Roger Williams says:

Clearly, you don’t understand the difference between a region and a nation. We speak of Asia. Is Asia one nation? One culture? One ethnicity?

Grow a brain!

Dr. Nayyar Hashmey says:

Have seen a good number of comments ur blog but not all. Seem interesting but one thing I would very much wish to say is that thinking now India in terms of a great India that once was is simply a utopian approach.
A study of history reveals that India itself derives its name from river Indus, which is the lifeline of present Pakistan. The ancient Greek called the people of this subcontinent as Hindus as they could not pronounce I so they instead H. As you feel very proud of being Indian we too feel very proud of being Pakistanis. But this doesn’t mean we should always be standing in eyeball to eyeball position. Size-wise, population-wise, economy-wise India is no doubt a great nation and nobody would deny that. But that doesn’t mean in today’s world India or its leaders should start behaving as great chakrvartys vis-a-vis our nation.
I personally believe and I am sure millions of Pakistanis (the common Pakistanis) believe too that both India and Pakistan should work together to transform this subcontinent into a region, a commonwealth of peace, friendship and progress. This very charter have I set upon myself (and am striving through ma friends, different forums in Lahore and through my blog) and I strongly advocate turning areas such as Siachen, Wahga and Kohokhrapar as ‘Inter-national Peace Parks’where people from both countries could visit each other, celebrate together and then move back home in their respective countries.
I am sorry I have digressed from the main theme your blog is working upon but keeping in view the animosity between India and Pakistan, I firmly believe the time has now come for both nations to forget the past and start a new chapter. However it will be possible only when our extremists will stop thinking in terms of raids on Red fort of Delhi or for that matter any part of India and Indian extremists in terms of an Akhand Bharat. What has happened in Europe in the form of a common economy should be an eye opener for both nations.

Nayyar Hashmey
wondersofpakistan.blogspot.com
Email: wondersofpakistan@gmail.com

Tim says:

You seem to view the sovereign nation of Pakistan as a British plot. There are hundreds of millions of Pakistanis and Bangladeshis who would disagree with you. I think this really gives you away as an extreme Indian nationalist, which also explains many of your unreasonable anti-British outbursts. The ML was a real grass roots Muslim political movement; the British certainly never controlled it, nor Jinnah. The British actually expanded the cultural scope and land mass of India. Assam, Nagaland, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Sikkim, the Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Meghalaya had NEVER been ruled from India before the Britsh arrived – they had never even been controlled by an Indian ruler, also the British took land from Nepal, which is now part of the Republic of India. Parts of Nagaland had been fully independent from India until the 1920′s! These British land grabs were greedily kept on by the Republic of India. (There were no local referendums, to give such “”annexed”" peoples any choice in the matter, and India has been fighting separatist rebels ever since.)

When the British started taking over in the mid 18th century, India had already split up into many independent territories, and the Mogul empire was smashed up by the Persian invasion (1739) – decades before the British started their conquests. Would India have re-unified itself without the British? Maybe, maybe not – that’s pure conjecture.

Before the British, at times India was 1 nation, at other times it wasn’t – India’s history is very complicated. Mostly the name “”India”" was used just as a geographical and cultural concept, in the same way as people talked about “”Africa”".

Gururaj says:

http://us.rediff.com/news/2007/oct/22paksc.htm

Pak supreme court praising Indian polticians for a change.

key points are indian army/intelligence doesn;t interfere in internal politics and most importantly Indian politicians know how to share power and I think this directly relates to the concept of ‘akhanda bharat’ or a feeling of indianness which is very subtle but definitely not imaginary and helps to share power.

again goes to show that bharatvarsha or concept of India was not actually a british thing.

Kalai says:

What a astonishing stupid article….
Can’t bear the comments validating it ..
You should know how to interpret history….

Gurudev says:

Divya

Yes I agree with you, and that was a nice one
“”If you think Sanskrit or (for that matter )any indian language will become extinct , then we will have to live longer than you imagine to witness it.”"

Pandian says:

Divya..
My Comment is just for information only.
I felt that the information about language death would be helpful for a reader to see & feel the language death.

Also, I have mentioned that “”in one way or the Other”".. pls dont break sentence.

I believe that we were the people who has to take the language to the next generation. If we dont do it properly, that leads to the death (as per the link, please read it).

I am not favoring my mother tongue. Actually I am staying neutral. Sorry, if it appears favouritism. I believe that all languages were equal. No Language is better or lesser than the other. Be it konkani or sanskrit or my mother tongue, All were equally perfect, has got a wide knowledge on its own.
If one says one language is better than the other. His knowledge on one language is lower compared to the other. or he was driven by a belief/faith.

As per my rational thinking, I believe in Evolution of Languages & not from UFO visits or God creation. anyways

Forgive me, as my belief doesn’t fit into this blog. but information related to my belief, would be helpful to see a wider picture. worth sharing.. right?

Pandian says:

//Mathoor, entire village in Shimoga speaks Sanskrit//
I felt proud of them, but later realised in one way or the other, they were promoting the death their actual mother tongue (Kannada). Anyways, Over a period of time, only, one can stand at a time.

An Article Related to Language Death..
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/pf/91606683.html
A Children Holds the Future of a Language..
“”They understand implicitly that if they live in an environment where two languages are spoken, one of them is less valued than the other, and they will speak the more valued language.”"

Gururaj says:

aswathi,

Please do not call Sanskrit a DEAD language if you love it. A person in coma may appear as dead to others but NOT to his/her beloved ones. Yes Sanskrit is not in common use today; but DEAD of course not. no where near DEAD. it is still very much alive and should be kept alive. And it is good it is not really evolving like other languages ; otherwise a point comes where the older form just becomes ‘greek & latin’. So much will be lost if Sanskrit is lost and we wouldn’t even know what we have lost. My own firm belief is that a point will come in future (not sure how far) that the language, culture and tradition etc somehow preserved by us (by a few of course; the majority may lose it) will be valued so much by the humanity in understanding the evolutionary path taken by the humans that in every challenge that humanity faces in the future , they/we look for a precedence in this path.

We have always somehow preserved things and that is why possibly Vishnu is considered the supreme lord. Creating/destroying is easier but maintaining something is so difficult.

Gurudev says:

Oh yes undoubtedly, sanskrit is the oldest language in India, which was a spoken language during the vedic age. In fact I seriously have a doubt about UFO connection and Sanskrit, and ancient India, the science of Sanskrit as a language is so perfect, it looks more like a created language than like a evolved language! I am planning to write a book on this ancient India, alien connection etc

Vedas talk about the mighty Saraswati river. And recent finding s show that this river dried up at some 4000 BCE, so just imagine how old vedic age might have been, when saraswati river was flowing as a mighty river! Rivers dont dry up within a few days
Also vedas talk about vega being the pole star. Vega was a pole star of earth during 12000 BCE!!

No it is the other way round, languages that evolved from sanskrit have sanskrit words in it because almost all sanskrit words could be dated back to the vedic literature. And there has been very little corruption of sanskrit ever since the vedic age till today, unlike any other language which have old, medieval, and new forms.

For ex: a person who knows sanskrit today, can easily understand the vedic sanskrit too. But a person who knows kannada or tamil today (I mean as it is spoken today) cannot really understand old kannada or old tamil! This is because sanskrit is perfect as a language, there is nothing as such as evolution there. It is just there.

Gurudev says:

“In India I found a race of mortals living upon the Earth. but not adhering to it. Inhabiting cities, but not being fixed to them, possessing everything but possessed by nothing.“- Apollonius Tyanaeus, Greek Thinker and Traveller who visited India 1st Century AD

This is what Apollonius said more than “”1500 years before”" British came to India! Look at the clarity in the sentence, “”In India”", “”a race”". What else do you need?

If you are saying India doesn’t have a unique culture all over the country like how America or British have today, the same culture exists all over the country there, at least to a large extent, without really any great diversity, yes India doesnt have that TODAY. Which is why we call India ‘Unity in diversity’ today.

But it did have it in the past which is called the ancient Indian vedic culture and this dates back to pre-christian era, thousands of years back.

If you are saying completely alien cultures, unknown to each other exist in India today, you are totally wrong. Read this post of mine
http://hitxp.wordpress.com/2007/08/16/the-secret-behind-india/

Every diverse culture in India has its own Indian touch. Be it christianity, buddhism, islam, parsis, or whatever religion. All of them have an Indian touch here. You can see that touch in Velankani, at the city market darga in Bangalore, at the parsis, etc.

The diversity you see in Indian culture does in no way prove that India never had a unique culture. India had a unique culture in the vedic age, when the whole of India was predominant vedic culture. Then later after new religions were born on this planet and as they entered India, they got absorbed by the India culture and into the Indian society (and this without destroying the existing vedic culture), and all the invading cultures got their own Indian touch and blend resulting in what we call today, unity in diversity, in India.

If India had to be a unique culture based on your definition of unique culture, then either it should have destroyed invading forces, or should have destroyed itself. India never did either of them, instead it simply absorbed the incoming forces into its own culture, and that is why you see this diversity today. Dont get mislead by the books of some pre-independence prejudiced historians, and keep repeating the same slogan of ‘British united India’, no they didn’t, they divided India and left.

Read this http://hitxp.wordpress.com/2007/05/09/myth-about-british-creating-india/

Gurudev says:

Pandian
You have got the entire stuff completely confused!
You are always trying to compare the nationalism of modern world, the today’s democracy and republic etc with the kingdoms that existed centuries ago on a point to point basis, which of course will never match, and hence you are concluding that India never really existed before the British.

As I have repeated n number of times earlier, with this kind of argument, no country in the modern world today could be ever considered to have been a single country ever before in the history till it got its current form!!

OK, so, you, who belong to 21st century world are saying that fa hien and columbus who lived centuries ago were wrong in identifying India with one single name!! Ok thats your opinion, but I stick to columbus and fa hien because, they knew their days better, than us!

“”Bear in mind that the commerce of India is the commerce of the world and … he who can exclusively command it is the dictator of Europe.”"- Peter the Great of Russia.
This statement was made much before the British took completely over most of current India, and see the word ‘India’ used in the quote.

If India was only united by British as you said, then why the hell did even Dutch East India company that entered India along with the British, have the word “”India”" in its name? Even the Dutch had decided is it, that like British even they will unite all the local kingdoms and create a country called “”India”"?

You asked “”If India was united under Asoka, then why did it fall? If india had oldest democracy then why did it fall?”"
Well boss, this is what history is all about, a country, kingdom, state, etc all of them rise and fall, Read history buddy and this is what you will find everywhere. You cant simply go and ask “”why did it fall?”"

Just because something fell doesnt mean it never existed. Just because USSR disintegrated into Russia and other countries post cold war, you cant ask, “”if USSR was united under the communists and stalin, then why did it fall?”". I can simply laugh at this question

You said “”Its conqueror’s statement that invasion is for the people”". Well, in that case, you cant isolate a part of history and make judgement, take the entire timeline of history and look at it.. it was the invading muslim rulers centuries ago that conquered parts of India which finally had been converted into kingdoms like Junagadh and Hyderabad during partition. So it was actually reconquering/reclaiming the territory back, and the same argument can be applied to both pakistan and bangladesh, against the partition of India!

Well, yes, the whole world is about military might and conquest and reconquest, earlier somebody else did it, today we are doing it and will continue to do it. So what?

By the way destruction cant be called absorption buddy. Destruction is destruction where only one of the two exist after that. Absorption is where both the invader and the one being invaded continue to coexist after the invasion.

You asked “”is it worth?”", well if you continue to stand and observe like a passerby, all you can do is just keep asking the question. Else you can alter your views, and join the youth who are “”making it worth”". The choice is yours

Gurudev says:

Pandian
Again you are back to square one. What is your definition of a nation? Just before Independence, India was one single “”British India”" including present India,Pakistan,Bangladesh… not “”made of 565 or whatever princely states”" as you said.

Going by what you have said till now, no country on this planet could be called as being a nation before it was born in its current form. Let me clarify it again, nation is not just about geography, in fact its about a similar culture that coexisted. What is China today, do you know into how many pieces it was divided in the past? Just because of that you cant say China was never a nation. Its not about geography, its about similar culture.

How on earth can you conclude that if partition had not happened, India might have faced further partitions?
I would say the other way round, if there was no partition India from day one would have looked beyond Pakistan, there would have been no Kashmir issue and there would have been no terrorist attacks in India and India would have been a superpower by now!!

Brush up your history.. more than a century before British came to India, Columbus set out of Spain to find a sea route to which place? “”India”" or “”Goa”"
The world in those days itself had identified India as a one single cultural unified land. What about the book by the greek ambassador Megasthenese who visited India during the reign of Chandra Gupta Maurya, it was called ‘Indica’!

Why did the Red Indians, West Indies etc get this name?? And when? 100 years before British came to India..

What do you mean by India should not have captured Junagadh and Hyderabad? Read history buddy, Sardar Patel sent in the army only after learning that the people of these places wanted unification with India, it were the nizams who wanted to go to Pakistan against the people’s will, which is why India had to send in forces.. India did the same in case of Goa too, because people there wanted to be a part of India.. About 25 years after Indian Independence, Sikkim also voted to join India and became another Indian state.. Read history buddy.. If India had invaded Hyderabad, Junagadh, Goa, etc against the people’s will do you think the people would have kept quite without any rebellion after that??
As for Kashmir the whole world knows that it was the Pakistan which first sent its army disguised as tribals, and India acted very late in this case..

Just because India has different languages and religions which you cant find in other parts of the world, dont come to the conclusion that India cant be considered a country.. It has been the very nature of Indian culture to absorb any external/internal influences/changes and give it an Indian touch, which is why you find such a great diversity in Indian culture.. other cultures either get destroyed when a change comes in, or destroy the change itself.. which is why nowhere else in the world you find this diversity.. think from a historic viewpoint buddy.. dont repeat things just because somebody once said that “”India was never a country earlier”".. of course yes, it was not a modern democratic republic nation earlier, in that case no other country can be considered to have been a country before its current formation date..
so what? We are a one large country today and all Indians believe in it.. and this is the fact.

Look at this quote by Fa Hien who visited India during the period of Chandragupta Maurya II. Note what he says about “”India”"

“”Indian cities are prosperous and stretch far and wide. There are many guest houses for travellers. There are hospitals providing free medical service for the poor. The viharas and temples are majestic. People are free to choose their occupations. There are no restrictions on the movement of the people. Government officials and soldiers are paid their salaries regularly. People are not addicted to drinks. They shun violence. The administration provided by the Gupta rulers is fair and just”" – Chinese traveller Fa-Hien during the reign of Chandragupta II

Gurudev says:

Pandian
It is NOT impossible to consider India as nation before British ruled India.. The very name “”Bharath Varsh”" for India comes from the name of a king called Bharatha who for the first time united and ruled the entire Indian subcontinent in the prehistoric times, I mean much before the known and accepted history of world today..
The description of his kingdom included the present day India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran (Persia) and Nepal. And this was not for this one king, but for his entire lineage of the Lunar dynasty.

Yes of course India is a country with unity in diversity because the very essence of the Indian culture has been not destruction or submission, but it has been absorption.
Whenever a new culture invades or tries to overpower the existing culture in India either from outside India or from within India, the unique Indian culture neither destroys the new culture nor becomes submissive to it, instead it absorbs the new culture into its own and gives it a native Indian touch. Which is why you find such a diversity in India today, unlike other cultures around the globe that have been destroyed by invasions, or that have replaced others.

Yes, I was in UK for about 6 months.. but that was two years back.. I didnt like London that much, spent most of my time in the beautiful country side of Kent..

Oh yes, Raja Raja Chola was one of the greatest kings too.. The Tanjavur Brihadeshwara temple built by him is a wonder of its own, a 80 tonne monolithic Granite at the peak of this huge temple, wondering how on earth was this huge temple constructed more than a thousand year back!! It is the largest Granite temple in the world! The day on which I visited this temple last year was the birthday of Raja Raja Chola

Gurudev says:

haha.. in that case Pandyan, we can never consider any country as having existed before it was created as a nation.. not even britain.. I have spoken to the scottish people there when I was in Edinborough and they said that they were not a part of Britain! Same about Irish too in Britain

When I said India was indeed a country earlier, I didnt mean just the exact geographical borders, I meant that the entire subcontinent had a similar culture, and indeed was united time and again, with small changes in the geographical borders..

Consider the countries like Uzbekistan for instance that were once a part of undivided USSR. Now you cant go back and tell that these once soviet lands were actually never a part of USSR because in 2000 BC some other king ruled there. You got what I mean?

And you said Ashoka’s kingdom did not include South India?? See here the map of Ashoka’s empire for your reference. It only didnt include a small part of today’s Kerala and Tamilnadu, other than that it covered whole of South India too buddy!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/Mauryan_Empire_Map.gif

Ramesh Natarajan says:

Gurudev,

Very informative! Thanks for publishing this article, being an eye opener for many, who thinks differently about India..

I am proud as a Global Indian. I keep watching the Indian context in the International Economic scenario, as an emerging economy. Visit my blog http://fusions.wordpress.com where I have posted few articles about India’s economy growth and threats.

Cheers,
Ramesh Natarajan
Dubai