The British Raj was built by men who were convinced of the superiority of their culture and institutions, and appropriated the responsibility of spokesmen for an Indian mass they assumed would follow them if it could only be made to understand the high quality of their message. They created a range of safe and serviceable pulpits in the Government and the Anglo-Indian papers, and invited an educated Indian elite to participate. But they remained critical of these Indian messengers, particularly when they presumed to take over the spokesman's platform. By the 1920s, the Congress insistence on speaking for all the people of India produced a rejoinder from Raj officials about their own continuing role, cast in the context of protector of a range of economic, regional, ethnic, and communal groups. Although the British were attacked for their policy of ‘divide and rule’, the pluralism was real. And the Congress effort to establish a single ‘voice’ that spoke for ‘All-India’ was continually challenged by competing identities reflected in a complex multi-level exchange of viewpoint and defence of particular interest.

The All-India Movement and its monopoly assertions provided a base for a united campaign. It stimulated as well, the creation of separatist challenges always enhanced in reputation and influence by a parallel campaign in print. As the centrally envisaged India took on more detail and precise definition, counter images, described in more recognizable ethno-historical terms were produced by ‘local’ ‘regional’, and ‘communal’ leaders. For many, their bases were ‘centres’ too, and their large constituencies were generally unaware of the ‘parochial’ nature of their participation.