Beyond Belief: India and the Politics of Postcolonial Nationalism

Srirupa Roy argues that the postcolonial Indian nation-state was consolidated less through a shared cultural community than through building a recognisable and authoritative identity for the state itself. Her focus is the first two decades after independence in 1947.

The chapters examine several routes by which people came to identify with the state. They look at the Films Division, which let audiences see the state on screen, at Republic Day commemorations that reinforced a unity-in-diversity idea of nationhood, at a policy discourse that made scientific development the top national need, and at the industrial towns built for workers in nationalised steel plants.

Students of politics, Indian history and nationalism will find the book's stress on real encounters with the state a useful alternative to theories based on collective belief. Edition note: published by Duke University Press in 2007, 264 pages, ISBN-13 9780822339847. The series title, Politics, History, and Culture, is part of the catalogue listing.