As Sunil Khilnani demonstrates in The Idea of India, the notion of India as a nation-state was something that was invented under British rule.4 Prior to Britain's arrival, the subcontinent was a hodgepodge of princely states, languages, ethnic groups, and religions, with the Mogul Empire's writ limited only to parts of northern India. Under the British, India got a sense of itself as a single, unified political space {even if that space was carved into Muslim and Hindu areas at Partition} and acquired a common language, a civil service and bureaucratic tradition, an army, and other institutions that would be critical to the emergence of a democratic India in 1947.5
( Francis Fukuyama )
[ Nation-Building ]
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