Imagined Communities by Benedict Anderson

 The concepts of ‘Simultaneity’ and ‘Continuity’ are important hubs in Anderson’s argument.

Core Arguments:

• Nation, Nationality, and Nationalism are ambiguous notions which emerged in recent history, but became popular, and are mostly taken for granted in the current eon. 
• The ontology of a nation and its meaning is impossible to be precisely known, possibly because the arguments floats in the contradiction between its objective modernity and subjective antiquity i.e. most nations are similarly modern in their functioning even though they had different histories or start points.
• Defines ‘Nation’ as an "Imagined political community that is both limited and sovereign". ‘Nation’ because of a perceived horizontal unity of equals. ‘Imagined’ because its impossible to know everyone. Concept of the nation came during the period of enlightment so the term ‘Sovereign’ was used to portray the highest power and its ‘Limitation’ within a border or boundary.
• The origin of Nationalism is embedded in the Cultural Roots: Religious Community and Dynastic Realms.
• Transformation in the Cultural Roots: Religion had its own hierarchies, and propagated on the basis of sacred texts and languages, which only few people had access to. The earlier dynastic realms consisted of rule by a so called ‘god chosen’ ruler over his or her ‘subjects’ than ‘citizens’ of a region. The rule was conducted from a center which held control over a heterogeneous population. With the advent of print capitalism, the sacred texts were vernacularized and mass-produced to reach out a larger market. New forms of print products floated into these vernacularized markets, thereby, people began to imagine a common identity on the basis of the print readership, and the very subjects they read in the print products also started to have a calendrical continuous identity. These identities could have separated ‘us’ and ‘them’ and idea of Nation emerged ambiguously.  Earlier, religions promptly explained the continuity of life and death. With the enlightment in Europe, the idea of Nation gave new meanings to the continuity of life and death; of glorious past and promising future. For e.g. the cenotaphs and tombs of an unknown fallen soldiers portrayed the glory which exist even after death [India Gate in New Delhi is a War Memorial]. Surveys, Maps and Museum provide reference nodes as numbers, puzzle pieces and inheritances to the notion of a State.

Key Questions 

A.     Anthony W. Marx (Faith in nation: exclusionary origins of nationalism. Oxford University Press, 2005.)

·      How to explain the diversity of languages in some states, if the state itself was formed on the basis of language?

·      language aided in transmission of ideas; doesn’t mean the ideas were of unifying nature, could also have had a reverse effect as messages can be of divisive nature.

·      How did language and literacy render the ‘Limited’ status to states?

·      What role did institutions play to overcome certain internal conflicts before being inclusive?

B.     Rogers Brubaker (In the name of the nation: reflections on nationalism and patriotism 1." Citizenship Studies 8.2 (2004): 115-127.

·      A state being ‘Limited’ vs the relevance of ‘Cosmopolitan’ view

·      “Not only are different nations imagined in different ways, but the same nation is imagined in different ways at different times- indeed often at the same time, by different people” (p.122)

-Shyam