ABSTRACT

Severe dislocations wrought by World War I in India’s economyand society set the stage for mass nationalist movements inthe early 1920s. Some of the old axioms underlying the organization of the colonial state and political economy since 1857 had to be abandoned on account of wartime exigencies. It is important, therefore, to be clear about the impact of the First War on the structure of the colonial state and the economic relationship between metropolis and colony. While addressing this theme, the present chapter also draws a broad analytical framework which takes into account continuities and changes in the state and political economy, enabling us to correctly place the mass politics of the 1920s, the economic and political crises of the Depression decade, and upheavals around and during the Second War.