After studying the ideas present in the Telugu novel Malapalli written by Unnava Lakshminarayana, a social reformer and nationalist from Telugu speaking region of India. I propose in this article that the novel projects the nationalist ideology of Unnava Lakshminarayana; Unnava imagined Indian nationalism by creating sovereign, superior inner domain- Hindu Civilization- and synthesizing that with the economy and polity of Western Civilization; while creating superior inner domain, he accommodated colonial critiques of Indian society and his imagination of future Indian political system is not mere emulation of one of the modular forms of the West but it involved a process of selection of institutions after checking their compatibility to the newly imagined sovereign, superior inner domain.
Colonial critiques of Indian society, social reform, imagination of nationalism, new ideas in Telugu literature
