“Taxila Isn’t Pakistani — Any More Than Troy Is Turkish!”, TheAustraliaToday, 2 Sep 2026.

“Not too long ago, Timothy Kane, Australia’s High Commissioner to Pakistan, stood in Taxila and wrote: “Walking through #Taxila, it’s impossible not to be struck by the depth of Pakistan’s history… A fascinating visit and a beautiful reminder of 🇵🇰 rich heritage.

The sentiment, surprising for a senior diplomat, is rooted in a flawed reading of history and deserves correction. Taxila was a prominent city of ancient India, home to one of the world’s oldest known centres of higher learning. Before the concept of the nation-state was codified in the Westphalian settlement, places were understood as parts of civilisations, not states. The city of Troy, immortalised in Homer’s epics, now lies within modern Turkey — but that does not make the Iliad and the Odyssey Turkish literature.

Pakistan is a state carved out of India less than 80 years ago, founded on the ideology that Hindus and Muslims could not live together as one nation. India, by contrast, is the world’s oldest continuous living civilisation and its largest secular democracy. To ascribe any part of ancient Indian civilisation to the modern state of Pakistan does a disservice to history itself………….”

Read the full article at TheAustraliaToday.