Tracing the fate of British mutiny monuments over the course of the first twenty-five years that followed formal Indian Independence in 1947, as well as the practices of commemoration employed to mark the conflict’s centenary in 1957, Chapter 6 is concerned with how Britain and India were forced to renegotiate the past within the dramatically transformed present. As this chapter shows, British and Indian official memory largely dovetailed over this period. Animated by questions of legitimacy at the international and domestic levels, the uprising presented an awkward moment for official British and Indian memories of empire, and thus both governments settled on an attempt to forget 1857 within the sociopolitical context of this period. However, as this chapter will further show, despite the ideological inducements to forget the uprising of 1857, it remained an important component for many groups in Britain but especially in India during this period, where memories of the conflict continued to help define what empire meant.

The introduction lays out the two central claims of the book. One, that contrary to governing anxiety about multilingualism often signaled by the refrain “our language problem,” regional linguistic politics functioned to strengthen the hold of Indian nationalism. The goal of rescuing regional “mother tongues” from colonial neglect became fundamental to the deepening of Indian nationalism–the aspirations toward distinct regional self and shared national community went hand in hand. Two, that this celebratory narrative needs to be interrupted by a more cautionary approach to linguistic politics that illustrates how being placed within the logic of the nation made regional formations on linguistic basis into sites of hegemonic power, where those who did not fit into the neat linguistic framework of India were absorbed into regional communities as second class citizens.

Under what condition do firms begin to develop a significant degree of relative business autonomy, not only from the state in question but also from other aspects of capital (including the subsector(s) of the economy in which they themselves function)? And when and how might business autonomy decline? This concluding chapter summarises the evidence presented by the book’s case studies and considers this against comparative cases, including a more systematic review of the emergence of business autonomy in India during the independence era. The emergence of a relatively autonomous business class in India amidst that country’s struggle for independence provides a number of parallels to the South African case. In both countries, the business community was torn between conflicting impulses and factions: those who benefitted from the status quo, and those who saw their longer-term interests as aligned instead with a nationalist struggle and hence with anticolonial interests, even if this struggle presented new and different threats from a growing radical left wing.

The comparisons highlight first, the incentives that may prompt business to develop an encompassing conception of its own interests; and second, the process by which norms and ideas can become entrenched in the practice of business by being repeatedly performed over time.

The increasing salience of Hindu nationalism and the emergence of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as a serious competitor in Indian politics during the 1990s forced Congress into a difficult position. Congress increasingly defended Other Backward Classes reservations to retain its appeal across India's "Hindi Belt," even hoping to ensure that members of the lower castes gained access to educational opportunities. But, by exercising increased authority over private school enrollment, Congress's policies potentially jeopardized the independent character of private minority schools that educated Christian and Muslim students, opening the door for further government control if the BJP won elections. Congress officials worked with aligned justices to develop a constitutional framework that protected education reservations while preserving the independent character of minority schools. Unlike the other examples in this book, however, these deliberations repeatedly produced inadequate results. Finally, Congress amended the Constitution and the Supreme Court willingly capitulated in a subsequent basic structure challenge, which is consistent with the deliberative partnership thesis.

The Indian National Congress had opposed reservations (affirmative action) for India's so-called "Other Backward Classes" (OBCs) since drafting India's Constitution. But when a coalition government expanded reservations for OBCs in public employment in 1990, Congress changed its position, potentially bringing the party into conflict with the judges it had previously appointed. But this conflict never occurred. Instead, Congress officials subsequently worked with aligned justices to develop a new doctrinal framework governing reservations in employment. When these justices adopted divergent positions, however, Congress frequently overruled them with constitutional amendments. Unlike the American case, however, India's Supreme Court subsequently reviewed these amendments under the basic structure doctrine, affording them the opportunity to exercise a final say. But, in each instance, these aligned justices capitulated while nonetheless preserving a voice in important constitutional deliberations, which is consistent with the book's argument.