• Before your research in oceanic history, you also wrote about the 1857 Uprising. South Asia is now preparing to mark its 150th anniversary. Would you say that 1857 saw the beginnings of a pan-Indian consciousness?

I had suggested that there was an inchoate sense of patriotism that informed the 1857 rebellion. But that should not be mistaken for modern nationalism. I still believe that what one saw in 1857 was a series of patriotic rebellions. I would not necessarily say that it had a pan-Indian consciousness; they were regional patriotisms organised under the figurehead of the fading Mughal emperor. There were other strands as well. For example, there were peasant rebellions in a number of regions. There were even localised calls for jihad in certain towns. What happened was that quite a large number of Indians in northern and central India had come to regard the East India Company state as illegitimate. They thought, in fact, the 18th-century state system, with a number of regional rulers with the Mughal emperor providing a symbolic center, at least more legitimate.

• Did it have a modernising effect?

I wouldn’t draw a very neat line of continuity between 1857 and the kind of modern nationalism that we saw, particularly among educated elites from the 1880s onward. Because, after all, in some ways 1857 was organised under the leadership of kings and nobles. There was a dimension of popular uprising as well. But it was the last gasp of these princes. Later on, of course, the British tried to utilise the princes as bulwarks. There are elements of continuity in the sense that 1857 provided inspiration for later anticolonial movements, even in the 20th century. Just think of the Indian National Army. Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose came to Rangoon to pay homage at the grave of Bahadurshah Zafar in 1943 before the march to Delhi was launched.

... contd.