The Nation and Its Fragments

Rating:
Summary: Worthwhile study
Review: Chatterjee is a typical 'postmodern' scholar, and he has a rather jargon-filled and oblique writing style. In some cases, knowledge of Indian and Bengali history, to say nothing of familiarity with contemporary Bengali society and the intricacies of the caste system, would seem to be required to truly understand certain sections of this book. Also, while Chatterjee states that his argument is meant to clarify (to some extent) the conditions of nations, nationalism and society/communities in the postcolonial states of Asia and Africa, his examination is almost exclusively restricted to Bengal in India. There is nothing wrong with this as such, since he deals with the area with which he is most familiar. However, one of his principal underlying themes is a (rather persuasive) criticism of European or 'Western' scholars for mis-applying European philosophies and sociological models to non-European, postcolonial societies, and he seems to commit the same error by assuming that his Bengali example can be used to explain circumstances in the vast, diverse lands from the western shores of Africa to southeast Asia.
Nevertheless, "The Nation and Its Fragments" is a very strong argument against simply assuming that nationalism, postcolonial development, industrialization and modernity itself in India (or elsewhere in the so-called 'Third World') are simply following 'models' already formulated in Europe/America. Chatterjee's most important point is perhaps his call for scholarship on postcolonial societies to commence from completely different fundamental assumptions, rather than trying to force upon it outside (read European) 'scientific' models.

Rating:
Summary: Worthwhile study
Review: Chatterjee is a typical `postmodern' scholar, and he has a rather jargon-filled and oblique writing style. In some cases, knowledge of Indian and Bengali history, to say nothing of familiarity with contemporary Bengali society and the intricacies of the caste system, would seem to be required to truly understand certain sections of this book. Also, while Chatterjee states that his argument is meant to clarify (to some extent) the conditions of nations, nationalism and society/communities in the postcolonial states of Asia and Africa, his examination is almost exclusively restricted to Bengal in India. There is nothing wrong with this as such, since he deals with the area with which he is most familiar. However, one of his principal underlying themes is a (rather persuasive) criticism of European or `Western' scholars for mis-applying European philosophies and sociological models to non-European, postcolonial societies, and he seems to commit the same error by assuming that his Bengali example can be used to explain circumstances in the vast, diverse lands from the western shores of Africa to southeast Asia.
Nevertheless, "The Nation and Its Fragments" is a very strong argument against simply assuming that nationalism, postcolonial development, industrialization and modernity itself in India (or elsewhere in the so-called `Third World') are simply following `models' already formulated in Europe/America. Chatterjee's most important point is perhaps his call for scholarship on postcolonial societies to commence from completely different fundamental assumptions, rather than trying to force upon it outside (read European) `scientific' models.

Rating:
Summary: Particularity and Difference
Review: In this well documented study, Partha Chatterjee challenges the view held by many western scholars that nationalism in Asia and Africa has been based on various modular forms supplied by the rise of nationalism in Europe. Chatterjee is concerned nationalism plays itself out in two very distinct "spaces": the "material" and the "spiritual." For Chatterjee there is the material (external) and the spiritual (internal). One is not touched by the other. The aim is to dispel the myth that post-colonial status assumes a western form. For Chatterjee language is important -- very important. It is the space that makes each unique situation, well, unique. The notion of what is not touchable by the outside forms of the colonial are what resides inside, a space that only language can provide. While the colonized had to adopt western technology to survive, this mechanism is balances out by preserving the spiritual.

To flesh this out a bit, Chatterjee does acknowledge the contribution of the West to Asia and African nationalism, but only in what he identifies as the space of the "outside." This space is comprised by such things as the economy, statecraft, science and technology. There is more, apparently, the more important previously unreflected upon area of the "inner" domain of the spiritual.

In his groundbreaking study, Chatterjee takes a page out of Benedict Anderson's "Imagined Communities" but he reacts to it. If nationalism is relegated to the realm of the rise of modernity, it misses lots of nuance and may be missing some very important elements. Chatterjee takes aim at the problematic head on at, as I mentioned earlier, the rise of nationalism as a process of modernity. His examination of the peasants in relation not only to Indian nationalism, but as a group within its own, often paradoxical values. Is this cultural nationalism an elite movement as discussed by Leah Greenfeld (Nationalism - Five Roads to Modernity) and E. J. Hobsbawm (Nations and Nationalism since 1780)? (both available on Amazon.com) Is so, how did the peasants come to be involved? This almost "subaltern" approach is indicative of its postcolonial/postmodern roots. Chatterjee argues that it must be superseded by 'concrete forms of democratic community' that transcend hierarchical and bourgeois equality models. If you see the rise of a nation simply (or exclusively) within the framework of a function of modernity, do you then lose a sense of how the nation was formed from a cultural perspective? Gandhi's notion of family, community and group, based on mutual respect seems to pale in significance by the political and bureaucratic power of the modern state. Chatterjee then offers us the exception that the rise of Bengali nationalism. The items engaged in by Chatterjee are provocative to say the least and does challenge us to question what we feel or know about nationalism. Particularity and difference comes to the forefront of consideration in this book. We all need to take a long hard look at it.

Miguel Llora

Rating:
Summary: An alternative view of nationalism
Review: Pranab Chatterjee wisely cautions us to remember that there are ways of expressing nationalism that differ from the Western models. With examples from literature and history the author helps us explore the "inner" spiritual or cultural world of Bengalis in colonial India, a world they tried to keep safe and distinct from the "outer" world of British-imposed politics. The writing in places is a bit vague, but the reading is worth the effort to remind us that wisdom does not begin and end in the West.