Defining Identity and Indian History

The special quality of South Asian history was well understood by Jawaharlal Nehru, who observed in his Discovery of India that its 'peculiar quality was absorption, synthesis' and that its story resembled:

"Some ancient palimpset on which layer upon layer of thought and reveries has been inscribed, and yet no succeeding layer had completely hidden or erased what has been written previously. All of them exist together in our conscious and sub-sconscious selves, though we may not be aware of them, and they have gone to build up the complete, mysterious personality of India."
The modern Indian state maybe much younger than the so-called developed Western democracies but much before the land that we now know as Australia, inter alia, were even colonized; there existed a civilization which Toybbee described as 'A spring of life which offers refreshment such as nowhere else can be found.' The idea that is India has existed since time immemorial, and forever shall. You know who you are. :)