You should have read the whole article. Otherwise you would not have accused me of contradicting myself which I did not do.

In my article about Chandragupta Maurya I do point out that he did not rule most of Central and parts of India like Patna as is generally believed but places like Pakistan and Afghanistan. This is in sync with my comment here that no one ruled India as it exists today.

You did not bring anything to the table so far that would indicate to me that I have to start reading more.

“Logic is in the eye of the logician” – Gloria Steinem.

Funny, indeed.

Although sorry for posting comments after reading only couple of your lines. I could not survice your warped rationale further…

The link is shows an excerpt from the book by E.J. Chinnock about Flavius Arrianus. Arrianus wrote a biography of Alexander about 300 years after his death. The first paragraph says the following “The district west of the river Indus as far as the river Cophen is inhabited by the Astacenians and the Assacenians, Indian tribes. But they are not so tall in stature or so courageous as those who dwell east of the Indus; nor are they so swarthy as the majority of the Indians“. So East of the Indus and West of the Indus was considered as Indians (if he ever used that word in his original text).

Read this

http://www.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/Indica.html

I also include the Mongols, Turks , British and so on. Welcoming maybe, but we fight with Pakistan and China for every inch of land today. Did our genes change? I do not think so. It is in human nature to protect what is ours.

Your points are valid. India in the past was one of the centers of “learning” in a broad sense of the world. I would not say that the literacy rates were high or that the school system was great but there were a select few who were pushing the boundaries of thought.

My point: Only in 20th and 21st century we have seen man’s mind to flourish to the extent that it has made possible inventions like electricity etc.

What was happening to the world or India during the 1800 years. Nobody came up with that idea back then.

SO MY QUESTION WHY NOW.

My point is that whatever is the so called history and all inventions and man made things are a product of the 20th or 21st century.

Its like looking at your childhood days when you are at the prime of your life and think about all the mistakes you did back then. But would you call them mistakes when you were actually a child and doing them.

A famous Indian American physicist once said – History is what we want it to be (just like what Hitler did).

The main question is – Who are we ? And why do we perceive history the way we do it. Maybe the ancients saints tried to answer this and came closer to the truth and thats why India was great in the past.

India’s literacy rate in 1947 was about 10% -15% and even today we have almost 35% of the world’s poor. I do not think that this happened overnight or by accident. This is a result of centuries of neglect by those who ruled us. I wonder if India was great back then why did every nation that defeated us also tried to force their religion and culture on us? Maybe they did not have such a high opinion of us as we do about ourselves?

As you mentioned every culture thinks that somehow theirs is a great culture. India is no exception. I guess it is easier psychologically for some of us to believe that these conquerors came to India because of its wealth rather than face the reality that they came because we were easy prey

Same was true hundreds of years ago. There was a lot of wealth in India not enjoyed by ordinary people. The foreigners came in for that wealth among other reasons you stated who then exploited Indian people.

India was rich then as it is today. It was rich in natural resources, rich in spirituality and philosophy. India today is rich in all the same aspects. But there is no evidence to show that this richness of culture translated into rich and prosperous Indian citizens. Our history shows that we were taken advantage of by many cultures for a very long period of time (not 50 or 100 years but for 2000 years). This I argue is not a sign of strength but weakness.

I also believe that the reason that others invaded India is not just for the wealth. If all of India’s wealth was taken by the Greeks and Mongols early on then what was left for the Mughals and the Europeans later on? If getting India’s wealth was the key reason why did they stay on for hundreds of years?

They came because they wanted control over India’s greatest wealth (then and now) and that is the people of India. They taxed the Indian public and enjoyed themselves and solidified their nation and empire. They used our soldiers to fight their wars (it was not the British who did this but also the Greeks, Turks and Mongols). They made us build their Mosques and palaces. They built factories and made us work for almost nothing. They forced us to build roads and railway networks so that they can transport the goods and make money all over the world. They spread their religion and culture on our people because they did not think highly of it in the first place.

Your concept of a rich country means that an average citizen is rich – this might not have been true back then, but still India as a land (not people) was probably rich by whatever was the definition back then.

P.S. – I don’t have any evidence to prove either way.

You state that “India had poor people who lived in thatched roof mud houses but overall the country was doing well“. Really? To me people living in thatched roof means poverty. There are millions of Indians who live like that today. We do not call them rich. My argument is based on what we know about India that is documented and making logical conclusions.

Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence. I have not seen it. No one has debunked anything.

Many who support the theory that India was rich have repeated things like 1) It was written in books 2) That is why the invaders came here 3) All of us believe so etc.

But none of this proves that “Indian’s” were rich or how an Indian was richer than an average person in South Africa? Just because a myth is repeated again and again does not mean it becomes true.

You want evidence. Let me remind you that I am not the person who is making the extraordinary claim that one of the poorest countries in the world today was the richest country in the world for the past 2000 years. I am not the one making the claim that a country that was literally in the hands of foreigners for 2000 years is better than all those who invaded it. I am also not making the claim that Indians who were forcibly incorporated into the Greek, Muslim and the British armies and asked to fight for their causes all over the world for the past 2000 years are some how better off than the their slave masters.

If you want evidence all you need to do is to read a book on world history. But I need some evidence on why you claim that Indians were rich.

Nobody is living in utopian world. Accept the fact (or you have trouble in accepting any good fact about India). May be you want to live in depresssed world. India’s economy did well from ancient to medivial times but then started faltering, especially after arrival of Brits when the economy started deteriorate badly (that’s another topic for debate).

My logic is fine. If a country is ruled pretty much for 2000 years by outsiders then I have a no problem admitting that my country has some weakness. I do not want to live in some Utopian dream.

India is not the only country colonized or written about by the Europeans. So was the whole of Africa and North America and South America. So are all these continents as rich as India as well? Then what separates them from India? Other than repeating the same old stories about India’s glorious past (diamonds, farming), no one has shown any evidence to show that an average Indian for the past 2000 years was rich compared to his counterparts all over the world.

Everybody is writing about India and China today. Almost all companies want to invest in India. India has one of the largest gold reserves in the world and it still has the natural resources. Does this mean that India is the richest country in the world today? On a per capita basis it is one of the poorest. India today is a very good snapshot of how India was in the past (rich in natural resources, rich government, rich politicians but predominantly poor people). Why do we have difficulty admitting this?