This essay sketches the psychological biography of the modern nation state in India in the early years of the nationalist movement. Most nationalist leaders in India, adopting uncritically the western ideology of nationalism, were then convinced that the absence of a proper nation state and proper nationalist sentiments were major lacunae in Indian society and indices of its backwardness. English education was seen as the principal means by which Indians would be freed of their irrationalities and be knit into a single cohesive political and cultural community. Yet, by the 1920's, some ambivalence towards the idea of a monocultural nation state and towards nationalism itself had appeared within the Indian freedom movement. And this ambivalence was often expressed by some of the most important figures in the movement, by those very persons who would be considered the major builders of India's...
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