India, Feb. 15 -- "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 So...