Readers were regaled with Alexander’s short-lived and unfructuous invasion of India; they were left in ignorance of the magnificent empire and still … - Kanaiyalal Maneklal Munshi

All of us acquiesced in what Jawaharlal Nehru had already done... only one or two venturing to voice feeble criticism. Among them was Sri N.V. Gadgil for whom there was a snub: “Don’t you realize that the Himalayas are there?” I timidly ventured to say that in the seventh century Tibetans had crossed the Himalayas and invaded Kanauj.... To my knowledge the meeting suggested by Sardar did not take place... Comment is hardly necessary.

The history of Indians having a common culture…flows as a running stream through time, urged forward by the momentum of certain values and ideas and must be viewed as such… without such an attempt, the past would have no message and the future no direction.

To be a history in the true sense of the word, the work must be the story of the people inhabiting a country. It must be a record of their life from age to age presented through the life and achievements of men whose exploits become the beacon-lights of tradition; through the characteristic reaction of the people to physical and economic conditions; through political changes and vicissitudes which create the forces and conditions which operate upon life; through characteristic social institutions, beliefs and forms; through literary and artistic achievements; through the movements of thought which from time to time helped or hindered the growth of collective harmony; through those values which the people have accepted or reacted to and which created or shaped their collective will; through efforts of the people to will themselves into an organic unity. The central purpose of a history must, therefore, be to investigate and unfold the values which, age after age, have inspired the inhabitants of a country to develop their collective will and to express it through the manifold activities of their life. Such a history of India is still to be written.