“After Hiroshima and Nagasaki”: Changing Trends of Nation-Nationalism since the Atom Bomb

Abstract

The main fallacy of the modern man was the invention of the Atom Bomb. With its invention a new type of political scenario has ruled about in world politics where one’s power lies on the report of atom- bombs owned by the particular nation. In a way it has brought about a new course in political and diplomatic relations. The dropping of the atom bomb at Hiroshima and Nagaskai in a way has marked a symbolic explosion in the course for the thought process of the concept of the nation- state. The paper seeks to look at the various strands of changing concepts of motherly love for the nation in Indian literary discourses ranging from the earliest texts of the Indian poets writing in English comparing the nation to the role of the mother with her pride at stake from Western onslaughts. For simplicity purpose the changing notions of nationalism has been highlighted in the works of Rabindranath Tagore who wrote of nationalism in his essays as well as his novels “Gora” and “The Home and The World”. The same Indian nationalism is again looked at by the post-modernist Rushdie in its changed avatar covering facets of nationalism as nothing but another discourse of hegemonic ideologies in the whole politics of power-relations.