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The Routledge Handbook of State, Nations and Nationalisms in South Asia highlights the debate on making of postcolonial states in South Asia and conflicting definitions of nation and nationalism and examines the role of different agencies in constructing an idea of nation and nationalism in respective South Asian countries.
Following an introduction by the editor, the book is structured in three sections: 1. Nature of South Asian States 2. Imagining a Nation and Nation-Making in South Asia 3. Contesting Nationalisms in South Asia written by a mix of leading scholars, both established and emerging, on South Asian politics and related disciplines provide an overview of the South Asian states - after more than seven decades of political decolonisation. They analyse some pertinent questions: What is the nature of the State? Which identity groups are part of the nation and who are "enemies"? What is the accepted form of nationalism?
A useful guide and reference work, this handbook will be of interest to students and researchers of South Asian Studies and related disciplines.
List of contents
Part One : Nature of South Asian States, One: Changing Nature of the Indian State, Two: Colonial and Postcolonial Anthropology Among the Nagas: Shaping the Modern Nation-State in India's Borderlands, Three: The Demand for Pakistan: Multiple Imaginations Amidst Constitutional Debates, Four: Unmanning the Indian Action Hero in Pakistani Women's Cinema (1980s): Community, State, and Gendered Dissidence, Five: The Nature of the Nepali State (1768-2025): A Regime Type Perspective, Six: A troubled past, a troubled present: A troubled future?, Seven: Things Fall Apart: Assessing US-led State-building Efforts in Afghanistan (2001- 2021), Eight: Maldives, Small State Identities and Agential Power: A Framework for Analysing the Prominence of South Asia's Smaller States,
Part Two: Imagining a Nation and Nation-Making in South Asia, Nine: Contested Citizenships: Overseas Indians and the Pursuit for 'Dual Nationality' after 1947, Ten: Of Nations, Moments, and Nationalism: The Bangladesh Case, Eleven: Subversive Others, Liminal Subjects: Minorities and the Making of a Nation in Pakistan, Twelve: Hindu community in Bangladesh: Between identity and marginality, Thirteen: Identity Politics in Jammu and Kashmir: Fragmentation and Contestation, Fourteen: Recognition or Reconfiguration: The Politics of Gender and Nation Building in India, Fifteen : Changing Idea of the Nation in Bhutan due to Mass Outmigration, Sixteen : Bhutanese National Identity: A Changing Narrative from Monarchy to Democracy,
Part Three : Contesting Nationalisms in South Asia, Seventeen : Linguistic Nationalism in South Asia: Conceptual and Historical Understanding Eighteen: Bengali and Bangladeshi Nationalism, Nineteen: Internal Colonial Nationalism and Indigenous Resistance: The Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh, Twenty: Ethnic Nationalism as Resistance: Sindhi and Siraiki Movements in Pakistan, Twenty One: Tamil Nationalism in Sri Lanka: Historical Foundations, Political Dynamics, and Post-War Challenges, Twenty-Two: The Consolidation of Hindu Nationalism in India, Twenty-Three: Understanding Sikh Nationalism, Twenty-Four: Caste and Nationalism in India, Twenty Five: Muslim Citizens' Engagement With Hindutva Nationalism, Twenty Six: Crown, Faith, and Tongue: The Evolution of Nepali Nationalism since Unification, Twenty-Seven: Balochistan as Achilles heel of Pakistani nationalism, Twenty-Eight: 'Baiya-Toiya' and the Aspirational Middle-Class Nationalist Imaginary: Shifting Axes of Political Polarization in Sri Lanka, Twenty Nine: Scripted Divisions: Colonial Epistemologies and the Invention of Linguistic Nationalism in Sri Lanka
About the author
Amit Ranjan is Research Fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore. He is co-editor of "Environment, Climate Change and Migration in South Asia" (with Rajesh Kharat and Pallavi Deka (2023), "Urban Development and Environmental History in Modern South Asia (with Ian Talbot (2023) and the forthcoming "The aftermath of the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971" (with Taj Hashmi and Mazhar Abbas), also published by Routledge.
