India celebrated its fiftieth year of independence in 1997. This book has been written with a view to bring out India being the oldest civilized nation of the world. It would be demeaning the country to call it only a fifty-year-old independent country when we have been independent for lacs and crores of years, except for a small period of 140 years of British regime. The Muslim rule of about six hundred years has been taken as independent period because during this period, Muslim rulers were sovereign, independent Indian rulers rather than under any foreign power. And most of the kings were born and brought up in India and imbibed with Bhartiyata. It was the British who ruled India as a colony only, bracketing us with the newly found lands of America, Africa, and Australia; whereas, we had been the most advanced, most educated, and richest country of the world in the past, particularly during the Maurya, Gupta, and Mughal periods. Tracing the concept of independent India, this book has taken the shape of India’s full history, with specific reference to the theme of independence through ages, since vedas.
