ABSTRACT
India has experienced many different versions of nationalism and regionalism, some of which challenged those emerging from the state, or from European history. This chapter moves between some of the main critiques of nationalism in India into an exploration of key themes in its ‘discontent’ – societies, movements, and leaders who have either complicated nationalism as an idea or presented alternative forms of social organisation. The chapter then explores some of the communities that lay at the putative margins of the nation, and the corresponding ‘nation-building’ projects of Indian governments.
