History, nation and community - Reflections on nationalist historiography of India and Pakistan

If it is true that emotions must be brought back into social science then t o begin doing so, surely no better site exists than the study of nation-bui lding. This paper attempts to do just this. It discusses in some detail how the nation, the cultural community and the relation between the two were i magined by historical actors in India. The author argues that a failure to achieve the objective of living within a single unified state is to be expl ained not just by economic and religious causes but by a lack of political imagnination shaped as it was by distinct conceptions of nation and communi ty, as by differing emotions.