Dear Kevin, Thanks for the post. First things first. I am an Indian but I do not wear any colour code to reveal my Indianness or patriotism.
People who dont have anything to fall back raise the history card. For fools History is a weapon, for the learned History is a lesson. Yes, I have heard of Ashoka, and someone called the Buddha too. What you have to learn from Asoka is that he did take pleasure in killing, till remorse overcame him. Ashoka stands out because he used all possible means to spread the message of love and ahimsa. Even after Kalinga, he would have had a lot more scores to settle, my your way of history.
People living with the burden of their inferiority complex over the domination of the indian peninsula by foreigners lean too much on history. It is not just the british, but the french, portugese, mughals, genghis khan, alexander....we were under the yoke for a pretty long time.
Talking of Indian History, supposing (just supposing!) that at the time of our indep, Indian peninsula was divided into say five almost equal parts, each ruled by a different foreign country. Could we have got indep as a united nation. Think Goa, think Junagarh (heard of it?
