A 15-year idea becomes reality
Krishna Seshadri, a Mumbai resident, spent 15 years thinking about how to make Indian history more engaging before he turned his idea into a website. BharatRajya, his interactive platform, now allows users to explore India's political past by selecting a year and seeing which dynasties controlled which regions.
The website spans more than 800 years of history, from around 700 CE to the present, covering over 1,000 districts, according to The Economic Times. As reported by Times Now, users can choose a year and watch how political control across the subcontinent shifted over time.
PM Modi's recognition
The platform caught the attention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who explored the site himself and highlighted it during the 137th episode of his monthly radio programme Mann Ki Baat. Modi also spoke with Seshadri over the phone, the Prime Minister saying he came across the project on social media around Ashadha Ekadashi.
"You go to this website, choose any one year, and you will get to know who ruled which part of Bharat at that time. This was done by Mumbai's Krishna Sheshadri," Modi said during the broadcast.
The Prime Minister called the effort "beneficial for students of history" and said it would help people "learn history in an interesting manner."
From marketing to mapping history
Seshadri, who studied engineering, went on to earn an MBA and worked in marketing, but his childhood interest in history persisted. His vision, as he describes it, was to show users a broader canvas than the usual school textbooks provide.
"We are never told who else existed alongside the Mughal empire. Who was around when Muhammad of Ghor invaded? Who was ruling in the south?” Seshadri writes on his website, according to The Economic Times. He mentions the Cholas, the Pallavas, the Karkota dynasty of Kashmir, and the Ahoms of Assam as major powers that often receive less attention.
His approach emphasises storytelling over rote memorisation. "Teach it as stories, and people carry it with them for life," Seshadri says. "Reduce it to a list of dates and events, and people start to question why the subject exists at all."
No coding, no problem
What makes BharatRajya particularly noteworthy is how it was built. Despite lacking a formal programming background, Seshadri used generative AI tools, including Anthropic's Claude, to assist with writing the website's code and building its database.
For Seshadri, the project is the culmination of a long-held dream. He jokingly called himself a boring person immersed in history and technology, but his work has earned wide recognition. He said Modi's appreciation was the biggest validation he could get for his project.
The platform's mapping data is released under a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) licence, making it freely available for others to use and build upon, as reported by both The Economic Times and Times Now.