Nation and Nationalism

The nation-state worldview emerged in the West is supposed to be the universally accepted one, which is utterly erroneous. India has a different kind of perception on the banal phenomena of nation and state. Its conception of 'Rashtra' has some kind of resemblance with nation, but not exactly synonymous. 'Rashtra' is a more a cultural, civilisational and sociological perception than commonly comprehended; whereas nation-state at common parlance is basically political, economic and military jargon to reckon with. There are myriad points entailing the Indian nationalism which would be dealt with in the present work in the shape of its characteristics and features. Intellectual debate demands critical reasoning and hardly bulldozes the narratives of the other side of the fence. So far, in India, there has been one sided discourse on the factor of Indian nationality jeopardising chequered history of the nation, and thus affecting the political mindset of the given people. The cumulative effect is misleading to the intellectuals encompassing the authors, media men and other opinion makers.