History

The second assumption is that people who see themselves as a nation also share a sense of continuing historical identity. Nations perceive themselves as stretching back into the past as well as reaching into the future. They build this sense of identity by drawing on collective memories, legends and historical records to trace an unbroken thread connecting who they were to who they are.

In India, nationalists invoked the country's ancient civilisation and cultural heritage precisely to make this kind of claim — that India has had a long and continuing history as a civilisation, and that this civilisational continuity and unity is one of the foundations of the Indian nation. Jawaharlal Nehru put this idea memorably in his book The Discovery of India: "Though outwardly there was diversity and infinite variety among the people, everywhere there was that tremendous impress of oneness, which held all of us together in ages past, whatever political fate or misfortune had befallen us." The claim here is not …