ABSTRACT
The evolution of the Modern Nation state in the subcontinent and its consequent arrival into sovereignty is marked by rupture; a rupture that had its progeny in more rudimentary parameters of community such as religion. The conceptualisation and the enactments to ensure the culmination of a transcendental modern spatial paradigm called Nation were interrupted by a non-modern essence of community. The history of political modernity in India and Pakistan is indissociably associated with an element of the non-modern, when religion and communal considerations over-ruled the progressive advent of modernity. The idea of Muslim nationalism, based on a particular culture and religion, did not exist till the end of the Muslim rule in Delhi sultanate. The knowledge of and acquaintance with the culture of the colonisers helped the Hindus to transform themselves and consequently occupy an important position in the political and social landscape of British India.
