Importantly, Rai drew attention to the existence of democratic and republican institutions in Bharat much before the arrival of both the Middle Eastern and European colonisers. As one of the leading lights of the Home Rule Movement, Rai’s distinction between Bharat as a civilisation and Europe’s construct of a nation indicates that at least until 1919, those who fought for this country’s decolonisation, even if gradual, were aware of its roots and had not been fully colonialised.
