Does India have a tradition of international thought in the modern period? Does it have influential and provocative thinkers who have written illuminatingly about international life and India’s place in it? Engaging with these questions through the writings of eminent public figures, this volume introduces readers to Indian thought from the late 19th century to the middle of the 20th century and attempts to bring their ideas into the mainstream of global discussions.

Kanti Bajpai and Siddharth Mallavarapu excerpt the writings of seven key modern Indian personalities—Swami Vivekananda, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Rabindranath Tagore, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, and Sayyid Abul A’la Maududi—and two Europeans who made India their home, Sister Nivedita and Annie Besant. The extracts provide a gateway through which Indian thought engages with, and makes its presence known in, the world. As most of the extracts are from the pre-Independence period, the dominant theme in this volume is the nature of nationalism. In their wide-ranging Introduction, the editors relate different conceptions of nationalism, implicit or explicit, in the excerpted writings to notions of international order.

India, the West, and International Order aims to locate Indian international thought within the growing debate on ‘post-Western International Relations’ and comparative political theory. This book, the first volume in the series India’s International and Strategic Thought, will be a valuable resource for scholars interested in modern Indian thought and the prospects of a more globalised discipline of International Relations.