Modern Indians don't like to admit this but India as a country doesn't even exist until the British arrive.
It's a collection of scattered kingdoms and the remnants of the crumbling Mughal empire, which were constantly fighting each other for petty power. It was a disconnected, disunited region of Asia that was conquered by several European countries, like France and Portugal and the Netherlands.
Eventually the British interests won out around the start of the 19th century. It was ruled by the East India Company, who didn't interfere much with local laws and customs and only secured trade routes and their interests like plantations and fortresses.
Eventually it's put under the protection of the British Raj and ruled completely like an imperial province. Where all the old rulers, the kings and princes and made to submit to the crown and the British truly start to put the country under real administration. Around the 1850s.
The British then leave in the 1940s and ONLY THEN is the modern state of India is established.
https://youtu.be/QN41DJLQmPk