Indian news broadcaster CNN-News 18 has attracted criticism from around the world, after a show aired by the channel debated the idea of an "undivided India" or "Akhand Bharat".
According to historical texts, the entire region from Afghanistan in Central Asia to the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) in China was under the influence of ancient kingdoms under different rulers. Modern-day India was the region's seat of power.
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Chanakya, an ancient Indian philosopher, is believed to be the first person to propose the idea of "Akhand Bharat" as early as the third century BC. Back then, the modern-day nations of Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Burma, Bhutan, Bangladesh, as well as China's TAR were subdivided into many small kingdoms.
The biggest of them all was the Maurya Empire, which had its capital in the modern Indian state of Bihar.
Then, in the seventeenth century, the borders of the Mughal Empire, with its capital in northern India, extended up to Samarkhand in Uzbekistan.
CNN-News 18, jointly promoted by Network 18 and New York-based Warner Media, invited an Islamic scholar to a debate on its show "Right Perspective" on the possibility of having an "undivided India". The scholar, Maulana Shahabuddin Razvi, Ulama-e-Islam, All India Tanzeem, invoked the Mughal Empire to argue the benefits of having such a concept.
"We are currently running a campaign for having an undivided India", Razi said."It is a concept that is meant to unite rather than divide. Religion was never a basis of dividing countries in the region. Religion has sown the seeds of discord in the region".
The anchor of the show underlined that India, in its present form, is only "35-40 percent" of the territory it used to be under ancient rulers.
The anchor also argued that an undivided India would not only be a "major economic superpower", but also constitute the "world's biggest army", should it materialise.
Meanwhile, the map used by the channel to promote the show depicts the entire region from Western Asia right up to Tibet as part of an "undivided India".
While some social media users ridiculed the channel for hosting such a show, others expressed concerns about the effects of such a discourse on India's neighbours.
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological parent of India's governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has long advocated the idea of "Akhand Bharat".
"There is a need to make a glorious Akhand Bharat for the welfare of the universe. That's why there is a need to awaken patriotism. India needs to be united once again", RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat said in February of this year.