When the British started meddling, concept of nation state was still to catch up here but it had fertile grounds to develop as India has been in numerous occasions in part have been under an unified rule. Who is to say that the same could not have happened again minus the hindu muslim divide and as a result arbitary borders which was expressly promoted by British.
What British did was to speeded up a naturally occurring process for their gains.
Totally disagree
1 From the time of Mahabharat till say the Nanda ; Guptas ; Mauryas it was always
about FAMILY rule
One family died ; another came up
2 Culturally we were similar but that did not prevent us from fighting each other on the
most silly pretext
What the Rajputs did ; when faced with barbarians ;
Did they unite - NO
3 The Hindu Muslim divide was real when the British came
But the Hindu -- Hindu divide was much more damaging
Why did not ALL Hindu princes unite after Aurangzeb and the Mughal empire
had been destroyed by the Marathas
What the Heck ; even the Marathas started fighting with Rajputs AND amongst themselves
The Panipat debacle for the Marathas was because The Hindu kings could Not come under one flag
The whole sub continent was One BLOODY mess ; A GIANT Afghanistan
And it would have remained so had the British NOT come ; with 300 kingdoms
PS : I might have been Ruling one given that My ancestors had a small Kingdom
in the 18 th century which was taken over by the Brits
