The Nation as Mother and Other Visions of Nationhood

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History matters in contemporary debates on nationalism,’ Sugata Bose contends in The Nation as Mother. In this interconnected set of deeply researched and powerfully argued essays and speeches Bose explores the relationship between nation, reason and religion in Indian political thought and practice. Offering a subtle interpretation of the ways of imagining the nation as mother, the book illuminates different visions of India as a free and flexible federal union that have acquired renewed salience today. Breaking out of the false dichotomy between secular nationalism and religious communalism, the author provides incisive analyses of the political legacies of Tagore and Gandhi, Nehru and Bose, Aurobindo and Jinnah, and a range of other thinkers and leaders of the anti-colonial movement. The essays question assumptions about any necessary contradiction between cosmopolitanism and patriotism and the tendency among religious majoritarians and secularists alike to confuse uniformity with unity. The speeches in Parliament draw on a rich historical repertoire to offer valuable lessons in political ethics. In arguing against the dangers of an intolerant religious majoritarianism, this book makes a case for concepts of layered and shared sovereignty that might enable an overarching sense of Indian nationhood to coexist with multiple identities of the country’s diverse populace. The Nation as Mother delves into history on the occasion of the seventieth anniversary of freedom to evoke an alternative future of a new India based on cultural intimacy among its different communities.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Sugata Bose

Sugata Bose is Gardiner Professor of History at Harvard University. His publications include Nationalism, Democracy and Development: State and Politics in India (co-edited with Ayesha Jalal; 1997) and The Indian Struggle, 1920-1942: Subhas Chandra Bose (co-edited with Sisir Kumar Bose; 1997).

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Bibliographic information

Title
The Nation as Mother and Other Visions of Nationhood
Author
Edition
1st. ed.
Publisher
ISBN
9780670090112
Length
272p.
Subjects