Haruki Murakami once wrote, “Unfortunately, the clock is ticking, the hours are going by. The past increases, the future recedes. Possibilities decreasing, regrets mounting.” This might seem like a meditation on growing older — when the weight of the past grows heavier and the space of possibility contracts. But it also seems to capture the emotional register of the way in which nations speak about their histories.

This paper has witnessed scintillating debates about the nature of nationalism and the roots of the Emergency. These are a credit to the intellectual seriousness of those participating. Who can deny that we must return to the past: For insight, for inspiration, for forgotten histories, and above all, to understand the present? But even among the most well-intentioned, one cannot shake the feeling that we are litigating the past partly because we are at a dead end when it comes to imagining the future.

Take the debate over Indian nationalism. What work is it doing in our present context? Its primary function now seems to be boundary-setting: To distinguish the “good” from the “bad” nationalism. But the assumption that we must all operate within the horizon of nationalism remains unchallenged. The frame persists: Are you the right kind or the wrong kind? This framework, however, only reinforces the grip of nationalism on our political imagination.

There are three dangers in this enterprise — two historical and one ethical. First, as political diagnosis, this project is fraught. There is no easy mapping of morally good ideas onto virtuous political outcomes. “Good” nationalisms have often carried their own blind spots — and left........

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