AgNoStiC MuSliM
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Well, some people argue that warfare between subcontinental armies was significantly different from the attacks from outsiders.
Due to the caste system, the act of war was restricted to only a section of the population, namely the warrior class. The peasants, traders and priests were excluded from the bloodshed.
There were strict warfare codes that were followed. Women, Children, farms and villages were spared, war was fought only from dawn to dusk, etc. etc.
Kautilya's "Arthashastra" is a good reference for the codes of war.
However with the coming of the central asians and middle eastern raiders, Indians were not used to such a united and brutal assault.
Islam's egalitarian principles meant that the entire population would be considered as the enemy.
Moreover the nomadic nature of the attacking tribes also meant that they were perhaps a lot more battle hardened than the forces on the Indian side.
Codes of war don't really make the "unity" or "outsider" argument. Those "codes" were just the "Geneva conventions" of the time. You may be correct that the Central Asian/Afghan invaders tended to come from Nomadic backgrounds (compared to the pastoral life in the subcontinent) but lifestyle or geography does not a "single nation make".
That "nomadic life" could explain the attitudes of some of the invaders, similar to the behavior of the Mongol Armies.
Ultimately, the foreign invasions are what united India in spirit. So, what might have never been, was created due to a common enemy.
What spirit? How do you know the Punjabis and Sindhis were "united in spirit" for a "Mauryan empire" any more than they were under the "Abdali empire"? Resorting to such an impossibly verifiable claim is why I made the argument earlier that Indians today may feel that "their land was violated" because they are projecting the sentiments of nationalism and identity created after 1947 backwards in time to encompass the lands and peoples that composed the "region known as the Indian sub continent".
Its the modern desire to cement even further the notion of an "Indian nation" and a "Single Indian Civilization" evolving over time that has led to most of these claims, based primarily on the "shared faith" (evolution from Vedism) argument, even if implicitly.