Book excerpt: This book is an attempt to find new ways of inter-disciplinary theorisation about this moment when both the unitary idea of the Indian nation and the bureaucratic dream of a centralised Indian state are falling apart. At this juncture, the Indian state has two choices. Either it can recognise the political nature of the struggles confronting it and radically re-imagine itself or it can wage a losing war against the democratic aspirations of people. It is essential that political movements in the subcontinent let go of their differences and organise together to agitate for modernisation. By bringing these disparate struggles together, this book explores the possibility of an alliance between them such that they are able to inform each other against a colonial state. Taken together, this book is thus an experiment in politics, rather than being about specific events. The chapters in this book were originally published in various Taylor & Francis journals.