Will to Argue

We live in a world of controversies, and often wonder what controversies do to a culture. Do they interpret it? Can one conceive of them as a genre? Can they offer serious diagnostic tools to the social scientist or the cultural historian? In this pioneering study, the author addresses these and similar questions, and examines if and how controversies help us understand the ways in which forms of nationalism and identity formation imagine, shape, and construct themselves. Focusing on major controversies at local and the national levels during colonial and postcolonial times, he deals with seemingly unconnected subjects, such as language, khadi, sexuality, textuality and authorship, and also personalities as diverse as Sarala Das, Radhanath Ray, Fakir Mohan, Tagore, Gandhi and Premchand.