Book Review – Religion, Community and Nation: Hindu Consciousness And Nationalism In Colonial Punjab, Delhi

K.L. Tuteja, Religion, Community and Nation: Hindu Consciousness And Nationalism In Colonial Punjab, Delhi, Indian Institute of Advanced Study and Primus Books, 2021, xii + 372 pages, Rs 1250.

K.L. Tuteja’s Religion, Community and Nation is a welcome and enriching addition to the literature on identity formation and the politics of its articulation in colonial India. Taking late nineteenth and early twentieth century Punjab as a case-study, the work makes a breakthrough in two realms. In terms of the analytical framework it questions the received wisdom of a binary relationship between communal and national identities. Empirically, it unfolds hitherto unutilised or inadequately utilised primary  and secondary sources of information on identity politics in colonial Punjab.