One of the limitations of this book is that it starts in 1947. If I were to ask why there is an India at all, I believe there was no India at all before the British came. There was no sense of a nation or nationhood in India.

It was the British that united the country, accidentally, and out of commercial and political motives. So they gave it an artificial unity; an artificial territorial and political unity. This artificial unity was endowed with a moral purpose by Mahatma Gandhi and his national movement. This was furthered by the Indian constitution and the first generation of Indian nation builders.

There is an India because two or three generations of remarkably skilled and visionary scholars, politicians and institutional builders taught Indians of different persuasions, languages, religions, cultures and cuisines to live and collaborate together. The effort was very hard, very laboured; it met with some success, some failure, and, took place over more than a hundred years. We take for granted that India is united; we forget the effort.

Image: India, which began its recent history as an artificially united country, was endowed with a moral purpose by Mahatma Gandhi and his national movement. Photograph: Rediff Archives

Also read: India Inc rediscovers Mahatma Gandhi

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