Abstract

Cultural Nationalism is a deep and multilayered concept of nationalism that goes well beyond the strict limits of political geography state authority and economic potential. Cultural Nationalism imagines a nation to be a living breathing civilisation formed over several millennia through a process of common culture ideations collective memory moral ethics artistic expression spiritual ideations and deep-seated emotive ties with their land and countrymen. As far as the Indian case is concerned Cultural Nationalism is by far the best framework to understand Indian identity largely because India happens to be a civilisation much much older than a modern territorial state and a continuum rather than a political creation for well over five millennia. This perception received a stunning expression through contributions made by three great Indian thinkers: Swami Vivekananda Rabindranath Tagore and Vinayak Damodar Savarkar each of whom conceptualised a perception of Indian nationalism to mean