The enemy of my enemy: Indian influences on Egyptian nationalism, 1907--193

This thesis examines the effect of the Indian nationalist movement on the Egyptian nationalist movement. The central argument of this work is that the Egyptian nationalist movement was consciously inter-nationalist, in that the nationalist activists were not only seeking an end to their own colonial status, but an end to colonization as an acceptable form of political or social action. The imagining of a national identity demanded the simultaneous creation of a supra-national identity, that of "colonial" or "oppressed peoples." Therefore, the connections and cooperation that existed between Egyptian and Indian nationalists were not incidental or utilitarian, as they are portrayed in nationalist and imperial historiography if mentioned at all, but rather they were deliberate and defining parts of the nationalist programs. A secondary argument addressed here is the common misinterpretation of Indian-Egyptian interaction before and during the First World War as being "Pan-Islamic" and largely the result of Ottoman and German machinations. The evidence presented here does not support this but rather confirms the larger argument: that the Egyptians were primarily working for their own nation-state and allied with the Indians for mutual benefit in their individual nationalist goals. Finally, this thesis demonstrates that Egyptian nationalism incorporated a trans-nationalist element well before the Pan-Arabism and Islamic-nationalism of the 1930's.;The effect of the Indian movement on Egyptians is examined in light of relationships among the leaderships, collaboration at nationalist and international conferences, and the role of Indian nationalists, particularly Gandhi, in the literature and periodical press of Egypt. The response of the British authorities to these connections is also examined discussed, both in its own capacity and in terms of its effect on the nationalists. Indeed, this work argues that efforts to "de-link" the nationalist movements were actually instrumental in creating solidarity between them. Thus, nationalists throughout the Empire became an "imagined community" through articulation their shared goal, the response of the authorities to this goal, and the common socio-political language that their efforts demanded, which was to become the standard tongue of modern anti-colonial movements.