Transcript for:
Exploring India's Pre-Colonial Nationhood

But Winston Churchill was a foreigner. What do Indians think? Let's find out.

This is a video from Philip Chenier. Because that's not what we are. We are essentially just a momentary coalition of unfriendly tribes put together under one flag. And we need to recognize that.

And listen to this, Sehbali Khan. Quite aware of what the history was. Yeah because you're a film... you're a history buff.

Yeah and I don't think there was a concept of India till perhaps the British gave it one. Why do educated and patriotic Indians sing this? Do you guys agree with this?

Not that India wasn't a nation before the British apparently created it. This is a serious subject and needs a discussion. Perhaps with a camera and a mic. So ladies and gentlemen, this is the subject of the first podcast of Immortal India with Amit. Was India a nation for the British?

So we heard Dilip and Saif speak about India as a nation. Why would educated and patriotic Indians like them say something like this? Let's hear Dr. Rakesh Batabial, Associate Professor of Media Studies at JNU.

He thinks that the education system would have taught someone like Saif Ali Khan this version. Saif Ali Khan was absolutely right. He must have read it in schools and colleges and even reflected on it. That it's a concept when the British administratively united the largest chunk of India territorially. I suppose this is what most educated Indians would have been taught.

I was taught something similar when I was in school as well. So, is our present education system right when it says that India was not a nation before the British? Let's find out.

Before independence in 1947, we saw 200 years of colonization by the Europeans. Not only did they conquer and rule over us, they rewrote our history and in turn our memories too. They did that to suit their agenda, obviously, to make their version of our history a tool to rule over us. It's not that we did not try to tell our own stories or build our own records, but our voices were too weak and easy to strangle.

Today, we only remember the past through the colonial education system. We see... what they wanted us to see, we know what they wanted us to know. In a sense, the British Raj gaslit us Indians. I'm sure the younger ones among my viewers would know this already, know this term.

But for the others, gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation where the victim starts doubting their own version of reality. Over time, it changes the power dynamics such that the gaslighter's version becomes reality or at least reality the way the victim. tempt see it.

As Milan Kundera, one of my favorite writers, he had written so beautifully, the first step in liquidating a people is to erase their memory. You may ask, what purpose did that serve for the colonizers? As British Governor Lord Elphinstone himself had said, divide et impera, was the old Roman maxim and it should be ours.

Divide et impera is Latin for divide and rule. Let me share some examples of how slowly colonial writings erased our past and rewrote much of our history. The British systematically began rewriting our history by producing books that told us that we were never one nation.

Among the earliest books that started this new narrative building at that time, this new narrative building was Alexander Dove's History of Hindustan, who in 1768 wrote that we were nothing more than a collection of petty and hostile principalities. This trend was then followed up by British historians and for years, Almost every historical account of India written by the British kept reminding and fitting into our memory that we were never a nation. J.R. Seely in 1883 wrote that there was no Indian nation but rather a multitude of nations, some large and some small, with different languages, religions and customs, often hostile to each other.

Even more, British rule was justified in part by the claims that the Indians apparently required to be civilized and that British rule would introduce in place of oriental despotism and anarchy a reliable system of justice, the rule of law and the notion of fair play. So basically in simple words, the claim was that we Indians who are uncivilized, barbaric, lawless and unruly, they deserve to take our money, our industries, our culture, our lives even. Do you remember the famous movie, Gabbar Singh told the villagers Only one person can save you from the heat of the fire Only one person himself, Gabbar If his men take some grains, some gold from you, then do they do anything wrong?

Gabbar replied Do you commit any crime? No one commits any crime Nothing is wrong I say, no one commits any crime English was Gabbar, white Gabbar Anyway, coming back, the bizarre thing isn't that this ridiculous narrative was made. The truly bizarre thing is that many Westerners and even some Indians still believe this ridiculous narrative. There's a reason for that. And the reason is the Indian education system.

British historian Vincent Smith, whose book became the standard textbook in Indian universities, went as far as to say that India could have only been saved by the British, by those who gave us unity and order. And not just the scholars, but also the entire administrative machinery was working towards disintegrating the idea of India as a nation. John Stacky, an administrative officer, declared in Cambridge that there is not and never was an India and it will never become a united nation. Well, Mr. Stacky, I don't know if I'm mispronouncing your surname. Well, Mr. Stacky, India is and was a nation and will always be.

The British did this to impose their false narratives as it served their selfish interest. A weak and divided land is easier to dominate and they succeeded in doing this. But did they speak the truth?

The answer is a big fat no. India is the oldest surviving civilization in the world. But the more important thing is did our ancient scriptures, texts and our ancestors see us as one common nation? Um, yes they did. Yes, they did.

There are more than enough references, starting right from the Vishnu Puran, which historians say is at least 1500 to 2000 years old. I believe it was a lot older, but chalo, let's believe the historians. The Vishnu Puran has this lovely line, uttaram yatsamudrasya himadrash chaiva dakshanam varsham tadabharatam nama bharti yatra santatihi I'll translate for you, don't worry. That was in Sanskrit, obviously.

The translation is north of the ocean, and south of the Himalayas lies the nation of Bharat and there live the descendants of Bharat. The ancient Indians certainly had a concept of India as a common land called Bharat. Clearly, clearly the British didn't create our nation. Our ancestors did. A further chapter in the same Vishnu Purana describes the geography of Bharatvarsha.

The shloka describes the seven important mountain ranges of Bharat, which are Mahendra, Malaya, Sarya, Suktimat, Raksha, Vindhya and Paripatra. These include ones in the south as well. By the way, those who want to divide North India and South India, these include mountain ranges in the south as well, like the Suktimat and the Malaya.

Further shlokas in that same Vishnu Purana mention important rivers, like the Chandrabhaga, Narmada, Tapi, Payoshni, Godavari and others. And then, of course, there is the prologue. Or one of the oldest available Tamil texts, the Thorkapyam. In its prologue, it mentions that it is rooted in the Vedas, resonating the common pulse across the length and breadth of our great ancient civilization.

From all of this, we can clearly establish that our ancestors had no doubt that we were one nation. They thought of India as one civilization of diverse people. But you can say this was only our ancestors. Did foreigners in ancient times also see us as a nation? Ummm...

Yes they did. Yes they did. There are records and accounts of foreigners who visited India and saw us as one nation, one civilization. The proof for this can be found in a series of four books called the India they saw. I would strongly recommend that you read those books.

The series of four books called the India they saw which has been edited by award-winning historians Vinakshi Jain and Sandhya Jain. These are essentially Translations of travelogues by foreign travellers who came to India from ancient times from 2500 years ago till the relatively recent past. When the Greeks came in the pre-Christian era, i.e. more than 2000 years ago and when they crossed the Indus river, they said that we have entered Indica which was their name for India. Foreign kings recognised the nation of India which is why the Greek writer Megasthenes Back in 300 BC, that's 2300 years ago, when he travelled to India, he described it as a quadrilateral shaped country bounded by the Great Sea in the east and the south, the Indus River in the west and the Emodus Mountains in the north.

Emodus or Hemodus refers to the Hindu Kush, Pamir and the Himalayan mountain taken as a single mountain range. Similarly, During the Roman Empire, historian Diodorus Siculus, in his Bibliotheca Historica, not only acknowledged the Indian nation, but also applauded the democracy that we had. I am quoting him, Among the Indians, the system of government is democratic, for the people have the greatest authority. But there is also a king, who is the general of the army and presides over the council of elders. The Indian people respect justice and cultivate truthfulness.

So if the ancient Romans who preceded the British by several centuries and who were also heroes for the British as we all know, if the ancient Romans acknowledged India as a nation, it's quite hypocritical for the British to later discredit this fact and say that we were never a nation. Fa Yan, the oldest Chinese monk to travel to India in 400 Common Era, that's 1600 years ago, he notes that when the pilgrims from the land of the lion Sihala, modern Sri Lanka basically. He notes that when pilgrims from the land of the lion set foot on the sacred soil of Bharat, they knelt deep in veneration.

They felt the blessings of the Buddha's presence. Now the most interesting thing to note in this is that they said this when the pilgrims landed in Tamil Nadu. Tamil Nadu was just across a narrow...

You know, straight from Sri Lanka, so even though they were 2500 kilometers from where Gautam Buddha was born on the modern Indo-Nepal border, they were in Tamil Nadu. They were clear that they were in Bharat or India. Imagine, Indo-Nepal border, Tamil Nadu, the Sri Lankans were clear, they were in Bharat. Tamil Nadu was also a part of the same land that cradled the birthplace of Gautam Buddha. Various Arab travellers from Al-Buruni to Ibn Battuta have also recognised our civilisation.

Al-Baladhuri, a 10th century Arab traveller wrote, Despite the diversity of languages and customs, there is a sense of unity among the Indian people who share a common allegiance to their kings and reverence for their ancestral traditions. It's important to note that some foreign travellers reached our land from the northern plains while others reached it from our shores. And yet they recognized this entire stretch of land as one entity, India. It is of course very well known that even the accidental discovery of the Americas was because Christopher Columbus was actually searching.

For the majestic land of India, known for its riches, gold and spices. By the way, Christopher Columbus didn't even know that he had not reached India. Okay, he thought he had actually reached India. That's why till today, the Caribbean islands are called the West Indies.

And till the politically incorrect times, the Native Americans used to actually be called Indians. He was lost, he didn't even know. Anyway, so while Columbus's dream of getting to India never came true, his quest?

And the account of all travelers and traders shows that even foreigners saw our land as one civilization, one nation. But it's important to note that when someone says that India was not a nation, it usually comes from a very European idea of a nation, which is a fairly modern concept. It's a relatively modern concept. And this idea of a nation emerged from the treaties of Westphalia in the 17th century.

when nation states were carved out of a then warring Europe. 17th century, not too far back. So, what is the modern European concept of a nation? It basically refers to a community of people which has one language, one religion, one race. Remember, they used to differentiate even between Protestant Christianity and Catholic Christianity or Catholicism.

Okay, so when they meant one language, one religion, one race, that one religion did not just mean Christianity. It could also mean Protestant Christianity or Catholic Christianity. Those would be two different nations. In any case, when this community of people which has one language, one religion, one race, when they form a nation with a government representing this nation, it is called a nation-state. This idea started to take shape slowly after the treaties of Westphalia in the 17th century.

which ended, of course, as we know, the Thirty Years'War in Europe. So, did India fit in the modern European idea of a nation-state, which was basically one language, one race, one religion? The obvious answer is no.

India actually fits a much broader, much bigger definition than a mere nation. India actually fits a definition of a civilization. A civilization represents the largest possible grouping of humans United by a common cultural thread, the only grouping bigger than a civilization is all of humanity.

So therefore, since India is a civilization and we have a state, we are actually a civilization state. Let's try to understand the broad differences between the narrow European idea of a nation state and a broader idea of a civilization state. Firstly, a civilization is a much bigger concept than a nation. The UK is a large country. is a nation, but it's not a civilization.

It's a smaller part of a bigger civilization called the Western civilization. Saudi Arabia, UAE, these are nations, but they're a smaller part of a larger civilization called Arab Islamdom, if you want to call it that. The second difference is that a civilization is a much more ancient concept, while nation states are a relatively modern concept. While some of the oldest civilization states are over 2000 years old, the nation states emerged only after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 in Europe, as I just told you earlier. Thirdly, while nations aim for unity through sameness, civilization states thrive on diversity.

The nation states were carved out on the basis of homogeneity, on the idea of unity in uniformity. While a civilization state like India was all embracing, resting on the idea of unity in diversity. And among the most interesting differences is that in a nation state, authority comes from political power or the government. You follow the rules because the government says so.

But in a civilization state, it is a bit different. For instance, in India, the principles of dharma, which is all about duty and righteousness, guides our way of living. Indians obey the laws whenever we do. We know many Indians actually don't obey the laws.

But Indians obey the laws whenever it aligns with their sense of morality and duty. Not just because they are afraid of getting in trouble. We all know very often Indians do not follow the laws.

It's sad but true when it does not align with our sense of morality or duty. It's a powerful mix of political authority and deep-rooted dharmic principles or moral principles which are followed by Indians. regardless of the religion they practice.

It's not just about Hinduism or other dharmic religions like Buddhism, Jainism or Sikhism. It's also about how Indian Islam and Indian Christianity is practiced. They also have dharmic impulses.

They are fundamentally different from how Christianity and Islam are practiced in other parts of the world. But this powerful combination of political authority and dharmic principles is something the West can learn from India as well. Now, I am not... presenting a fresh perspective on our country. In fact, Gurudev Tagore ne bhi yahi kaha tha.

He called India a syncretic civilization, an amalgamation of different religions, cultures or schools of thought united in diversity. In fact, a number of modern scholars establish and acknowledge the claim of India being a civilization state. The reference to India as a civilization state is very much there in the heated debates of Samuel Huntington in his famed Clash of Civilizations.

Also other scholars such as Christopher Cocker, Bruno Machais, Gideon Rachman and Gurgli Agadie. Even the French President Emmanuel Macron. remarked that India, China and Russia are true civilizational states that have strongly transformed the political world order and the way we think about it. The thing is that we have been so accustomed to looking at the world through the western lens of nation states that the idea of something bigger, the idea of a civilizational state becomes difficult to comprehend and absorb immediately.

Hence, the disbelief and reluctance. among most westerners and sadly even many westernized Indians in accepting the ancient nationhood of India. Therefore, to those who say we were not a nation before the British came, our answer should be this.

We were and are a nation. But one that is also a civilization. An ancient civilization that has been around since the Bronze Age. We had a bad few centuries when invaders conquered us, can happen to anyone, when colonial rulers convinced many among us that we were not even a nation. But what's a few centuries in the life of a nation that has been around for many millennia?

After some centuries of decline, we are back. We are India, that is Bharat. And we are immortal. And now a question for you. Besides China, Japan, Russia and of course India, are there any other civilization states in the world?

Comment below. This podcast is supported by the Dilip Biramal Foundation. The Dilip Biramal Foundation is an initiative by renowned industrialist Dilip Biramal to support dharmic causes across India and the world.

In this aim, the foundation has supported art galleries, documentaries, dharamshalas, education and many other such initiatives.