ABSTRACT
Gokhale's political life has been used as a window on several important aspects of the history of ‘British’ India in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with a view to better grasp the dynamics of nationalism in other colonial milieux, too. The centrality of liberalism in the “moderate” phase of Indian nationalism, the emphasis placed on modernity to claim India's power to control its own future, the sacralisation of politics to demonstrate India's superiority to Western materialism, the contradictions and complexities inherent in the attempt by Indian nationalists to envisage a ‘progressive’ nation in a colonial context, all are the foci of continuing debates. The state envisioned by Gokhale respected citizens' civil and political liberties but acted also as a catalyst of social change. Gokhale's liberal nationalism looked to the future and was based on a project of common moral and material wellbeing to which all the inhabitants of India should contribute and from which they should benefit.
