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Smart_Ass_Dave t1_irsl5bu wrote

India was not a country when the British arrived. It's basically what would happen if aliens showed up in Europe, conquered the whole thing and smashed it together saying "these are all Christians, they're basically the same," and then left several centuries later being like "Okay now please get along."

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Hapankaali t1_irt2o7b wrote

Most of what is today India was controlled by the Mughals before the British conquered it. So there was a "country," just not one with a dominant single language. The idea that a nation state should be associated with a single culture and language didn't gain traction until the advent of nationalism. As a second example, French was not spoken as a native tongue by a majority of the French population until about 100 years ago. The adoption of a single lingua franca was accelerated by the start of WW1 and the popularization of radio in the 20th Century.

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Smart_Ass_Dave t1_irt45x4 wrote

That's all true, though I'd like to add that the Mughal empire's dominion over the whole subcontinent was uhhh...short lived. Here's the place 51 years after your map, as an example: LINK

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Hapankaali t1_irtewmd wrote

The Mughal Empire lasted about 2 centuries, so not that short-lived.

Anyway, that the ruling class doesn't speak the language(s) of the people they are ruling was the norm until quite recently - colonialism didn't invent this. The Qing court used Manchu - a now practically extinct language - until the 20th Century.

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Smart_Ass_Dave t1_irtg2md wrote

My point about the Mughals is that while the empire itself existed for hundreds of years, it did not cover the whole of the continent for hundreds of years. Your points about China is a good one though.

I do feel like you've missed my overall point however, so I'll explain it more clearly. India was not a homogenous entity when Europeans arrived there. It was a bunch of different people all slammed together by foreign empires. The Mughals were as foreign to a Mysorean or Bengali as the British were. We as westerners (meaning your average Redditor, I don't know you specifically) would do well to imagine them as complexly as they deserve.

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Shturm-7-0 t1_is3u47u wrote

Manchu was almost extinct by the late 19th century, even by the late 18th century a big chunk of Manchus couldn't speak Manchu.

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tipdrill541 t1_irtist4 wrote

What language did the French speak 100 years ago

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djn808 t1_iru4cnf wrote

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innergamedude t1_iry4tv8 wrote

This. "French as a language" doesn't really mean anything in a strict sense. You had a whole continuum of dialects and the powerful interests in the national government declared one of them the "real thing" and all others basically Kirkland-brand French. This is actually the case for basically any Old World country with a nationalized language. The notion that "German" is one language is laughable.

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Hapankaali t1_irv0m6u wrote

As mentioned, Occitan was a major one. Other languages with formerly large minorities include Alsatian, Basque, Breton, Dutch, Provençal (the latter is sometimes considered a variation of Occitan) and others. Of these, only Breton and Alsatian survive with a significant number of speakers today, though Alsatian is also rapidly dying.

Napoleon Bonaparte was from Corsica and not a native speaker of French.

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Smart_Sherlock t1_isgefxw wrote

Everything correct, except that between the 100 years of Mughals and British, India was mostly ruled by the Maratha Empire.

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Hapankaali t1_isgotty wrote

Yep - but that empire was much smaller. My point was just that the British didn't glue together some disparate small realms, there was a precedent for a (mostly) unified Indian subcontinent.

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Smart_Sherlock t1_isgpdc2 wrote

Not that much smaller. It was comparable to what Mughals controlled for most of their existence.

Concept of Bharat was indeed there, even in times of Chandragupta as documented by Chanakya himself.

Places can have same culture (including religion) but at the same time be politically divided. This has happened many times in history

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Ani1618_IN t1_iudvran wrote

By the time the Brits began establishing a serious presence in the subcontinent, the Mughals had withered away and became puppets of various states including the Marathas, the Afghans, and various North Indian warlords and ministers.

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iamawesome001 t1_iuixqze wrote

Small correction by the time British colonalism started Mughals were already faded. Marathas were major forces (very much decentralised though) and Mughals were only namesake rulers with their influence only in Delhi

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deeptull t1_irtkhb9 wrote

The minor matters of having the same religion, myths, contiguous cuisines, massively shared vocabularies etc

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dinoroo t1_irsvu90 wrote

That’s the history of most countries, even in Europe.

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Smart_Ass_Dave t1_irt676f wrote

Sure, a lot of European countries are newer than most Americans think, but those are much smaller than the entire Indian subcontinent and often much more closely tied as a culture or ethnicity. This is not like German Unification, this is what happens when people decide that Swedes, Germans, the French, Spanish and Portuguese should all be one country, and then throw on Turkey because fuck you I guess.

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Moose_Hooves t1_irssqja wrote

Do Indians embrace a national identity? Do they respect the authority of their national government?

It’s such a beautiful country with such an amazing history. I didn’t know this but apparently when the British arrived, India was the wealthiest nation in the world by a hige margin. To this day the people who own the most gold in the world are Indian houswives.

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dragerslay t1_irtdbl2 wrote

India does have siginificant national identitiy, verging on nationalism. Strogn national identity was something pushed by governments since India's independance. Still there are large differences in food, language, religious practices and other cultural pillar between states, especially north vs. south.

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pinkcheems t1_iruib0l wrote

Indians always embraced a national identity. It was unfortunate that India failed to unite under one king in the history. The connecting link between indian states was dharmic culture or religions. vishnu puran (sacred book in Hinduism which talks about life of vishu (krishna) mentions that उत्तरं यत्समुद्रस्यः हिमाद्रेश्चैव दक्षिणम् ।

वर्षं तद् भारतं नाम: भारती यत्र संततिः ।। The country

that lies north of the ocean and south of the

snowy mountains is called Bhāratam (India);

there dwell the descendants of Bharata. So we can say that concept of India as nation is not new.

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SeleucusNikator1 t1_irtj9d4 wrote

> I didn’t know this but apparently when the British arrived, India was the wealthiest nation in the world by a hige margin

Note that this depends on what you mean by "wealthiest". India was wealthy the same way China and the USA are wealthy today, but not wealthy in the sense that Switzerland is a country of rich people.

Before the Industrial revolution, virtually almost all of the population (across the world) would have been peasants living in pretty primitive conditions, be it in Qing China or in Habsburg Spain. Urban populations were only a tenth of the population at best, and the wealthy merchants within them would of course be an even smaller minority.

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Moose_Hooves t1_irtje05 wrote

Of course, I was talking about the wealth held by India’s elite. Like their rich people were weakthier than any other nation’s rich people.

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Extension_Ad6338 t1_irup8tn wrote

>Do Indians embrace a national identity? Do they respect the authority of their national government?

Yeah as we've been diverse way before you Westerners made it a trend to flex on

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Smart_Sherlock t1_isgf35x wrote

India does not have any strong secessionist movement, except those openly funded by the PRC and Pakistan.

Indians in general are very strongly nationalistic. People may question the party of power in the Center, but will never raise questions on India as a State

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RedSonGamble t1_irv5ww2 wrote

Imagine if aliens showed up. Like eventually the subject of tickling would come up. How would you even describe why people tickle each other?

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briefnuts t1_irwi00p wrote

"What is this tickling? " the alien asked.

"Oh, it's just when people lightly stimulate the nerve endings in each other's skin to make their sensory receptors pass signals through their anterior cingulated cortex which in turn releases euphoria-promoting brain chemicals."

"That makes perfect sense, thank you earthling"

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RedSonGamble t1_iry2ktx wrote

Ehhhh I know a lot of people that don’t like tickling

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critfist t1_irtqod3 wrote

> India was not a country when the British arrived

I dunno if that's totally applicable though. Since it was more like a geographical region. Germany was a geographical region for a very long time until it coalesced.

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dudewiththebling t1_is26bxp wrote

> Germany was a geographical region for a very long time until it coalesced.

Germany was a collection of small kingdoms and similar states before kinda sorta becoming the Holy Roman Empire.

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critfist t1_is34428 wrote

Which only really held dejure influence over the region. It was more of a nebulous concept with a figurehead than a unified state.

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darthveda t1_irvh6tp wrote

Really? Are we going to go down that road again? most of the nations in Europe, whose boundaries are defined as of today, didn't exist like this as well, going by your logic.

India as a nation defined by boundaries didn't exist but it did as an identity, culture, people etc.

You give too much credit to colonial powers than they deserve.

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Swellmeister t1_irtq4gr wrote

Uhhhh what? The mughals ruled like 90% of Modern India by the time the British showed up

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Extension_Ad6338 t1_iruouuk wrote

It was still called India and by a lot of other names, just like how Greece, Persia and Egypt were called Greece, Persia and Egypt even before being nation states

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Smart_Ass_Dave t1_irus7lu wrote

I mean...Greece has been called Greece since Roman times, but never by the Greeks who call it "Hellas" or more accurately Ἑλλάς (Ellás), so maybe it's not a great example of our understanding of foreign places.

Edit: To add, India is named after the "Indus River", which is actually in Modern Pakistan. Europeans imported the Persian name of Hindustan for a while, but the actual name for it locally is Bharat.

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Extension_Ad6338 t1_iruxkeo wrote

>but the actual name for it locally is Bharat.

Along with आर्यवर्त (Aryavarta), भारतवर्ष (Bharatvarsha). I'm sick and tired of ignorants claiming there was no such as thing as India before 1947 when there was clearly a national identity/idea of भारत (Bharat) encompassing the entire Indian subcontinent during the Ancient times itself. The rulers of whatever dynasty/empire/kingdom was under power proclaimed themselves as rulers of India.

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barath_s t1_iryu3is wrote

That's a very Delhi centric view.

Ask the cholas, cheras, pandyas, satvahanas, nagas etc if they claimed to be the rulers of india ?

India was not defined as being the same as your country necessarily. India as a nation defined by boundaries may not have existed necessarily but it did as an identity (one of many), culture, etc.

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buzzz001 t1_irvjddc wrote

What are you basing this on? Do you have a source?

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