ABSTRACT
Two centuries of colonialism left behind a Janus-faced legacy: one countenance reflecting some progressive features, the other, a relic of the “feudal” past. The dualism, evident even during colonial rule, surfaced after its termination in the divergent political trajectories of the Indian and Pakistani states. For the Muslims Orientalist historiography put them on defensive impeding their assimilation into the colonial order at a time when the Hindus had begun to establish themselves within it. In that political society was the domain of the elites, and civil of the subaltern, colonial India was no different from any other “bourgeois” society. Although a schism between civil and political society was an integral feature of colonial rule, dominant Hindu classes had been able to mitigate its effects by instituting their hegemony over the former. In spite of the tensions in the nationalism deriving partly from its close association with the colonial state, it was essential for raising the political consciousness of the Hindus.
