Session 1: Nation and Community Re-imagined - Class Discussion

16th Sept

We began the session by discussing the context in which Anderson wrote Imagined Communities and engaged with the multiple forms of nationalisms he outlined – official nationalisms, popular, long-distance etc. We also discussed Kaviraj’s notion of the imaginary institution of India. Both scholars have highlighted the idea of the nation being a modern and invented concept, yet resting heavily on notions of antiquity, traditional communities and the past. The role of symbols of the past (monuments), heritage etc. play key roles in the creation of this narrative.

We discussed some of the mechanisms by which this invention is engendered – print capitalism, technology, literacy, print languages etc.

Kaviraj’s work addressed some of the issues raised about Anderson’s work, such as how elites expand the nationalist narrative to incorporate different groups in society by relying on anti-colonial sentiments.

The questions that emerged from this discussion included

1) how do we account for the proliferation of communities/groups in society  when it was assumed that identities would coalesce, as societies became modern?

2) what is the difference between how people relate to notions of state and nation today and  kings/dynasties/administrative structures/ in pre-colonial times? Is it through the emergence of ‘citizens’ instead of  subjects? Democracy over monarchy?

To assume that kingdoms/dynastic rule were not coterminous with language, culture, politics, as is seen with the idea of the modern state , is a problematic assumption.

3) Did pre-colonial forms of rule and administration differ greatly from those introduced by the colonisers?

It appears that practices of border maintenance, enumeration of populations, taxation and surveillance techniques existed before the arrival of the British and are not necessarily specific to the modern state.

4) What is this ‘fuzzy’ community that Kaviraj and others refer to?

Watt’s piece on Nigeria confirms some of these issues when he looks at how colonial forms of administration were in fact grafted on to existing structures of  chieftainships/councils etc. and not some novel approach to governance. His piece goes on to discuss how capital  (petro-capital) makes, breaks, shapes identities in Nigeria thus leading to an ‘unimagining’ of community.

Sumathi Ramaswamy’s piece on Maps and Mother Goddesses ties in with Anderson’s and Kaviraj’s claims on how images/ideas/narratives of a nation get fixed. The feminine nation that requires masculine protection (by citizens- largely imagined as male) was an important take away from Ramaswamy’s piece. Some larger concerns were raised in the discussion of this piece, reflecting upon how regional-language literature has explored this theme at great length, and yet are not available to disciplinary/academic knowledge production.