Introduction - South Asian nationalisms
Korom, Frank J.; Magnusson, Jan
This article intends to raise questions related to nationalism in South Asia, while
also addressing the rationale for this special issue. Is nationalism a monolithic
construct based on a European precedent or is it something much larger that is
developed pluralistically in a variety of contexts around the world? If the latter
is true, which is our position, then how do we go about studying the various
versions of global nationalism? We argue that good comparison is based on both
similarity and difference. To make a case for multiple versions of nationalism,
the articles included herein focus on the Indian Subcontinent. Each article looks
at a particular country belonging to the South Asian Association for Regional
Cooperation (SAARC), the intergovernmental group representing the geopolitical
union of states in South Asia, which was founded in Dhaka, Bangladesh in 1985.
The overall purpose of this collection of articles is to highlight the varieties
of nationalism found in the region, with the goal of interrogating the idea of
a singular form of nationalism inherited by postcolonial societies from their
European colonizers.
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