Freedom fighters like Tantya Tope had the ideology one nation 'Bhartavarsha' which include India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, a noted historian said today.
"The vast landmass that today forms Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and India was known in the past as 'Bharatavarsha', the land of the Bharatas after the Rigvedic people who were called 'Bharatasantanti'," said historian Makkhan Lal.
Lal, a Professor and founder Director of Delhi Institute of Heritage Research and Management, said this while delivering a lecture on 'First War of Independence and the Indian Nation' organised by the Culture Ministry to commemorate the 200th birth anniversary of Tope.
"Freedom fighters like Tantya Tope, Nanaji Peshwa and others had only one ideology - that is Indian nationhood and only one nation that was Bharatavarsha," he said.
Lal said the British could not believe that India's vast geographical dimensions, it's cultural diversity and religious plurality could co-exist within one nation and "they spread the myth that India was never a nation and that they are the one who united it politically and made it into a nation".
Lal quoted various scholars and ancient Indian texts to define the geography and culture of India.
Dr Rajesh Tope, one of the fourth generation descendants of Tantya Tope, explored Tantya Tope's Operation Red Lotus in 1857 as a Maratha-Mughal alliance against the British and highlighted that 1857 was a battle that was "lost, but the war was won".
