> I think you should distinguish Indian versus Pakistani versus Bangladeshi. It’s not a group of people who want to be lumped together, same with Koreans, Chinese, and Japanese.
It is a very different situation though. 100 years ago, there was just one country, India – with a great deal of internal ethnic, linguistic, and religious diversity. And then, it was split into two over religion, and then one of those splits split again (due to a whole host of issues, although ethnicity and language were both significant factors). Whereas, China, Japan and Korea were distinct countries going back many centuries. You aren't comparing like and like here.
> They're also far less closely related to each other than say British people and French people.
In ethnic and linguistic terms, the majority populations of both Dhaka and Kolkata are basically the same people, the big difference is their religion (although Kolkata is 20% Muslim, and Dhaka around 3-4% Hindu). One can make similar points about the relationship between Lahore and Ludhiana. It is true that people in Dhaka and Lahore are not closely related, but the same is true between Kolkata and Ludhiana. The case of the British and French doesn't have any real parallels.