Who Created Harappan / Indus Valley Civilisation? | How Did It End? | Samvaad With Devdutt Pattanaik

[Master Chief]

The Pakistan movement was built around the argument that Muslims and Hindus of India constituted distinct nations because of their different religious and cultural identities.

How is any of this incorrect, and how does any of this obviate the realities of our genomic origin?

 

[Master Chief]

Pakistanis claiming to be the inheritors of the Indus Valley Civilisation raises an interesting contradiction with the very foundations of the Two-Nation Theory and, with the ideological basis on which Pakistan was created.

No contradiction saar. Only what you have been taught at whatsapp university.

 

[Master Chief]

This is what I don't follow. Error by whom? Based on what? Do you have any proof Archemenids didn't call the others as Hindus? You can't which is why applying rigid modern geography to your so called "ancient Pakistan" fails.

The Achaememids did not substantially explore or document that which lay to the east. You're asking me to prove a negative and a void in their documentation. But there is consensus that different "kingdoms" existed to the east. What was later known as the Nandas to Alexander was most probably related to the kingdom of Magadha and certain "Mahajanapadas" before then.

The picture is evidently that of a highly fragmented region of the world, with inherent discontinuity of political dominion. Attempts to define them altogether as "India" remains a disingenuous act of "lumping", a concept that was true then as it was in 1947.

In fact, the linguistic evidence further supports there being a hard cultural boundary between Hindush and Magadha. Magadha had a script, a vedic Brahmi script, unsurprisingly. The people of Hindush had no script between the prior collapse of IVC and the arrival of the Persians, who of course brought cuneiform/aramaic etc with them.

You don't need indus script to talk about Hindush. But if you're so much into geographical seperation, you should have your own DNA study on IVC skeleton remains found in your country. Effectively rendering the whole Narasimhan et al. useless for "ancient" Pakistan and as a purely Gangetic civilizational relic. As soon as that comes up, you switch to genetic argument.

Also, for argument sake how is the word Hindu persian when the underlying word itself is from Sanskrit, Sindhu.

Already discussed. The Persians dropped the "S" and persianised the word. I never denied the original source as being Sanskrit. You're arguing against something I did not say.

Oh well, it again doesn't negate the history. Archemenids may have called them Hindus and Greeks may have used the term for them entirely and called it India. If you consider Greeks as erroneous, why not consider Archemenids as erroneous too? They wrongly called land of Bharata as Hindush. Why do you use Greek name India then? Why not Hindush?
Then again this process is completely normal linguistically. A geographical name can originate from one river or region and subsequently expand enormously in reference. The original referent doesn't permanently constrain what the word can mean.

The only mythology here is the misnomer called ancient Pakistan. Bharata is a tribe that won the battle of ten kings. That etymology expanded just like it did for Hindush to India. Nomenclature in geography always have expanded, or Pakistan wouldn't include Balochistan, do you not consider it Pakistan because the modern Pakistan didn't include that part of the border when Pakistan was created?

Very simply. And I have said this before on this thread but you seem to forget. Extrapolating an accurate and plausible and entirely logical descriptive term for the denizens of the Indus Valley (I.e. Hindush) to then incorporate the entirety of theoretical Bharat is exactly that - an EXTRAPOLATION. It can be overturned if evidence explains to the contrary and I have already provided that evidence from multiple perspectives, even the Vedic perspective itself!

Ancient Pakistan is not a myth. It is as real as Ancient Egypt. Egypt is a good example of how an abrahamic descendant population can easily claim its antecedent progenitor civilisation. Not one Egyptian alive today denies their Ancient Egyptian history. Their religion changed, tribes came and went, but ancient Egypt is just that - what existed before in coterminous Egypt. The same can be said of anywhere in the world.

India has created and nurtured its own state of confusion by seizing this name. Had you stuck with Bharat in 1947, none of us would be wasting our time on this matter today.

Only you're objecting to the nomenclature in 2026 or calling it as an error, not the Archemenids or Greeks, I think we can safely dismiss such objections.

It can't be dismissed because your nation continues to exert an erroneous and malevolent interpretation of events in your favour. You would perhaps like for it to be dismissed but citizens of Pakistan will continue to fight for ownership of their own legacy. This thread is a case in point.

That legacy further defines the nationhood for Pakistan that Delhi seeks to deny. Simply put, if you steal enough of our history, your case that "Pakistan is an artificial construct and a dismembering of the true nation that existed here" gains credence - what made you ever think in your wildest dreams we would let that happen?

 

[Master Chief]

South Asian Muslims descend from local converts, so a large shared ancestral component remains. However, the practice of Inbreeding (Marrying Cousins) for roughly eight centuries has produced significant genetic differentiation. Continuous Inbreeding reduces gene flow with Hindu populations and increases the frequency of certain alleles and runs of homozygosity within Muslim groups.

As a result, average genetic distances between co-regional Hindu/Sikh populations are much larger than zero, and in some cases phenotype distributions (facial features, stature, skin tone gradients, etc.) are statistically distinguishable—for example between Punjabi Hindus/Sikhs and Punjabi Muslims (from pakistan), or between Bengali Hindus and Bangladeshi Muslims—even though substantial overlap still exists.


In short: common deep ancestry is real, but eight centuries of inbreeding in Muslims have produced detectable genetic and phenotypic divergence; cultural divergence is even clearer. The blanket assertion that the two groups are “the same people” therefore overstates both the genetic and the cultural continuity.

Wtf even is this?

 

[Master Chief]

I agree that Pakistani Muslims are culturally and genetically distinct from Indian Hindus and Sikhs. Centuries of Inbreeding in pakistani muslims, different historical trajectories, and divergent cultural practices have produced real differences between these groups.

However, the claim that the Indus Valley Civilization was created by Pakistani Muslims is false.

What then explains the missing chromosome that you seem to be afflicted with?

 

[Ali_Baba]

Wtf even is this?

Just put Aghor Warrior on your ignore list - he is here to just troll...

 

[peagle]

You're correct of course on this. To a degree I am speculating, being devil's advocate. Religious texts in isolation should not be deployed as hard evidence in any context. But my point is that in this case, even the Vedic texts abrogate the theory that "India" was an endonym. "Bharat" was the fantasy referred to, not "Hind/India/Sindhudesh" or any such derivative, even in these texts.

100% agree, i've had many such debates on that very point.

My personal favourite is,
Please name one King who ruled over this so-called Bharat, which territory did he rule over and during which time period.
I'm yet to get an answer lol

Perhaps my style has developed into a little too on the nose lol

 

[PAKISTANFOREVER]

Pakistanis claiming to be the inheritors of the Indus Valley Civilisation raises an interesting contradiction with the very foundations of the Two-Nation Theory and, with the ideological basis on which Pakistan was created.

The Pakistan movement was built around the argument that Muslims and Hindus of India constituted distinct nations because of their different religious and cultural identities.

How does ANY of that negate the fact that the ancestors of Pakistan where the pioneers of the Indus Valley, Mohenjebdaro and Harappa civilisations? What has partition in 1947 have any connection to this fact?

 

[PAKISTANFOREVER]

I agree that Pakistani Muslims are culturally and genetically distinct from Indian Hindus and Sikhs. Centuries of Inbreeding in pakistani muslims, different historical trajectories, and divergent cultural practices have produced real differences between these groups.

However, the claim that the Indus Valley Civilization was created by Pakistani Muslims is false.

Whatever breeding Indians are doing, one thing is for certain, indians are producing the world's most physically repulsive, ugliest and inferior looking people planet earth has ever seen.
proto-dravidian indians are even more ugly and look worst than chimpanzees.

Modern day Pakistanis are indigenous to those lands and are the descendants of those who have inhabited those lands for at least 6000 years. So yes, they are descendants of the pioneers and inhabitants of the Indus Valley, Harappa and Mohenjendaro civilisations.

 

[peagle]

India’s civilisational identity is deeply rooted in Hinduism. For thousands of years, Hindu thought has shaped not only how Indians understand the divine, but also how we see the world around us. Our sacred texts speak of the rivers we revere, the mountains we consider sacred, the trees and plants we worship, and the animals that occupy a place in our stories, rituals, and traditions. Nature itself is not merely something to be conquered or consumed; it is often seen as sacred, as part of the same cosmic existence of which humanity is a part.

From the Himalayas to the southern seas, from the Ganga to the countless rivers of India, these landscapes are woven into our sacred stories and collective memory. Our festivals, food, customs, family traditions, moral values, and relationship with nature have all been profoundly influenced by Hindu civilisation.

This is why Hinduism, for us Indians, is not simply a religion—it is a civilisational inheritance that has shaped the way generations of people have understood life, nature, society, duty, and the universe itself. It is a thread connecting India’s past with its present, running from north to south and east to west.

In some areas of North India, a country created in 1947, people don't marry in the same village because a girl from the same village is seen as equivalent to a sister. It does happen, but people try not to, depending on the village.

In South India, a man can marry his sisters daughter, it is part of their culture. Is this part of the same cultural framework.

Are these the same moral values you're referring to?
They seem wildly contradictory positions.

 

[PAKISTANFOREVER]

View attachment 213275

If you posted a picture of ALL 1.5+ billion indians on this planet, reality would set in.

indian vivek ramaswamy says hi:

 

[peagle]

that Delhi seeks

I don't know if you guys are aware, before Delhi was made the capital of British colony of India in 1911, Delhi was ruled by Punjab for nearly half a century.
Perhaps we should ask for it's return lol

 

[Vikramaditya1]

The Achaememids did not substantially explore or document that which lay to the east. You're asking me to prove a negative and a void in their documentation.

That's pointless anyway, Indian sources pretty much defined who they are sans Gandharans. So Archemenids saying Hindush, and Greeks expanding the meaning is natural progression.

But there is consensus that different "kingdoms" existed to the east. What was later known as the Nandas to Alexander was most probably related to the kingdom of Magadha and certain "Mahajanapadas" before then.

The picture is evidently that of a highly fragmented region of the world, with inherent discontinuity of political dominion. Attempts to define them altogether as "India" remains a disingenuous act of "lumping", a concept that was true then as it was in 1947.


In fact, the linguistic evidence further supports there being a hard cultural boundary between Hindush and Magadha. Magadha had a script, a vedic Brahmi script, unsurprisingly. The people of Hindush had no script between the prior collapse of IVC and the arrival of the Persians, who of course brought cuneiform/aramaic etc with them.

Nice try. What you're doing is quietly changing the proposition from “these regions were politically fragmented” which is true to “therefore treating them as belonging to a wider geographical/cultural India is disingenuous lumping.” The latter simply does not follow from the former.

Political sovereignty is not the criterion by which geographical or civilizational regions are defined. Classical Greece remained Greece while divided among Athens, Sparta, Thebes, Corinth and numerous other poleis. “Mesopotamia” describes territories that repeatedly contained competing states. The existence of Magadha, Kosala, Avanti, Gandhara... means political plurality, not the absence of broader geographical or cultural relationships. It's not Athens culture or sparta Culture.

Coming to Magadha, there is nothing called vedic brahmi script. Brahmi is a script, it was written in Maghadhi Prakrit, not Sanskrit. Also the absense of evidence in western side of India doesn't mean they had no script, they had no surviving script. The only reason Brahmi script even survived harsh weather of North India is because it's written on stones and pillars. They most probably wrote things on processed leaf.

Already discussed. The Persians dropped the "S" and persianised the word. I never denied the original source as being Sanskrit. You're arguing against something I did not say.

My argument isn't that you denied the Sanskrit etymology. It's that you can't use the Achaemenid adoption of Hindush to establish some pre existing hard civilizational boundary between the Indus region and the rest of northern India. The Persians inherited an Indic geographical name and applied it within their own imperial geography.

Very simply. And I have said this before on this thread but you seem to forget. Extrapolating an accurate and plausible and entirely logical descriptive term for the denizens of the Indus Valley (I.e. Hindush) to then incorporate the entirety of theoretical Bharat is exactly that - an EXTRAPOLATION. It can be overturned if evidence explains to the contrary and I have already provided that evidence from multiple perspectives, even the Vedic perspective itself!

The fact that Hindush derives from Sindhu tells me why the name arose it does not establish that “India” must forever be restricted to the Indus basin. “Asia” and “Africa” likewise began as names for much smaller regions than those they eventually designated. That expansion doesn't make the later geographical concepts fraudulent.

You keep saying you've provided evidence of a hard cultural discontinuity, but political fragmentation isn't such evidence. Independent Mahajanapadas demonstrate separate political sovereignty, not separate civilizations.

Ancient Pakistan is not a myth. It is as real as Ancient Egypt. Egypt is a good example of how an abrahamic descendant population can easily claim its antecedent progenitor civilisation. Not one Egyptian alive today denies their Ancient Egyptian history. Their religion changed, tribes came and went, but ancient Egypt is just that - what existed before in coterminous Egypt. The same can be said of anywhere in the world.

You're confusing between the ancient history of the territory that is now Pakistan and ancient Pakistan. One is real the other is, I'm wrong, I wouldn't call it a myth, a myth has a foundation.
Ancient Pakistan retrojects a modern political geographical category onto periods in which no entity called Pakistan existed. Not by geography or culture or civilization no matter how many times you try to hypothesise based on Hindush it simply can't be looked seriously.

India has created and nurtured its own state of confusion by seizing this name. Had you stuck with Bharat in 1947, none of us would be wasting our time on this matter today.

Yeah no, it was India for over two thousand years. That's like saying if Microsoft Office dropped Access from the suite, Microsoft Office would have to stop calling itself Office.
Access leaving wouldn't make Access office, nor would it make the remaining Office suites continued use of its existing name an act of seizing it. Even if Access somehow was first to be called office.

It can't be dismissed because your nation continues to exert an erroneous and malevolent interpretation of events in your favour. You would perhaps like for it to be dismissed but citizens of Pakistan will continue to fight for ownership of their own legacy. This thread is a case in point.

Nobody is stopping you from celebrating Gandhara, Takshashila, or Indus Valley, it is afterall part of Pakistan. Hello? It's inside Pakistan. We are not declaring war over it.

But you cannot blame India for recognising its own extraordinary cultural continuity across millennia. That continuity is not something Delhi manufactured in 1947.

That legacy further defines the nationhood for Pakistan that Delhi seeks to deny. Simply put, if you steal enough of our history, your case that "Pakistan is an artificial construct and a dismembering of the true nation that existed here" gains credence - what made you ever think in your wildest dreams we would let that happen?

I find this line of argument funny you almost sound like a victim. Pakistan wasn't created based on some deep civilizational difference between Gandhara, Indus, Ganga Yamuna, that's something you invented in recent years. India Pakistan difference was rather simple, your apathy towards your own cultural artefacts is not on us. It's interesting when ML popularised this slogan "Pakistan ka matlab kya? ...." ( You can finish that like for me. ) they didn't include this much civilizational importance as you did, in a long and possibly time consuming argument. May be you were born in the wrong century.

For India Pakistan is more like a compromise for the British to leave, violence to end and a need for relatively peaceful internal structure. India is not looking to regress to the pre 1947 plan.