“India was a cultural unit long before it became a political unit.” – Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India
The nation-state is a modern political invention. Civilisations, however, are far older and far more complex, and they do not conform to arbitrary lines drawn to divide nations. The partition of the Indian subcontinent, carried out by the British with little regard for the region’s civilisational and cultural continuity, imposed borders largely based on religion. When such political boundaries are drawn across ancient cultural landscapes, they leave behind unresolved questions, none more persistent than this: Who inherits a shared cultural past?
This question has increasingly become the subject of debate in South Asia, where the 1947 Partition created new nation-states based on religion but could not divide culture itself. Traditions, textiles, festivals, art forms and symbols that evolved organically over centuries suddenly found themselves separated by borders. The challenge since then has been how successor states narrate this inheritance, whether as a shared civilisational legacy or as exclusive national property.
Pakistan’s Search for Historical Legitimacy
In its early decades, Pakistan prioritised an Islamic identity, often sidelining its pre-Islamic past. Unlike the Taliban in Afghanistan, which physically destroyed ancient Buddhist heritage, Pakistan did not undertake a systematic demolition of archaeological monuments. Yet many Hindu temples were neglected, repurposed or destroyed, reflecting a deeper discomfort with acknowledging non-Islamic cultural continuities.
In recent years, however, Pakistan has increasingly projected the Indus Valley Civilisation as the central pillar of its national history, positioning Pakistan as its principal heir. While geography may favour Pakistan, it sits uneasily with an ideological contradiction. Pakistan’s dominant cultural framework is rooted in Islam, a faith that originated outside the Indus region. Meanwhile, many IVC cultural practices have survived most visibly within Hindu traditions that today largely exist in India.
This is felt with Pakistan’s recent revival of Basant celebrations after a ban lasting nearly two decades; the festival returned to Lahore in 2026, with kites once again filling the sky, and the entire city turned yellow amid the noise of green. While promoted as a distinctly Pakistani celebration, differentiating from India’s Basant Panchami, historical evidence complicates this claim. Paintings and records from the Sikh period show Maharaja Ranjit Singh celebrating Basant in Lahore, underscoring its roots in the region’s shared cultural past. Pakistan, which primarily follows the Islamic calendar, has no indigenous religious linkage to Basant, making its revival a cultural rediscovery rather than a civilizational innovation. After all, religious identity cannot account for the geographical seasons on which Basant is largely based, marking the arrival of spring in the subcontinent. Following the Islamic calendar, it would not be possible to track these seasonal changes accurately.
Pakistan’s military and intellectual circles put it bluntly that Egyptians and Iranians would remain who they are even without Islam. Without Islam, Pakistanis would struggle to define themselves as anything other than part of Indian culture. This is because Pakistan adopted Islam from the Arab world while inheriting much of its culture from the Indian subcontinent. Pakistan continues to wrestle with a national identity distinct from India. Much like railway tracks where overhead wires seem to run parallel before meeting at a junction, its cultural life often drifts alongside Indian traditions until reminders of religious identity pull it back. Extremist voices, including Pakistan’s army chief Asim Munir in early 2025 before the Pahalgam attack, have reinforced this. Left unchecked, shared habits, traditions, and expressions naturally resurface, reflecting a common civilisational heritage.
Such anxieties often surface in symbolic gestures, which often seem desperate. For example, when India began emphasising the name Bharat alongside India on the global stage, many Pakistani scholars started suggesting that Pakistan should adopt the name ‘India’ if New Delhi were to abandon it. The suggestion revealed less about nomenclature and more about the continuing struggle over historical legitimacy.
Bangladesh and the Politics of Cultural Ownership
A similar clash for cultural inheritance exists in Bangladesh. In recent times, radicals have aimed to portray Bangladesh as a truly Islamic nation, yet fully abandoning its rich Bangla culture proves difficult. Traditional elements such as the Jamdani saree, which are deeply rooted in the broader Indian civilizational heritage, continue to persist. In recent years, Jamdani has increasingly been promoted as an exclusively Bangladeshi cultural symbol. This narrative drew attention when Miss Bangladesh portrayed the Hindu goddess Saraswati wearing a Jamdani saree, an unexpected move amid the country’s growing religious conservatism following recent political upheavals. This narrative was aggravated when Bangladesh sought to assert this cultural claim through an exhibition titled “Celebrating Jamdani: A Living Heritage from Bangladesh” at the National Crafts Museum and Hastkala Academy in New Delhi in September 2025, an officially sanctioned event.
Critics in India argued that this amounted to Indian culture being repackaged under a single national label, while others noted that cultures do not emerge fully formed within a few decades but evolve over long historical arcs, as some elements are modified and become distinct from existing ones, while others are born with the help of existing popular cultures. Bangladesh’s cultural assertion coincides with its economic considerations, particularly the need to strengthen narratives around its globally significant textile and garment industry.
Historically, the picture is nuanced. While the specific term Jamdani and its distinctive figured weaving technique are most clearly documented during the Mughal period, particularly under royal patronage in Bengal, the tradition of producing exceptionally fine cotton textiles in the region is far older. Ancient texts such as Kautilya’s Arthashastra refer to high-quality cotton fabrics from regions like Vanga and Pundra, indicating a deep-rooted textile culture in what was unified Bengal. In this case, what Bangladesh showcases, however, is continuity. The artisanal communities, techniques and everyday cultural relevance of Jamdani have been preserved most consistently within its borders. India, despite being part of the same historical continuum, has struggled to sustain comparable craftsmanship at scale.
Identity and the Limits of Exclusivity
Both Bangladesh and Pakistan continue to grapple with Islam that defies such practices while defining national cultures that are distinct yet historically credible. The deeper challenge lies in their attempts to assert identities completely separate from India while inevitably retaining cultural elements rooted in the subcontinent. Sometimes this retention is unavoidable; other times it is selective, reflecting political, social, or economic considerations. In either case, their attempts to claim exclusivity often clash with historical continuity, creating controversies and public debates over cultural ownership
Cultural Confidence Over Competition
Culture does not obey borders. It survives through memory, practice, language and craft. When modern states attempt to monopolise fragments of an older, shared inheritance, they turn civilisation into a political instrument.
For India, this debate offers an opportunity. Cultural confidence does not require competitive ownership or reactive outrage. It demands preservation, promotion and sustained support for living traditions. If India wishes to assert its civilisational inheritance, it must do so not merely through historical claims but by investing in artisans, festivals and cultural ecosystems at home. After all, unlike Pakistan and Bangladesh, the partition did not redefine India’s civilisational heritage; it retains continuity in the modern nation-state of India.
