Saif Ali Khan has commented that there was no concept of India before the British. Speaking to a portal, the Bollywood actor suggested that his movie 'Tanhaji' has created Bharat as a fiction for the purpose of the story. The remark has come to be described as juvenile and uneducated by students of history.

For example, author and economic commentator Sanjeev Sanyal says that the geographical extent of India, as described in the Vishnu Purana, includes the Eastern Ghats, Nilgiris, Sahyadris (Western Ghats), Aravalis, Satpura, Eastern Vindhyas, and Western Vindhyas.

Scientist and columnist Anand Ranganathan shares a map of India drawn by a famous cartographer more than a century ago on the basis of all the places mentioned in the Mahabharata, the age-old Indian epic. The map includes all of today's India and of course Pakistan and Bangladesh. "Nations weaken not because of their past but, rather, by how they are taught it," he writes.

Columnist Anurag Saxena hits out at Saif and tweets out, “There was no India till British came”. Toh ‘East *India* Company’ time-machine se bani thi kya?"

Canadian commentator Tarek Fatah is unforgiving when he says, "Bollywood ‘history buff’ Saif Ali Khan claims that there was no concept of India until the British came. Yeah, right. French East India Company was about China and Vasco D’Gama went to Fiji. Last time Saif invoked history, he named his son Timur."