Hope you're all doing well. Presenting a brief conversation with Prof. Dheeraj Sharma, Director of IIM Rohtak, on the intriguing topic: Did the British give the concept of India?
00:00The history of India, actually Mahabharat as a book is not just a text, it's not a religious text, it's actually a history of India.
00:09It tells you how Bharat as a king gave Bharat its name, the name of Bharat derived from there.
00:25Hello everyone, welcome back.
00:27I am Ankusha Patil, student at IIM Rhotak and again I am back with the conversation with our one and only director of IIM Rhotak, Professor Gheer Sharmashivs.
00:37So actually last time I could not get a chance to complete my conversation so I actually requested for some of his time so that we can continue our conversation and today we are going to talk about something very interesting.
00:49So recently Saifali Khan quoted that the concept of India came after Britishers came to India.
00:56So I would want to know your opinion on the same, sir.
01:01Well you cannot make a more juvenile statement than that.
01:04I mean the concept of India is well documented.
01:09We have historical, scripture, archaeological evidence to demonstrate that the concept of Bharat existed well before the Britishers came to India.
01:23Britishers came to India what 200-250 years ago.
01:26If you simply go by our text, even the basic text like the Vedas or Mahabharata, the evidence today is available that these documents, if not more, I am again repeating, if not more, are at least 6-10,000 years older.
01:49So the history of India, actually Mahabharata as a book is not just a text, it's not a religious text, it's actually a history of India.
01:58It tells you how Bharat as a king gave Bharat its name, the name of Bharat derived from there.
02:07So then comes the concept of Republics, the concept of Mahajanapadas, which means starting from Anga, going all the way to Gandhaha, which is Gandhaha today, Gandhara.
02:23And, you know, to various Mahajanapadas, which existed, is documented to be at least minimum 3-6,000 years from present day.
02:38So I don't know how this notion of British coming up with the concept of India, we've always had the concept of India, we've always had our nation.
02:50You know, the name France did not exist 150-200 years ago, they were called Guluwa, so do you think the name England or UK existed 100-150-200 years ago?
03:02These names are recent, and just by having those names, you know, does not take away the concept.
03:09We had a nation, we had a great nation, as a matter of fact, I must tell you, sadly, our boundaries have shrunk.
03:16We are, Khanda Bharat would have been much bigger.
03:18So over the years of colonization and invaders, we have lost territory, but the concept of Bharat, I mean, it has been there for centuries.
03:30So, I mean, our country, our concept, that is just, I don't know, one should not really make these blatant statements without putting some thought into it.
03:41Correct. What I can take out from your conversation is that, you know, there was maybe no ground of such a statement?
03:48There wasn't any ground.
03:50Moving to the next question, sir, if you could just throw some light over, who were the most important people in developing the modern concept of India?
03:58Well, again, you know, I think we always had Bharat Desh, more specifically, Bharat Shafan, in 1947, when the British was oppressed and divided, mind you, a bloody division of India.
04:13Millions of India, millions of people losing their homes, several hundred thousand losing their lives, divided the country.
04:23This country was actually into two different parts.
04:27one was directly ruled by the British and the remaining were princely states so
04:33princely states there were six and five hundred and sixty-five princely states
04:37five sixty-five princely states covering nearly 40% of the of the land mass of
04:44India and nearly a quarter of the country's population at that point was
04:49within these princely states so I believe if you say the modern India which is the
04:58India today the architect of that is Sardar Ballab Haipater and he we are
05:05celebrating his his you know first anniversary and he was a person who
05:14brought it all together now I would like to also at this time remember three
05:18other people who made a very very important contribution one was mr. VP
05:23Manon who was the secretary to government of India at that point in time who was
05:28very very helpful in the entire procedure of integrating these princely states into
05:34India a third very very important person General J M Chaudhary General Chaudhary
05:41was the first administrator of the Hyderabad princely state
05:47Hyderabad princely state was a very large princely state mind you very large very rich they
05:51had their own army now they did not want to at that point in time didn't want to join India
05:56obviously sir so you'd be surprised that VP Manon was very important person who
06:03gave them time to think about it but they still wouldn't give in so not many people
06:10know that the Hyderabad princely state went to a battle with the Indian army and that battle lasted for six days and at that point in time the third person which I mentioned to you General J M Chaudhary who later on became the chief of Indian armies
06:26he was instrumental in quelling lot of these issues and bringing stability and integrating the entire nearly entire
06:37into our country
06:39absolutely sir I believe it would have been very very difficult for all these leaders to convince these princely state to join our country so what do you think in your opinion was one of the most important quality in those leaders that help them to actually convince and you know help those princely states join our country
06:49well I think it was you know the very very important quality that these people possessed was that they were able to sell the concept the idea of modern India to them
07:14thank you very much sir for being here and giving me an opportunity to host you on the show it was a pleasure hosting you
