, and connections made with the assigned chapters. Light lunch will be provided. All are welcome; no RSVP required.
