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Introduction
Perhaps not surprisingly, most narratives of the Indian freedom struggle have a tendency to adopt a quite narrowly 'national' perspective. External influences and global contexts are often played down or even completely edited out from the histories of what is sometimes described as 'the nation's arduous way to self-realization'. The inclination towards nationalistic solipsism often disguises the complex set of global historical constellations, transnational political interaction and translocal ideological exchanges that are constitutive factors of most national movements. Fortunately, there are some exceptions to this rule, even among nationalists themselves. In his book Young India, the Indian political activist and amateur historian Lala Lajpat Rai, for instance, acknowledged the formative impact of global factors on Indian nationalist politics. The book, published in 1917, contains a short chapter on the 'world forces' that shaped the Indian national movement. Lajpat Rai even takes an overtly internationalist stance when he states that:
There can be no doubt that Indian Nationalism is receiving a good deal of support from the world forces outside India. [...] Indian Patriots travelling abroad [...] seek and get opportunities of meeting and conversing with the Nationalists of other countries. Some of them are in close touch with Egyptian or Irish nationalists, others with Persian and so on. Indian Nationalism is thus entering on [sic] an international phase which is bound to strengthen it and bring it to the arena of the world forces.1
Particularly the radical wing of the Indian independence movement (popularly known as 'revolutionaries' in India and as 'seditionists', 'anarchists' or 'terrorists' among British officials) in the first two decades of the twentieth century is an excellent example of the multilayered and multifaceted global entanglements of nationalist projects. Nevertheless, not many historians have widened the lens beyond the geographical bounds of India and looked at intercontinental connections in their attempt adequately to explain both the political strategies and the ideological contents of Indian nationalism in this crucial phase.2 Having said that, it must not be forgotten that the 1970s and early 1980s have produced a couple of interesting survey works on 'Indian revolutionaries abroad', mostly authored by scholars with a Marxist background, who seem to have been more inclined...