This paper explains nation building as the process founded in four key propositions:
institutionalization of idea of equal citizens, building market, realization of universal social
protection, and the entrenchment of the rule of law. These four propositions are key for addressing
the issues of identity, ethnicity, clash of civilizations, ending gender discrimination, solving the
problems on citizenship issues, and ensuring a just and inclusive society. In absence of these
propositions a just and inclusive society cannot exist. Since the concept of nation has undergone a
sea change from its historical tribal and ethic belongingness to the idea of allegiance subsisted in the
concept of sovereignty, these four propositions provide the grounds for building a liberal
democratic nation. Especially after the eighteenth century, the idea of sovereignty became so
powerful that created modern states all over the world. The modern states called in different
epithets—nation or state or nation-state—emerged with the idea of sovereignty, in turn, producing
the concept of civic identity or the identity of citizenship at the core of belongingness. Though, the
idea of equal citizenship alone could be a weak link of the chain in the absence of liberal democracy.
Thus, these four propositions with their historical connections with the idea of sovereignty have
been fortified in the post-war era as the foundations of modern democratic states. Moreover, today,
nation building has developed further in the context of global constitutionalism. Against this
background, this paper discusses these four propositions as the foundations of a modern state in the
light of post-constitutional nation building in Nepal.