Rewriting Histories of Nationalism: The Politics of ‘Moderate Nationalism’ in Colonial India, 1870-1905

THE PHENOMENA OF NATIONALISM AND THE NATION-STATE are at once general and yet irreducibly particular. It is perfectly meaningful to talk about nationalism and the nation-state "in general," given the ubiquity of these phenomena, yet nationalism is always someone's claim that their cultural, religious, linguistic, or other particularity
be given political expression in the form of a nation-state. The literature on nationalism displays the same two-fold character as its object. On the one hand, it consists of general studies of the "rise of nationalism" or the "idea of nationalism."