My thesis on The Development of Political Thought in India, 1885-1935, approved for the Ph. D. degree in Political Science of the Agra University in 1957, could not be published earlier. During the last two decades many learned works on the subject have appeared. Modern Indian political thought, being my special field of study, has continued to engage my attention and I have kept myself in living touch with it all these years. In 1981, I took up the revision of my thesis and planned to update it. That plan is still partially unfulfilled. In the meantime M/s ACME Publications approached me with a proposal to publish it in its original form. I agreed, reluctantly though.

The thesis spans a period of fifty years, 1885-1935 and examines only the main currents of political thought of the period. The political thinkers discussed in these pages are: the early leaders of the Indian National Congress, commonly referred to as the liberals or moderates; Balgangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal and Sri Aurobindo, popularly known as the extremists; Mahatma Gandhi Rabindranath Tagore and the early Indian leftists.

The liberals stood apart and formed a class by them-selves. Outstanding among them were Dadabhai Naoroji, S. N. Bannerji, M. G. Ranade, B. N. Dar, C. Shankaran Nair, D.E. Wacha, R.C. Dutt and G.K. Gokhale. Though each of them had his distinct style of advancing his ideas, they had a common intellectual approach to the political problems of the day and, in essence, their basic ideas and concepts were identical. They have, therefore, been grouped together in one chapter. However, an attempt has been made to bring out their specific individual contributions to the store-house of common thought of the class as a whole.

The extremists formed a distinct school of thought. They rose in revolt against the creed of the liberals. Each one of the great extremists Tilak, Pal and Sri Aurobindo - was a profound thinker and had unique approach to the contemporary socio-political problems, and yet they cherished and shared common philosophical doctrines and ethical values. The primary sources of their inspiration were ancient Indian Their political institutions, culture and philosophy. philosophy, in consequence, forms a coherent and comprehensive whole. So they have been studied together. In the same chapter a separate section has been devoted to Mrs Annie Besant, who was an extremist among the 'liberals' and a liberal among the 'extremists'.

Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi have the same socio-cultural and metaphysical background as the extremists. But as political thinkers they greatly differ from them as well as from each other. Each of them is a school by himself. In the early fifties the study of Gandhiji's political philosophy was in its initial stages. Now literature available on Gandhiji and Gandhism is enormous. Although the chapter on Gandhiji in the thesis is based on his speeches and writings upto 1935 only, it presents a fairly comprehensive account of his political philosophy.

Leftist political thought in India was in its infancy in the early thirties. But it had three distinct streamlets: Marxian socialism, democratic socialism and political realism represented by Subhas Chandra Bose. A fourth trend was represented by the revolutionaries, referred to as terrorists, of the post-Non-Co-operation period. The history of terrorism in India goes back to the last decade of the nineteenth century. The early terrorists, it may be noted, were no political thinkers. However, the terrorists of the twenties, especially, Bhagat Singh and his associates, came under the influence of socialism and adopted a Socialist republican state as their goal. Their political ideas have been examined, though briefly, in the last chapter.