Autobiography, Travel and Postnational Identity: Gandhi, Nehru and Iqbal

This is the first study to show how the group identities of nationalism in South Asia were grounded in notions of individual selfhood. Javed Majeed argues that the writing of autobiography played a key role in formulating the complex connections between nationalism and interiority. By focussing on Jawaharlal Nehru, M.K. Gandhi and Muhammad Iqbal, and a range of other South Asian nationalist autobiographies and travelogues in English, Urdu, and Persian, he shows how notions of travel grounded the autobiographical projects of leading nationalists.