Description of the Module

Items Description of the Module

Subject Name Sociology

Paper Name Political Sociology

Module Name/Title Earnest Gellner and Benedict Anderson on the Nation and

Nationalism

Module Id Module no. 15

Pre Requisites A sociological understanding of the terms nation and ideology. A

brief historical understanding of nation-building in Europe.

Objectives To understand two major theoretical contributions to the study of

nation and nationalism in the social sciences.

To understand the contributions by Gellner and Anderson in the

making of the modern world.

Key words Nation, Nationalism, State, Capitalism, Community, National

culture, Ideology

Module Structure

Earnest Gellner and

Benedict Anderson on

the Nation and

Nationalism

This module focuses on the two varied understandings of Nationalism and

the idea of Nation which helps us to conceptually distinguish and mark a

theoretical distinction between these two perspectives. In section one, we

look at Ernest Gellner’s conception of nation and nationalism and in section

two, we look at Benedict Anderson’s constriction of these same ideas.

Finally, in section three, we take up a critical assessment of these ideas

looking at how other authors have responded to these two thinkers.

However before dealing with these two distinct ways of Nationalism and

nation there are some scholars who opined on these issues.

Role Name Affiliation

Principal Investigator Prof Sujata Patel Dept. of Sociology,

University of Hyderabad

Paper Coordinator Prof. Edward Rodrigues

Centre for the Study of Social Systems

Jawaharlal Nehru University

Content Writer Srujana Yadav Research Scholar

Jawaharlal Nehru University

Content Reviewer Prof. Edward Rodrigues Centre for the Study of Social Systems

Jawaharlal Nehru University

Language Editor Prof. Edward Rodrigues Centre for the Study of Social Systems

Jawaharlal Nehru University

Political Sociology

Earnest Gellner and Benedict Anderson on the Nation and Nationalism

Introduction:-

This module will engage with the two prominent thinkers of the 20th century who worked on

the idea of Nation, Nationalism and its aspects. Ernest Gellner and Benedict Anderson, who

are prominently known for their contribution to Nationalism, gave two different perspectives

which are both relevant in today’s times. Ernest Gellner’s works highlight how nationalism is

primarily a Political Principle and what exactly it is that constitutes Nationalism. Critically

looking into the Nationalism debates of the past few centuries, Gellner’s vantage point

provides a view which underscores how the idea of Nationalism has been understood as

something which is given and natural. A departure from various other conceptions of

Nationalism comes at this juncture. His account of work focuses on how Nationalism has been

a product of Modernity. This principle is constantly created and re-created and produces the

feeling of ‘us’ belonging to one particular nation. In fact the very survival of a nation works

on these feelings and principles.

Similarly, Benedict Anderson who has worked on this aspect focuses on feelings of the masses

however he differs with Gellner in terms of what are the reasons and the manifestations of

those very feelings. Anderson calls Nation as an ‘imagined community’. The cultural roots

that we establish and try to link ourselves with our co-inhabitants in the very same land

produces a sense of community and this is precisely where we affirm that we are one nation.

‘National consciousness is created and that instils the reaffirmation of a nation and it keeps the

concept and the issues related alive’(Anderson, 1983, p. 24).

Joseph Stalin mentions that ‘A nation is primarily a community, a definite community of

people’. A nation is not a racial or tribal, but historically constituted community of people.

(D.Smith, 1994). This is to say we are constantly thinking that people belonging to one nation

are of one community and that defines us as a nation. Anthony Giddens, argues that ‘A ‘nation’

only exists when a state has a unified administrative reach over the territory over which its

sovereignty is claimed. The development of plurality of nations is basic to the centralization

and administrative expansion of state domination internally, since the fixing of borders

depends upon the reflexive ordering of a state system’ (D.Smith, 1994). The understanding of

a nation here is essentially to highlight how the issues of territoriality and sovereignty has

crucial role to play. One can claim that it is their nation when there are demarcated, delimited

boundaries and allocation of administrative powers within a state. Walker Connor argues,

‘Defining and conceptualizing nation is much more difficult because the essence of a nation is

intangible. This essence is a psychological bond that joins a people and differentiates it, in the

subconscious conviction if its members, from all other people in a most vital way. The nature

of that bond and is the well-spring remain shadowy and elusive, and the consequent difficulty

this task defining the nation is usually acknowledged by those who attempt this task’ (D.Smith,

1994). The very idea of belonging to a particular nation and the ‘sense’ that we develop has to

do with the psychological aspect of feelings. Bismarck’s famous statement, ‘Think with your

blood’ raises certain questions about how we actually work on mass psychological vibration

predicated upon an intuitive sense of nation.

With these varied understandings of Nation and Nationalism it becomes easier that there is no

one theory which can explain a phenomenon of Nation and Nationalism, for that matter many

have given their own perspectives which shows many facets of nationalism, starting from

thinking Nation as a community, to imagined community to Political principle to the idea of

looking at nation in terms of territoriality. This brings us to a crucial element that the

giveneness of Nation and Nationalism is not taken or accepted rather it has put to many

questions and many different understandings.

This module focuses on these two varied understandings of Nationalism and the idea of Nation

which helps us to conceptually distinguish and mark a theoretical distinction between these

two perspectives. In section one, we look at Ernest Gellner’s conception of nation and

nationalism and in section two, we look at Benedict Anderson’s constriction of these same

ideas. Finally, in section three, we take up a critical assessment of these ideas looking at how

other authors have responded to these two thinkers. However before dealing with these two

distinct ways of Nationalism and nation there are some scholars who opined on these issues.

Section-I

Ernest Gellner and the idea of Nation:-

Ernest Gellner (1925-95) was one of the most prominent theorists who has worked on

Nationalism and the idea of Nation. He taught at London school of Economics and Political

Science. His own life experiences as a Czech Jew who became a British citizen and moved

back to Prague in his final years, had a major impact on his views on nationalism, modernity,

and personal identity. Gellner grew up in Bohemia, the early Czech, during when the leaders

were trying to create a Czech national identity amongst their subjects. The time was marked

by nationalism and industrialization, a phenomena which greatly interested Gellner and

became the focal points of his thinking. Belonging to a later generation of Bohemian Jews than

Kafka, Gellner experienced both German and Czech nationalism but could only imagine

belonging to Czech culture, despite his family’s loyalty towards the Habsburg empire.

Gellner’s major contribution to the subject is the socio-economic analysis of nationalism. His

book, Nations and Nationalism (Gellner, 1983), was declared one of the hundred most

influential books written since the end of the war. Gellner argues that nationalism appeared

and became a sociological necessity only in the modern world. ‘Thought and change’ (1964),

‘Nations and Nationalism’ (1983) are the renowned books amongst the many he has written.

Also consult the biography of Ernest Gellner (2011) by John. A. Hall.

In Nations and Nationalism Gellner’s contribution to conventional understanding of

nationalism has been significant. In order to deal with issue of nationalism one needs a critical

lens to look into the subject. Nationalism was regarded as a component of national history

rather than as a distinct subject. The great theorists of modern society –Marx, weber and

Durkheim have written little on this. Nationality was treated as something ‘given’ whether it

is good or bad. The way nationalism is linked to state and the nation and inevitable link

between the nation and the people in the particular nation draws attention. ‘It is only in the

inter war period that nationalism became a subject of explicit and general analysis’ (Gellner,

1983, p. XVII). Nationalism is not a new concept however the amount of attention it gained is

something new. Elie Kedourie (1993), in his book Nationalism summarized that ‘Nationalism

is a doctrine invented in Europe at the beginning of the nineteenth century’ (D.Smith, 1994).

Gellner argue sin the similar lines and further states that only during the inter war period it

gained more attention.

The approaches to nationalism have gained importance. We usually understand Nation in terms

of National history, or common culture or some sentiments. In this context in 1980’s Gellner’s

idea of nation and nationalism provided a different perspective which called idea of

Nationalism as a Political Principle. Gellner thought of modernity as a distinctive form of

social organization and culture. He sees nationalism as a function of modernity. Some

historians argue that nationalism was modern and nationalism produced nations, not the other

way around. However Gellner disagrees with this position and argues that the idea of

nationalism was product, not producer of modernity. He focused on break in human history,

where propounds three different stages with it. According to Gellner, ‘Firstly, hunting stage

(pre-agrarian), secondly, the agrarian stage and thirdly, the industrial age’ (Gellner, 1983, p.

106). He explains various concepts through these transitions. The emergence of new kinds of

knowledge and values; the defects of various issues about these transitions from feudalism to

capitalism, according to Gellner nationalism is one of the aspects of these changes. Gellner in

his idea of nationalism elucidates that ‘nations and nationalisms are not natural because they

are not a permanent feature of human condition but came into being with the transition to

industrialism’ (Gellner, 1983, p. XXIII). Gellner’s theory of nationalisms states that –

nationalism is not a sentiment expressed by pre-existing nations, rather it creates nations where

they previously did not exist.

Nations can only be defined in terms of the age of nationalism. ‘It is nationalism which

engenders nations not the other way around. Nationalism uses the pre-existing, historically

inherited proliferation of cultures or cultural wealth and most often it transforms them

radically’ (Gellner, 1983, p. 64). In the name of nationalism dead languages can be revived,

traditions are reinvented and quite fictitious pristine purities are restored. Gellner strongly

argues that the cultural shreds and patches used by nationalism are often arbitrary historical

inventions. Nationalism is not what it seems, and above all it is not what it seems to itself. The

culture that it claims to defend and revive is often its own inventions, or is modified out of all

recognition. There is every possibility that with the overtly self-worshipping tendencies the

nationalist principles and the idea of nationalism have its own amnesias and selections which

are profoundly deceptive and distorted. It is to say that the mechanism of Nationalsim thrives

on certain things like bringing back the old cultures and making them appear as if they are

inevitable to understand one’s own idea of nations. The project of nationalism is to revive the

cultures and reaffirm them, eventually leading to national liberation. But it perpetuates,

defends and reaffirms the already exiting high culture paying less attention to the culture that

needs attention. In Gellner’s words ‘Nationalism is primarily a political principle which holds

that the political and the national unit should be congruent. Nationalism can be a sentiment

and a movement. In brief, nationalism is a theory of political legitimacy, which requires that

entire boundaries not cut across political ones, in particularly that of ethnic boundaries within

a given state -separate the power holders from the rest’. (Gellner, 1983, p. 1) This means the

way the idea of nationalism is driven is highly political and it can assume legitimacy and claims

the authority over a territory. The minute we call something as Political it already underlines

the strategies and the mechanisms that it undertakes in order to gain legitimacy and legitimize

the actions and the Political behaviour of that particular issue. This means it uses cultures,

languages, and the several other issues which are actually not natural but it seems like as if it

is something which is already given. It is here he calls ‘Nationalism as an ideology suffers

from pervasive false consciousness’ (Gellner, 1983, p. 119). It inverts reality and it claims to

defend folk culture, while in fact it forges a high culture. Nationalism is a manifest and self-

evident principle, accessible as such to all and violated only through some perverse blindness.

It preaches and defends continuity but owes everything to a decisive and unutterably profound

break in human history. It preaches and defends cultural diversity but imposes cultural

homogeneity both inside and outside and also between the political units. Its self-image and

its true nature are inversely related. Hence it seems obvious that we can’t learn too much from

the study of its own prophets. What we need to deny is to accept nationalism in its own terms.

The links between state and the nation can be elaborated in the following. The inevitability of

the state is questioned by Gellner and argues the various facets of nationalism in this

framework. State being the institution of specially concerned with the enforcement of the

order. The state and its institutions are separated out from the rest of social life. This is to say

that not all societies are state endowed. It immediately tells us that the problem of nationalism

does not arise for stateless societies that means nationalism emerges only in milieu in which

the existence of the state is already very much taken for granted. In Hegelain words the absence

of the state is inescapable. In simpler words, the problem of nationalism does not arise where

there is no state. ‘It does not follow that the problem of nationalism arises for each and every

state, on the contrary it arises only for some states’ (Gellner, 1983). The primary understanding

of man without a nation is someone like a man without a shadow show, the inevitable aspect

of nationalism which has been made essential and fundamental to human life. Having a nation

is not an inherent attribute of humanity, but with time it has come to appear as such.

As Elie Kedourie (1993) argues, what becomes crucial is to understand that the nationalism

imposes homogeneity; it is rather that homogeneity imposed by objective and inescapable

imperative which eventually appears on the surface in the form of nationalism. Gellner puts

that nationalism is indeed an effect of sequences of industrialism. Though nationalism is

indeed an effect of industrial social organization, it is not the only effect of imposition of this

new social form, hence it is necessary to disentangle it from those other developments. Gellner

problematizes how nationalism is seen as something which is natural and universal ordering

of political life of mankind. Among the other aspects of Gellner’s work, there are two crucial

aspects which goes into the ‘construction of the theory of nationality – ‘will and culture’.

(Gellner, 1983, p. 52) If we define a nation as something in which the groups will have to come

together, this brings us to a problem. Will, consent and identification were never absent from

human history. Rather they were accompanied by fear and interest. ‘Also, any definition of

nations in terms of shared culture is another net which brings in far too rich a catch, human

history is and continues to be well endowed with cultural differentiations’ (Gellner, 1983, p.

53). It becomes easy to define nationality in terms of shared culture but what is often forgotten

is the idea of how culturally plural all of us are.

As mentioned earlier nation can be defined only in terms of the age of nationalism, rather as

we might expect the other way around. ‘The summation of awakening and political self-

assertion of nationalism highlights the idea of nationalism and nationality. It is nationalism

which creates nations’ (Gellner, 1983, p. 72). Traditions are re-invented, cultures are revised,

and history is revisited. Finally all this revoke the feelings of nationalism and creates a

nationality. The basic deception and self-deception practiced by nationalism is essentially, the

general imposition of a high culture on society, where previously low cultures were to take the

place of high culture. Nationalism usually conquers in the name of folk culture which exactly

it does oppose in reality (Gelnner, 1983). The high culture and the nationalist feelings are

created through print media post enlightenment period where Benedict Anderson also argues

the same. The textbooks, social spaces and public institutions are engrained in the process of

creating a nation, nationality and the idea of ‘The typology of nationalisms can be constructed

by working out on various possible combinations of the crucial factors which enter into

meaning of a modern society’. (Gellner, 1983, p. 85)The access to education and modern high

culture questions the fundamentals of nationalism. The power holding positions in society

showcase who have high culture and who don’t. Most often the agenda of nationalism and

nationalist becomes so crucial in terms of spreading high culture rather than understanding the

nuances of the lower culture, which is very unlike the constant claims of the nationalist

principles. In terms of power bifurcated society, there are four distinct possibilities; it may be

that only power holders, have access that they use their power privilege to preserve for

themselves the monopoly of this access or alternatively , that both the power-holders and the

rest have this access or again only the rest have such access, and the power-holders do not or

finally as sometimes happens , that neither party enjoys the benefits of such access, or put it in

simpler terms, that the power holders , those over how the power is exercised. By combining

the inequality of power with the various possible patterns of the distribution of the access to

education, we have obtained four possible situations: equal access, equal lack of access, and

access titled either in favour of or against the power holders.

Here, the role of communication (Gellner, 1983) plays a critical role in the dissemination of

the nationalist idea. The connection between nationalism and the facility of modern

communications is to a certain extent misleading. It gives the impression that a given idea

happens to be there and the same will remain untouched. The most important and the persistent

message is generated by the medium itself, by the prominence role of which media have

acquired in modern life. ‘Nationalism is a very distinctive species of patriotism, one which

becomes pervasive and dominant only under some social conditions which in fact prevail in

the modern world’ (Gellner, 1983, p. 132). According to Gellner, Nationalism is a species of

patriotism which are marked by loyalty, culture homogeneity, which thrives on high culture.

What is important to be highlighted here is the fact that at the core of his definition of

nationalism, Gellner asserts that nations ought to be ruled by co-nationals. Though liberal

nationalists insist on this to be the case, however, they reiterate that this must be done with

unequivocal consensus of the co-nationals. Gellner did not hesitate to tell his readers that

nationalism is not worth examining because it represents a mixture of myths, human

superstition, and false consciousness. The suggestion that nationalism cannot tolerate ethnic,

racial or religious differences is refuted by the existence of multi-ethnic, multi-racial and multi-

religious nations. Yet because Gellner asserts that the essence of nationalism is to “attain that

close relation between state and culture, ” he preludes it with the charges of “population

exchanges or expulsions, more or less forcible assimilation, and sometimes liquidation”

(Gellner, 1983, p. 126). By far, this is the most deficient sign of his understanding of the variety

of political methods available to modern political systems.

Section-II

Benedict Anderson and Nations as ‘Imagined Communities’:

Benedict Anderson is the author of one of the most significant concepts in political geography,

of nations as ‘imagined communities’. Guggenheim Fellow and member of the American

Academy of Arts and Sciences, Anderson was born in Kunming, China in 1936. Brother of

political theorist Perry Anderson and an Irish citizen whose father was an official with Imperial

Maritime Customs, he grew up in California and Ireland before attending Cambridge

University. In 1983 the publication of Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and

Spread of Nationalism established Anderson’s reputation as one of the foremost thinkers

on nationalism. In the book Anderson theorized the condition that led to the development

of nationalism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, particularly in the Americas, and

gave the eminent definition of nation as an “imagined community” (Munro).

Anderson and Gellner are contemporaries and shares the same timeline of work. The Interstate

war period, the ongoing cold war has raised many issues related to nationalism during 1980’s.

The works of both Anderson and Gellner have contributed immensely to the understanding of

Nationalism. According to Anderson nation-ness is the most universally legitimate value in

political life of our time. Nation, nationality and nationalism are difficult to define but can

analyzed. Anderson tries to give satisfactory interpretation of the ‘anomaly’ of nationalism.

According to him nationality and nation-ness are cultural artefacts of a particular kind. In order

to understand this they demand profound emotional legitimacy. This means we create or

imagine abond between the people of particular nation which we think is ours. The theorists

of nationalism are often surprised by the following propositions. ‘Firstly, the objective

modernity of the nation to the historian’s eye Vis-à-vis their subjective antiquity in the eyes of

nationalist. Secondly, the formal universality of nationality as a socio-cultural concept, which

indicates that in the modern world everyone will have and should have a nationality. Thirdly,

the political power of nationalisms Vis-à-vis their philosophical poverty and incoherence’

(Anderson, 1983). In simpler words, to say nationalism has never created thinkers of its own.

Rather many thinkers are critical of it in many issues. Tom Nairn sharply puts, ‘Nationalism’

is the pathology of modern development history which has a built-in capacity for decent to

dementia, rooted in dilemmas of helplessness trust on most of the world’ (Anderson, 1983).

The nationalism as idea has been made a Nationalism with capital ‘N’ as an ideology. The

crucial element of Anderson’s understanding of nationalism comes in through his

anthropological spirit where he calls a Nation as an ‘imagined political community’ and

imagined as inherently limited and sovereign (Anderson, 1983, p. 7) It is imagined because

the members of that particular community might have never seen, heard or met but the idea of

all of us belonging to a particular territory, as nation instils the idea of community and the

feeling of togetherness. Gellner makes a comparable point here that ‘Nationalism is not

awakening of nations to self-consciousness, it invents nations where it does not exist’ (Gellner,

1983, p. 75). Gellner’s notion has been criticized for his claims of nationalism as masquerading

under false pretence, where he calls it by invention, assimilation and falsity etc., for Anderson

it is an ‘imagination’ and ‘creation’ – the communities are never interacted face-to-face but

they are imagined. Communities have to be analyzed not by their falseness or genuineness but

by the way they imagine themselves being part of it. The net of kinship and clientship have

been created through the imagination of nation and nationalism. The imagination of nation is

always finite and limited, no nation would imagine something which is boundary less or

limitless. The imaginations of nationalism are highly constricted. ‘Most crucially, irrespective

of exploitation and inequality, one imagines their nation with horizontal and deep

comradeship. This proves how people are willing to die for their nation’ (Anderson, 1983, p.

206). But what brings people together is not just the imagination of nation and nationalism

itself, rather also dying for one’s own nation. The answer lies in cultural roots of nationalism.

Anderson proposes that ‘nationalism first emerged at the end of the eighteenth century amongst

creole communities, and that the “conceptual model” was “pirated” around the world until it

was “set in ineradicable place.” (Anderson, 1983) Although “official nationalism” was “from

the start a conscious, self-protective policy, intimately linked to the preservation of imperial-

dynastic interests”, subjected peoples soon took control of the nations “imagined” by colonial

powers.

Imagined Communities initially demonstrates a recognisably Marxist economic determinism:

a local bourgeoisie has to accrue enough capital to launch “print-capitalism”, there has to be a

“national” market for printed materials, and similar economic circumstances determine the

seemingly unstoppable course of nationalism as it is “pirated” around the world. Once the

world has organised itself into nations, however, history stops. Revolutionary leaderships

inherit nations and, however hostile they may be to the idea of nationalism, they “consciously

or unconsciously” come to play “lord of the manor”. Anderson shoots the horse from under

him, in discarding the Marxist analysis which has carried his theory to modernity. The nation

is now a permanent and seemingly ahistorical political reality, and – aside from the possibility

that the established array of nations may fracture into a greater number of nations – Anderson

recognizes no further opportunity for subsequent geopolitical “communities” to emerge.

The overwhelming response to the burden of one’s own nation comes from their cultural

imaginations. It is most often said that nation-states are ‘new’ and ‘historical’ but the ideas and

imagination that it evokes showcases the issues that are immemorial which talks about limitless

future in limited nation. This shows magic of nationalism which turns chance into destiny.

‘Nationalism is not understood as a political ideology rather as a cultural system which brings

people together’ (Anderson, 1983). It is not that idea of nationalism is simply growing out of

religious and dynastic realms rather the very availability of these ideas and accessible

tendencies of those ideas instigates the feeling which is beyond our immediate identities. These

imaginations have started in eighteenth century Europe through novels and newspapers. The

sociological landscapes have created these novels and newspapers. A new way of linking

fraternity, power and time meaningfully together, print capitalism made it possible for people

rapidly growing number of people to think themselves and relate themselves to particular

community.

‘The origin of national consciousness and the sense of belonging essentially came from the

primacy of print capitalism’ (Anderson, 1983, p. 36). The mass production process that it has

been involved created a massive sense of imagining themselves in relation with others too.

The manuscript knowledge was scarce and not available easily but through print, which indeed

became easily accessible for most of the people. Reproducibility and dissemination were two

important things which have been focused by print to instil the national consciousness. Print

has changed the appearance and the state of the world. ‘Firstly, revolutionary vernacularizing

thrust of capitalism directly contributed to the rise of national consciousness. Secondly, the

reformation at that time owed much of its success to print capitalism. Thirdly, the slow uneven

geographical areas have also been equally covered with the advent of print’ (Anderson, 1983).

The point languages were also distinct in their ways where they adopted the local vernacular

languages and published the material in those languages. This also contributed to immense

readership and dissemination of ideas. The secular, particular ideas of nationality have started

to sow seeds to imagine one’s own community. The convergence of print technology and

capitalism has created a possibility of new form imagined community which led to the basic

morphology of the modern nation-state.

The character of the nationalism is to create roots of fear about ourselves and roots of hatred

about others. Nations often inspire love and especially self-sacrificing. ‘The cultural roots of

nationalism which are symbols, poems, places and monuments, often showcase this self-

sacrificing love for nation which further crated the feelings of love for nation’ (Anderson,

1983). This naturalizes the feelings of belongingness and crystallizes the nationality, through

this happens the realization of imagined community. Most often we imagine nation in a

homogenous empty time and space. The memory and the forgetting is another crucial factor in

the way we understand nationalism. The conscious acts of what to forget and what to remember

remind us of not just as an individual but as a community, which is inextricably linked with

others too.

Section-III

Critique of Gellner and Anderson

Ernest Gellner concept has become very popular, mainly because of his thesis that nations are

products of national- ism, and not vice versa. It concurs with the current "constructivist"

perspective which claims that nations are not anything real, objective, or indispensable; they

are only "constructs,” contingent and artificial, deliberately created by various elites. Thus we

cannot speak of the process of "awakening" nations to conscious life, as such an approach is

defined as "preconstructivist simple- mindedness" which presumes that nations did exist in the

objective sense and just waited to be "awakened.” The opponents of "constructivism" are

usually referred to as "primordialists" or "essentialists.” It is, however, evident that although

the term makes argument much easier, it largely distorts the essence of the dispute. In order to

oppose "constructivism,” one does not have to go so far as to claim that nations are "perennial"

and possess "invariable essence"; it is enough to recognize that they have a sociological reality

as permanent products of objective and spontaneous historical processes. In order to

understand the specific nature of Gellner's views, as well as the intellectual climate in which

his views have been received, it is worthwhile to examine contructivism in its consistent and

extreme form. It is well exemplified in an article by the American author Rogers Brubaker,

"Nation as Institutionalized Form, Practical Category, Contingent Event.”1 According to

Brubaker, nations are not by any means "enduring components of social structure"; they are

constructed, contingent and fluctuating, they are "illusory or spurious communities,” and an

"ideological smoke-screen.” The very question "What is a nation?" is not innocent, as it

assumes, quite mistakenly, "substantialist belief in the existence of nations. What is real is

nationalism, but it is not a product or function of nations.

Anderson's insightful analysis adds to our understanding of the strength and development of

nationalism, especially because of his focus on the personal and cultural feeling of nascent

"national" identity. This is important, not only in understanding the new states that will be born

of present-day struggles carried out under the banner of nationalism, but also in fathoming the

behavior, persistence, and impact of "national" myths and ideology in all nation-states. This is

crucial, for in the next decade, we will witness competing "national" visions of communities

in conflict in Eastern and Southern Europe, and the persistent struggle for recognition for

"imagined communities" like the Kurds and the Palestinians, asserting their nation's

independence against the national myths of other states that deny their existence. Undoubtedly,

we will also observe the rise of "nations,” heretofore unarticulated, unrecognized, or unknown,

within the boundaries of old states. Another theorist, John Breuilly, in Nationalism and the

State (1982), claims that nationalist political consciousness originates from oppositional

activity within modern states. Nationalism, he says, is a parasitic movement and an ideology

which is shaped by what it opposes. The general condition for the development of anti-colonial

nationalism is the existence of a distinct power under foreign control. The very statement

echoes Chatterjee’s assumption of the difference between the anti-colonial nationalism from

the modular forms of the West. He refers to nationalism as political movements seeking or

exercising power and justifying such actions with nationalist arguments. Partha Chatterjee,

attempts a critique of Imagined Communities in the first chapter of his book The Nation and

Its Fragments (1993) which he titles as ‘Whose Imagined Community?’. Here he challenges

the idea of nation as being imagined from certain modular forms. He argues that nationalism

is not rooted “on an identity but rather on a difference of the modular forms of the nationalist

society propagated by the modern west.” (1993:5). There was the creation of another form

which is indigenous and ‘original’ to every nation. This ‘original’ form is what Chatterjee

terms as a sovereign nation in the post-colonial world. Therefore, the meaning of the term

‘imagined community’ is not a universal one. If at all a nation is imagined, it is imagined

differently by different nations.