ABSTRACT
Since this book is about the contemporary representations of the Indian nation, it is necessary to clarify where I stand within the fragmented field of research on nations and nationalism. Anthony D. Smith distinguishes five approaches in the studies on nationalism depending on the answers given by researchers to the questions ‘What is a nation?’ and ‘When is a nation?’ (Smith 1998: 223). He makes a distinction between the primordialist, perennialist, modernist, ethnosymbolist and postmodernist approaches.
