This volume represents the first statement of the vast research project conducted by the author, along with some of his colleagues, on the history of India's freedom struggle. As partof the effortto evolve an entirely new framework that incorporates the theoretical advances made by the Italian Marxist thinker, Antonio Gramsci, as well as the understanding of those who actually fought for India's freedom, it argues that the Indian national movement was not composed of just a string of ad hoc movements and responses to British initiatives but had a specific strategy, forged above all by Gandhiji, integrating all aspects of its own activity, whether mass struggle or constitutional action or constructive work. It also discusses other crucial aspects of the movement, its ideology and programme, the role of non-violence, the relationship between the leaders and the masses, and the capacity of the movement for deological transformation.

The study argues that since the Indian national movement is the only actual historical example of a movement that succeeded in replacing or transforming a semi-democratic state structure, a study of its rich experience and its political strategy and style of leadership has a particular significance for those interested and engaged in the task of social transformation of democratic or hegemonic states and societies. In that sense, its significance in world history is comparable to that of the British, French, Russian, Chinese, Cuban and Vietnamese revolutions.