<Article>Why the Political Sources from Late Colonial India in the Aqeel Collection should be examined through a 'History of Emotions' Approach

Abstract

This article deals with the necessity to approach the Aqeel collection held by ASAFAS through politics. It will defend one particular prism for such an endeavour, that of the history of political emotions present in the books written by major politicians and intellectuals in late colonial India. Such means of access, we think, should explore both Urdu and English emotional components of the Aqeel Collection writings by using the latest research in the domain called 'history of emotions.' The article will provide some modest ideas on why and how the emotional intends to open up new ways of understanding the way politicians at that time approached and debated the future of British India into two independent nations, India and Pakistan. The article partly shows why emotional life shaped political action at the time, and how political emotions were, in turn, able to guide and strengthen the construction of post-imperialist, nationalist or supremacist ideologies that still persist today.