PAST CONTINUOUS: Munshi, Gujarat, and the Patan Trilogy1

In this essay, we situate a young K.M. Munshi, who inherited voices from the nineteenth century, both strident and muffled, in the public sphere of Gujarat 1. We ask what he might be reading both in English and Gujarati, and responding to. Who did he consider respectable predecessors of thought and literature? We also turn to The Patan Trilogy, the magnum opus Munshi produced in the early decades of the twentieth century. We invite the readers to join us in this exploration of a figure that is remembered as an iconoclast among some readers in Gujarat and has gained infamy as a precursor of Hindutva among some outside Gujarat. How might we see Munshi as a negotiator, even when he campaigned? Was this a negotiation with modernity?