ABSTRACT
India’s anti-colonial revolutionaries were not the irrational ‘terrorists’ that colonial officials sought to portray them as. In fact, they represented an alternative vision of politics that overlapped in significant ways with the better-known activism of the Indian National Congress. This chapter begins by describing the contentious nature of the label of ‘terrorism’ within the context of colonial India, before assessing how revolutionary networks articulated their vision within local and international contexts. Finally, the chapter examines the ‘counter-terrorism’ measures adopted by the colonial state and gestures towards the continued relevance of this history in India’s postcolonial security legislation.
