Nation, Politics, Religion

This paper argues that religious and political practice in the modern word is in important ways shaped and framed by nationalism. This argument qualifies the general critique of methodological nationalism that is a feature of current literature on transnationalism. It first analyzes the general features of the relation between religion and nationalism. Through a comparison of the development of nationalism in India and China it further argues that while the relation between religion and nationalism in these societies shows some of the general features that have been laid out in the previous section, there are also significant differences that can be understood through an anthropological understanding of the generality of the nation-form and the specificity of its historical articulation. Finally, it exemplifies the argument at the level of practice by showing how secular nationalism has framed ritual and political practice in Singapore without being able to entirely control it.