"Srirupa Roy offers fresh, innovative, and highly original perspectives on how the Indian nation-state set out to manufacture a national modernity and new ways of presenting itself. This is a much needed contribution to a critical assessment of the now quasi-mythical Nehruvian decades of postcolonial state formation from one of the best political scientists writing on India today."--Thomas Blom Hansen, University of Amsterdam

Preface and Acknowledgments vii
Introduction. Imagining Institutions, Instituting Diversity: Toward a Theory of Nation-State Formation 1
1. Moving Pictures: The Films Division of India and the Visual Practices of the Nation-State 32
2. Marching in Time: Republic Day Parades and the Ritual Practices of the Nation-State 66
3. Indian Darkness: Science, Development, and the Needs Discourse of the Nation-State 105
4. Cities of Hope: Steel Townships and the Spatial Practices of the Nation-State 133
Conclusion. After Midnight 157
Notes 171
Bibliography 219
Index 237