The Indus region, comprising the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent (now Pakistan), has always had its distinct identity-racially, ethnically, linguistically and culturally. In the last five thousand years this region has been a part of India politically for only five hundred years. Pakistan, then, is no ‘artificial’ state conjured up by the disaffected Muslim elite of British India. Aitzaz Ahsan surveys the history of Indus–as he refers to this region-right from the time of the Harappan civilization to the era of the British Raj, concluding with independence and the creation of Pakistan. Ahsan’s message is aimed both at Indians still nostalgic about ‘undivided’ India and at his Pakistani compatriots who narrowly tend to define their identity by their ‘un-Indianness.
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