Why was south Asia so difficult to unify?

[Jaggu]

Hindustan(Indo-Pak-Bangla) is not like other regions of the world which can easily be made into one state. It is like a continent on it's own. It is as diverse as Europe. Imagine all of Europe being one country, that is what Hindustan as one political nation state is like. The British managed to achieve a united Hindustan due to a mixture of secularism, diplomacy, brute force, sophistication and management skills.

 

[El Sidd]

Hindustan(Indo-Pak-Bangla) is not like other regions of the world which can easily be made into one state. It is like a continent on it's own. It is as diverse as Europe. Imagine all of Europe being one country, that is what Hindustan as one political nation state is like. The British managed to achieve a united Hindustan due to a mixture of secularism, diplomacy, brute force, sophistication and management skills.

So when is the Rest of the hindu stan balkanisation?

 

[prashantazazel]

We don't want to mingle with South Indians.

Each person should speak for themselves. Personally, I'm attracted to the best of all races.

 

[Jaanbaz]

Each person should speak for themselves. Personally, I'm attracted to the best of all races.

Nothing to do with attraction or racism dude. People feel comfortable with those who share similar life experiences, culture, language and maybe sometimes religion.

 

[Peshwa]

We don't want to mingle with South Indians.

In your earlier statement, you mentioned you didn't want to be "forced" to live with south Indians/Indians.
But aren't you a resident of the UK? If you wanted to live in a homogenous society, why did your family move to the UK in the first place, where they would be forced to live with other "non-Pakistanis"?
Your statements aren't consistent to your situation.

 

[TurnThyCheek]

Lack of natural boundaries ... it was pratically impossible to stop invading army
To sack capital ... because of this you would see many small kingdoms in south asia throughout history fighting continously ... only mauryans mughals and britishers achived the feat mainy due to technological advantages ( elephant force,gunpowder,mordern weaponry)

Apart from the Khyber pass there's no way into India, as for plains, they make it easier to unite your own lands, India's rulers failed to unite the plains and use its power to conquer the south, Chinese dynasties repeatedly unified the northern plains and conquered the southern regions which are mountainous

Hindustan(Indo-Pak-Bangla) is not like other regions of the world which can easily be made into one state. It is like a continent on it's own. It is as diverse as Europe. Imagine all of Europe being one country, that is what Hindustan as one political nation state is like. The British managed to achieve a united Hindustan due to a mixture of secularism, diplomacy, brute force, sophistication and management skills.

Europe is far far bigger than south Asia, China Proper, Persian states etc were smaller than europe but usually bigger in landmass than south Asia, they still succeeded in building large durable states. The Roman and Mauryan empires were the same size in territory controlled, but distances for the Romans were bigger, they had the Med in the middle and from Rome controlled Britain in the west and Egypt in the east, they also had very diverse populations and had to deal with challenging geography. They succeeded, ruled for a long time and assimilated most their subject nations in the west. China succeeded, Persia succeeded, European empires controlled territories on other continents which had numerous ethnic/linguistic/religious differences successfully without rebellion and kept their own officials in line, south Asia is unique, they simply kept fighting amongst themselves.

We couldn’t even keep tiny kingdoms unified. This is because South Asians consistently undermine each other. They would rather see each other fail than prosper together.

That's sort of my thinking, south Asia's people were incompetent

Because we are donkeys. Full scale, 5 star donkeys.

Dunno if your serious...but that is the direction im going in

 

[prashantazazel]

Nothing to do with attraction or racism dude. People feel comfortable with those who share similar life experiences, culture, language and maybe sometimes religion.

These days, it is more about similar jobs/fields/education/economic class. People tend to move to new places a lot more than before.
The points you raised still hold for the majority, though.

 

[TurnThyCheek]

You d'dnt get my point what i was saying was that suppose i rule south asia from my capital in delhi ( gangetic plains) and i am in a campaign currently in south it would then be very easy for on of my governers (say punjab , bengal,etc) to simply march in my capital and declare himself king ( delhi has literally no defence geographically speaking )
As for china they had exellent navigable river systems yellow river,yangtze which makes transport fairly quicker so it would be easy to reach the capital in case of an attack ...
And rome had something which south asia do not have unchallenged access to Mediterranian sea ... even faster acces to any region in revolt

Ah right apologies, but that still reinforces my point, local governors close to the capital itself couldn't be trusted, how often have you heard about this occuring in other empires? And you say it yourself China's rivers make it easy to access the capital, so Chinese governors could have done the same thing too...but they didn't.
South Asia is strange, its like no one could be trusted with a position, give them a small piece of territory and they could be right near the capital itself AKA Punjab/Bengal but they'll still try and strike at Delhi

 

[Imran Khan]

every few kms in south Asia there is a culture language and heritage change

 

[Jaanbaz]

In your earlier statement, you mentioned you didn't want to be "forced" to live with south Indians/Indians.
But aren't you a resident of the UK? If you wanted to live in a homogenous society, why did your family move to the UK in the first place, where they would be forced to live with other "non-Pakistanis"?
Your statements aren't consistent to your situation.

Britain is my host country not my native land. I can understand when Brits complain about uncontrolled mass immigration, I couldn't imagine my Grandfather's native town being taken over by South Indians or any other Indians. Hope this explains your query and your obvious butthurt.

These days, it is more about similar jobs/fields/education/economic class. People tend to move to new places a lot more than before.
The points you raised still hold for the majority, though.

Pakistan's large cities all ready playing that role, Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad are home to Pakistanis from all over the country which is creating a interesting fusion of cultures found within Pakistan.

 

[313ghazi]

The only "big nations" are those where the majority has ethnically cleansed the minority. See USA, Russia, China. Ethnic minorities exist but are tiny in comparison.

 

[TurnThyCheek]

There are many instances my friend for example most famously julius ceaser when conquered gaul his greed forced him to march to rome ... when hulagu (mongolian empire ) was campainging in middle east arik and berke took advantage of it ... it all comes down to human greed
Although yes south asia in its history never had any unifying factor ... just petty kings fighting for lands of their own ... sad

There's a little difference there though, in Caesar's case Rome was a democracy with no real stability, it was more like factions being controlled by a general set of rules, basically leading to constant civil wars, both before and after Caesar, in the case of the Mongols the empire was simply too big, and the "provinces" if they can be called that were massive empires in their own right, and were also semi autonomous, if you think about it there's similiarities between the situations Caesar and Hulagu found themselves in. You wont hear an emperors own sons rebelling against him or governors constantly fighting etc thats unique to our region

The only "big nations" are those where the majority has ethnically cleansed the minority. See USA, Russia, China. Ethnic minorities exist but are tiny in comparison.

That's pretty much the same conclusion I drew earlier, yeah, if Ashoka or any other earlier ruler ruthlessly unified India like Qin Shi Huang then we might have seen more stable empires and longer lasting ones over the entire subcontinent like in other parts of the world

 

[hembo]

IMO, the main reason is the presence of large number of rivers & tributaries played a major role, specially in the Pre & late Vedic period.

While settling down from a nomadic lifestyle to agriculture based lifestyle & formation of living colonies which later developed to tiny governorates was based based on the geography of these rivers & tributaries. As it is obvious, during those days, the sub-continent was, sort of, insular from significant existential threat from outside world due to two facts, single entry point (Khyber pass) & only rudimentary development in large & quick soldier deployment methods.

These rivers, subsequently formed natural boundaries (easily defend-able) of the tiny kingdoms (Janapadas & later Maha Janapadas) that developed. See map below.

Once large scale & quick soldier deployment became easier, some of these amalgamated/ expanded into larger kingdoms from time to time. It became almost united during the Mauryas' rule (322-185 AD), Turko-Indian Tughlaq dynasty (1321-1398 CE) & Mughal's (early 17th to late 18th century) and to some extent Gupta dynasty (320 CE–650 CE). However, due the past glories/ prides of the earlier kingdoms, their ruler's lineage and/or subjects kept fighting amongst themselves to get back their kingdoms.

That is untill the British united us...

 

[Gibbs]

It is Gods grace that after 1947 India got a huge continuous landmass to call a country.

Eh.. It's not the gods you should praise but the Brits that handed you territories on a platter when they left, Some never meant to be in nation state called India.. Like the North Eastern states and Andaman and Lackshadeep islands

I think there were no big empires in tropical or near tropical areas in the entire human history.. heat and moist often make people sleepy,retreat and idealistic, colder weather tend to make people more martial,pragmatic and conquering...well just see how big Russia is.

Meso American, Aztec, Mayans, Inca's, Indochina, Sri Vijaya, Sukhothai, Sub continent Maurya, Gupta etc. etc etc

Western European empires are just a spec in history if you consider timelines

 

[大汉奸柳传志]

Meso American, Aztec, Mayans, Inca's, Indochina, Sri Vijaya, Sukhothai, Sub continent Maurya, Gupta etc. etc etc

Western European empires are just a spec in history if you consider timelines

I always wonder why the Maurya (and later the Mughals) have never conquered the land of dravidians