In reality, a kind of sentiment created either directly or indirectly on the basis of one or more factors such as country, language, religion, etc., plays a vital role in forming a nation. The factors themselves are quite insignificant. It is the sentiment and nothing else that creates a nation.
Let us see if there was such a sentiment at any time in India. That is, let us see whether or not there ever was something in India that could be called a nation.
The Aryan and Non-Aryan Nations
In olden times, when the Aryans came to India, there was no compact social order in the land of India. The population of India consisted of small or big tribes of Austric, Dravidian and Mongolian origin. An absolutely different race (Caucasian Aryans) [Mediterranean Aryans from Caucasia] came to India.

They brought with them the Vedic lifestyle and language; and the Vedic administration, social order and methods of warfare. They began to use the derogatory word Ana?rya [non-Aryan] for all the indigenous people of India. Slowly India was divided into two clearly different mental structures. One was the sentiment born of the vanity of the victorious Aryans, and the other was the sentiment created by the inferiority complex of the vanquished non-Aryans.

Thus, two nations were formed in India the Aryans and the non-Aryans.
Years rolled on. As a result of contact with the non-Aryans, the Vedic language of the Aryans underwent a change. Different regional languages came into existence. All efforts to avoid blood relations between the Aryans and the non-Aryans proved futile. Racial blending between the Aryans and the non-Aryans took place.
Gradually the non-Aryans were accepted as Shu?dras or the fourth group in Aryan society, and as a result of this social blending both the Aryan sentiment and the non-Aryan sentiment lost their respective specialities. These two nations died out with the weakening of the two sentiments which had caused the formation of the Aryan and the non-Aryan nations. In other words, India again became nationless.

The Buddhist and Brahmanical Nations
In this nationless age, or age of chaos, the Buddhist upheaval in India occurred. Again a section of people became united with a common sentiment the Buddhist sentiment. They formed a new nation. In the beginning the non-Buddhists were disunited, and hence they could not form a nation. But when the Buddhists, puffed up with pelf and power, began to be unfair to the non-Buddhists with the help of the ruling authorities, an anti-Buddhist sentiment grew up among the non-Buddhists, just as an anti-Aryan sentiment had previously grown up among the non- Aryans as a reaction to the oppression by the Aryans. Towards the end of the Buddhist period, two nations, roughly speaking, were to be found in India one based on Buddhist sentiment, and the other on anti-Buddhist sentiment.
The death of the Buddhist nation was caused on the one hand by the downfall of the bhiks?us [Buddhist monks], the disorderly state of affairs in organizations and monasteries, the lack of support from the government, and above all, the want of renowned scholars among the Buddhists; and on the one hand by the support of the ruling authorities for the non-Buddhists, and the appearance of the great scholar and logician Shankaracharya. These factors brought about not only the defeat of the Buddhists, but also dissension within the Buddhist community. The new sentiment, known as the Sana?tanii or Bra?hman?ya [Brahmanical] religion, which came into existence with the cooperation of Shankaracharya and the patronage of various non-Buddhist kings, was based on anti-Buddhist feelings. This is why, after the death of the Buddhist nation, the Brahmanical nation could not last long. Again India became nationless.
The Muslim and Hindu Nations
In the Post-Vedic Age, when both the Aryan and the non-Aryan nations died, no foreign invasion took place. Within the country, the Buddhist revolution occurred. Had a foreign invasion taken place, the nationless India would have been very easily conquered by the invaders. But as ill luck would have it, when India became nationless for the second time after the demise of the Buddhist and the Brahmanical nations, there was no internal revolution. Instead there was the Muslim invasion from outside.
The Muslims were able to conquer India only when Buddhism completely disappeared and shortly thereafter the Brahmanical nation also died. They were not able to conquer India before that. They had to wait for a long time after the invasion of Sind.(2) Although the Brahmanical nation had split up in South India also, the newly-formed small nations were not weak, and that is why they were able to resist the Muslim invasion in that part of India.
After the Muslim occupation, a new Muslim nation came into being. The Muslims had their own language (formerly Turkish and later Persian), manners and customs, dress, racial peculiarity, mode of living and religion, and on the basis of these factors a sentiment developed. Their sentiment was the sentiment of the ruling people.
It is no use denying the fact that the victorious Muslim nation played the role of oppressor and did much injustice to the inhabitants of India, as was done by the Aryans to the non-Aryans, by the Brahmanical nation to the Buddhists, and by the Buddhists to the non-Buddhists. The oppression and injustice done by the Muslims made the non-Muslims unite anew an anti-Muslim sentiment grew among them. Thus two nations were formed the victorious Muslim sentiment based on the Persian language created one nation, while the Hindu sentiment based on the Sanskrit language created another. These two nations existed for a long time side by side in India.
The sentiment with which the Muslim nation started was entirely new, but the Hindus or non-Muslims had no equally strong sentiment, and therefore they had to form a strong anti-Muslim sentiment. Just as the leaders of the Brahmanical nation had to use the anti-Buddhist sentiment as their only capital, the leaders of the Hindu nation made the anti-Muslim sentiment their capital.
The Hindus started doing the complete opposite of what the Muslims would do. While offering prayers the Muslims would not wear their ka?cha?;(3) therefore the Hindus would wear it. Beef and fowl were favourite foods of the Muslims; so they were inedible to the Hindus. The Muslims would pray facing the west; therefore the Hindus were forbidden to do this. There were many things like this. I cannot say that these types of dos and don'ts were harmful to the Hindus. By means of these social directives a strong anti-Muslim sentiment was formed among the Hindus, as a result of which a Hindu nation was formed. Otherwise it would have been impossible for the non-Muslims of that age to maintain their independent existence.
As we have seen in the case of the Aryans and the non-Aryans, two nations living side by side cannot maintain their independent sentiment for long; the same thing applied in the case of the Hindu and Muslim nations. Persian, the language of the Muslims, was a completely foreign language, while Pra?krta, the language of the Hindus, was born in the soil of India. Therefore, the Muslims of the capital [the area in and around Delhi] developed the Urdu language a blending of eastern Punjabi [or Hariya?navii] of the [Demi-Shaorasenii] Pra?krta language, or western Hindi, with Persian. Through this the national sentiment of the Muslims was weakened. They had to make an adjustment with the Hindus. Innumerable Persian words found a place in other languages of the Hindus, which resulted in the development of Bengali, Maethilii, Assamese, Bhojpuri, Gujarati, Punjabi and other languages which are common languages of Hindus and Muslims. Muslim scholars began to learn Sanskrit in order to be well-acquainted with India. The Hindus began to learn Urdu and Persian. The Hindus began to use Muslim dress (pa?yja?ma? and sheroya?nii), while the Muslims began to use Hindu dress (dhoti and ca?dar). The Muslims began to use the Hindu titles Choudhury, Mandal, etc., while the Hindus began to use the Muslim titles Mullick, Khan, Sarkar and Mazumdar. The Hindus offered shirn?ii [a mixture of banana, sugar and milk] at the Dargah of Pirsaheb [a sacred place of worship for the Muslims]. The Satyana?ra?yan?a [a celebrated god] of the Hindus became the Satyapiir [a revered saint] of the Muslims.

When India had become nationless for the second time, the Muslims invaded the country. And when India had become nationless for the third time, the British incursion into India began.(5) The British very easily conquered the nationless India.
The Muslims no doubt conquered India, but they looked upon it as their mother country. Nobody would say that they only exploited India as foreigners; but the case of the British was different. They came to India not to settle but to earn money.
After conquering India they started their machinery of exploitation in full swing, and formed a strong government to facilitate exploitation. They formed an English-knowing society to run the government smoothly. The exploitative machinery of the British opened the eyes of all classes of Indian people. The whole of India was united on the basis of an anti-British exploitation sentiment. This was the first time that all India had formed a nation. The English language served as the unifying link in India.

English was no longer the language of the British only it had become the lingua franca of multilingual India. An Indian nation developed as a result of the British, though they did not intend it. India, which had been split up into hundreds of parts, became united in the form of a country or a nation, which had never occurred in the past. India, which had innumerable languages, scripts, castes, races, manners, customs, diets, dresses, etc., had no history of its own. From time immemorial India had been divided into many kingdoms. Each had its own history. Neither the Pandavas, nor Ashoka, nor Kanishka, nor Samudragupta could form one government throughout India. But the British did.
The Indian people learned a practical lesson from the national spirit of the British, and nationalism grew in them also. The Indian nation's fight for independence against the alien British nation began.
India's Fight for Independence
In this fight for independence, the Indian leaders committed a blunder. They should have engaged themselves in an economic fight instead of starting a political movement. The British took advantage of this blunder of the Indian leaders. They got the opportunity to divide India into two parts. They infused in the Muslims the idea that the Hindus formed the majority, and that therefore if the British quit India the government would naturally go into the hands of the Hindus, and the Muslims of the whole of India would remain as their subjects.
This shrewd policy yielded good results. A Hindu phobia grew among the Muslims. The Muslim leaders began to propagate this Hindu phobia at the top of their voices, and as a result of this anti-Hindu sentiment created out of Hindu phobia, a Muslim nation was again born in India in this twentieth century. Directed by this Hindu phobia, they demanded a separate homeland for the Muslim nation. It was not possible for the Hindus to resist this demand for a separate homeland, because at that time no nation which could be termed a Hindu nation was formed in India. The reason for this is quite simple. Because of the numerical strength of the Hindus in India, there was no Muslim phobia among the Hindus, and for want of an anti-Muslim sentiment, no Hindu nation could be formed anew.
In the Punjab and Bengal, where the Muslims formed the majority, the case was different. If these two provinces went entirely for the Muslim homeland, the Hindu population in these areas would have to remain as subjects of the Muslims. Because of this fear the Hindus in these provinces were seized with Muslim phobia, and that is why they demanded an independent homeland for the Hindus. With the partition of India, the Punjab and Bengal were also partitioned.
Where did the mistake lie ? When, as a result of anti-British sentiment, the Indian nation was
formed in the nineteenth century, the then leaders of India should have started a struggle for economic independence instead of launching a political movement. All Indians could have fought together unitedly, there being no Hindu, Muslim, Punjabi or Marathi feelings in this economic struggle, and as a result an anti-exploitation sentiment could have been developed in India. This sentiment could have made Indians stronger. If there had been no fight for political independence, the fear that the Muslims would have to remain under the suzerainty of the Hindus after the independence of India could not have crept into their minds. In the absence of Hindu phobia, there would have been no demand for the homeland of the Muslim nation, and when India would have gained economic independence, Hindus and Muslims would have lived together as brothers and sisters in undivided India. The fight for economic independence would have brought political independence also. There might have been some delay in it, but political independence would have surely come. ¤
This is the first part of the Presidential Address to the History Section of the Progressive Writers' Conference held at Jamalpur on January 1, 1960
Footnotes by editors of the Electronic Edition of the Works of P.R. Sarkar
(1) Bengal was partitioned for the second time when India gained independence from the British. Dr. Suharwardy and Sarat Bose, prominent Muslim and Hindu leaders respectively, proposed the formation of a United Socialist Bengal to counter the threat of partition. The proposal was subsequently rejected by their respective political parties, and Bengal was partitioned in 1947.
(2) Sind was captured for the first time by the Muslims in 712, but the first major Muslim invasion of India took place at the end of the twelfth century, after which the Muslims established their rule in India.
(3) North Indian Hindu males usually wear a dhoti (lowerbody garment), which is tied around the waist. The ka?cha? refers to the custom of tucking one corner of the dhoti behind the body between the lower back and the portion of the dhoti tied around the waist. This is done so that the dhoti does not touch the ground.
(4) This process had commenced by the beginning of the eighteenth century.
(5) By the middle of the eighteenth century, the British had established a powerful military presence in India. (After the Carnatic Wars and the Battle of Plassey, the British had become the supreme military authority in the country.)