Provincial Democracy

'In this superb study, Rama Mantena completely rethinks the place of provincial politics in relation to anti-colonial thought and federated futures in the twentieth century. At the height of anti-colonial nationalist mobilization in British India, a number of collectivities demanded self-determination, federations, and civil liberties by circulating political visions that competed with discourses of Indian nationalist self-determination. Drawing out a Telugu language of politics in the idiom of provincial autonomy, rather a cultural politics of Telugu language, Mantena places its democratic lineaments in relation to global anti-colonial and internationalist thought in startlingly new ways. Provincial Democracy unearths a political genealogy of the Indian Union that has been obfuscated by ideas of Indian nationalism. It provides an inspiring model for writing and recognizing lost histories of anti-colonial political futures that are ever present.' Bhavani Raman, Associate Professor, Department of History, University of Toronto 'Innovative and richly textured, Provincial Democracy demonstrates how shifting the scale of anti-colonial politics to the princely state and province in India challenges insular histories of nationalism that focus on the creation of nation identities and borders. Recovering how anti-colonial imaginaries and vernacular publics cultivated new democratic futures through federalism, local government, civil liberties, minority rights and modernity, it is critical reading for our times.' Rohit De, Associate Professor, Department of History, Yale University