India was united long before Aurangzeb: Why Khawaja Asif’s 'history books' belong in the dustbin

Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif’s recent outburst, claiming that “India will be buried under the debris of its warplanes” and that the country “was never united except briefly under Aurangzeb,” is not just inflammatory rhetoric. It’s a classic textbook case of Pakistan once again weaponising historical ignorance for political theatrics. In one breath, Asif not only dismissed millennia of Indian civilisation but also cloaked Pakistan’s creation in divine sanction, saying it was “made in the name of Allah.”

Such statements reveal less about history and more about Pakistan’s deep-seated insecurity and its establishment’s reliance on religious nationalism to mask internal failures. The truth, however, is clear: India’s political unity and cultural coherence long predate the Mughals. From the Mauryas to the Guptas, empires far larger and more enduring than Aurangzeb’s once governed the subcontinent, and the idea of Bharat as a civilisational whole existed long before Pakistan was even imagined.

The explainer below challenges Asif’s claims by shedding light on the fact that political unity in the Indian subcontinent existed long before Aurangzeb. From the Mauryas to the Guptas, empires far larger and more enduring than Aurangzeb’s once governed the subcontinent, and the idea of Bharat as a civilisational whole existed long before Pakistan was even imagined.

What Asif actually said

Khawaja Asif’s comments are two things in one. First, they are military intimidation. Second, they are a historical claim aimed at denying India’s long civilisational continuity and at amplifying Pakistan’s moral or divine legitimacy. Both kinds of claims shape public opinion and foreign policy.

When a senior minister presents history as if it were raw power, it is worth checking the facts. Multiple news outlets reported Asif’s comments and his warning about the possibility of war. These are not hypothetical or rhetorical slips. They were deliberate statements by a government minister and merit a factual rebuttal.

Mughal empire under Aurangzeb was large but not unique

Aurangzeb reigned from 1658 to 1707 and expanded the Mughal control beyond previous limits by annexing many Deccan states and by pushing Mughal influence widely across the subcontinent, covering Afghanistan and Balochistan. Under him, the Mughal polity reached its greatest territorial extent. However, what’s crucial is the fact that area alone is not the whole measure of historical unity or of cultural continuity. Empires rise and fall for many reasons.

Crucially, Aurangzeb’s expansion did not create a lasting political unity. Within decades of his death, the Mughal state was fracturing, and within a century it had ceded effective control to regional powers and then to European colonial forces. Aurangzeb’s rule is therefore not a sustainable model for claiming that India was united only under him.

Maurya Empire: the first pan-subcontinental state

The Maurya Empire, founded by Chandragupta Maurya and made famous under Ashoka in the third century BCE, was the first political formation to bring most of the subcontinent under a single administration. At its height, the Maurya state extended from the Gangetic plain across what is now northern India into all of present-day Pakistan and parts of Afghanistan.

The Mauryan Empire, which flourished between 322 and 185 BCE, was larger than the Mughal Empire in terms of area, with estimates placing the Mauryan Empire at around 5 million square kilometres and the Mughal Empire at about 4 million square kilometres at their peaks.

Ashoka’s inscriptions and administrative set up show not only military control but also a central bureaucracy, roads, and uniform systems of law and public works. The Mauryan political map therefore contradicts the suggestion that pan-subcontinental unity began only in the Mughal era. The Mauryas provided an early template for governance across the subcontinent that long predated Aurangzeb by nearly two thousand years.

The Gupta era: Classical age and cultural integration

The Gupta dynasty, ruling from the fourth to the sixth century CE, covered large parts of northern and central India and extended influence into areas that now lie in Pakistan and Bangladesh. The Guptas are often called the classical age of India because of their central role in consolidating literature, science, mathematical advances, administrative models, temple cultures, and artistic styles that shaped the region for centuries. Their rule offers another example of large political formations that embodied cultural continuity and administrative cohesion long before the Mughals. Claiming that some 17th century ruler was the first to unite the subcontinent ignores these major early examples.

Other important pre-Mughal polities

Beyond the Mauryas and the Guptas, other powers held vast territories and influenced large populations. The Mauryan and Gupta examples are the most obvious when one speaks about territorial scale and cultural impact, but the idea of unity also has more localised examples. Empires such as the Kushans, which extended into Afghanistan and parts of northern India, and later regional powers such as the Cholas in the south, created administrative and cultural networks that tied large regions together. Unity, in the subcontinental sense, was complex and multi-layered. It was not an on off phenomenon that began only under Aurangzeb.

What "unity" means in the Indian context

Asif’s phrase "India was never one united nation" relies on a narrow and anachronistic idea of political unity. The idea of unity in South Asia can refer to different things. It can mean a single centralised state with uniform laws and administration. It can mean a shared culture, civilisation and civilisational memory. It can mean economic integration, common languages and literature, shared religious practices, or continuous administrative traditions. From the epic ages onwards, there were overlapping strands of cultural continuity. Sanskrit, shared religious texts, temple networks, trade, pilgrim routes, and long running administrative practices created a civilisational unity even when political power was fragmented. To reduce unity to a single emperor in the 17th century is to misunderstand how large polities and cultures work. The idea of Bharat as a civilisational unit reaches back to the epics and to Vedic and post Vedic practices. The Mahabharata and the Ramayana are not just myths. They are part of a shared cultural memory that shaped norms and transmission of values across centuries.

Maps and scale: Aurangzeb versus earlier empires

It is true that Aurangzeb expanded Mughal territory to its largest known extent. But the Mauryan empire under Ashoka reached wide swathes of the subcontinent, including modern Pakistan and into Afghanistan and nearly the entire north and many southern territories. The real contrast is that several pre-Mughal states achieved subcontinental scale, albeit at different times and in different forms. The point is that territorial reach is not a unique Mughal achievement and that invoking Aurangzeb alone as proof that India was "never united" before him is simply false. Empires wax and wane, and territorial size is only one dimension of historical unity.

Cultural unity long before medieval kings

Long before medieval Islam arrived in the subcontinent, people of the region shared many cultural references. Sanskrit literature, the spread of Buddhism and Jainism, pan-regional trade networks, and shared systems of law and learning contributed to a deep civilisational continuity. This is not to say everyone lived the same life. Local variations were intense and real. But the basic building blocks of an Indian civilisational identity existed over millennia. Claiming that cultural unity is a modern invention or that it started only with an Islamic emperor is inaccurate. The civilisational idea of Bharat has roots in the epic ages and in sustained cultural practices that link communities across present day political borders.

On the misuse of Aurangzeb as a political shibboleth

Aurangzeb is often invoked in contemporary polemics on communal lines. In Indian politics, he is used by some to critique historical intolerance. In Pakistani rhetoric, as in Asif’s comments, he is sometimes invoked to suggest a historical Muslim unity that somehow delegitimises modern India. Both uses are selective and instrumental. Aurangzeb’s reign cannot be turned into a simple proof text for either case. He did expand Mughal rule, but his policies also contributed to centrifugal forces that fractured the empire after his death. That historical nuance matters because Asif’s claim treats history as a simple propaganda tool rather than as a complex record of causes and effects.

‘Pakistan was created in the name of Allah’ – a misleading simplification

The creation of Pakistan in 1947 was a political process rooted in the two-nation theory and in decades of political movement led by the All India Muslim League and Muhammad Ali Jinnah. It involved negotiations with the British, partition lines drawn by hurried commissions, mass migrations and horrific communal violences. The new state emerged out of political ideology and contingency, not as a direct automatic act of divine sanction. Presenting Pakistan as simply created "in the name of Allah" ignores internal political debates in the subcontinent, secular voices within the Muslim leadership, and later historical facts such as the breakaway of East Pakistan into Bangladesh in 1971. That moment dramatically undermined the idea that Muslims across the subcontinent constituted a single immutable nation only defined by religion. Describing Pakistan as only a divine creation is a statement of national myth making, not of historical analysis.

Short account of the evidence against Asif’s claim

·       Empires before Aurangzeb such as the Mauryas and the Guptas already united large parts of the subcontinent. The Maurya state in the third century BCE controlled territories that include all of modern Pakistan and parts of Afghanistan.

·       Aurangzeb’s Mughal empire was large, but it was not the first or only example of large territorial unity on the subcontinent. Nor did his rule produce a stable, long term unity.

·       Civilisational and cultural unity in Bharat has deep roots in the epic ages and in shared languages, religions and administrative practices across centuries. This continuity predates medieval kings.

·       Pakistan’s creation was a political process driven by two nation theory and complex negotiations, not a simple act reducible to religious slogan. The later split with East Pakistan in 1971 underlines the limits of religious nationalism as a unifying force.

History is often weaponised. Asif’s comments are an example. They mix military threat with a distorted version of historical argument. The correct historical narrative is richer and more complicated. India’s political and cultural contours were shaped by centuries of empires, kingdoms and continuous cultural exchange. Those processes cannot be erased or dismissed by a single provocative statement from a minister who has reasons to mobilise domestic opinion through aggressive rhetoric.