True.
In fact, this whole thing about 'true origins' is a farce because we are comparing historic migrations of people from a time when the concept of the nation state - border control - citizenship - immigration was not as solid as it is now. When someone says X community came from outside, then the question arises, 'outside of where'? the current political boundaries?
@Rudra Mahalaya The idea of nationhood is a complex subject. If you go strictly by the social sciences definition of a 'nation', it is based on ethnic nationalities. So they consider 'Tamil people' as a nation. If you go by political theory, then it rejects the idea of 'a nation of people' and introduces a new concept of nation state built of multi-ethnic multi cultural people. If you take the economic definition, they they reject both, nation and nation state and focus only on 'state'. They don't care about ethnicity or political beliefs. They look at a state from the economic output and purchasing power. If it suits their free market agenda, they recommend the annexing of territory or breaking up of nations based on which parts of the nation are performing well and which parts are dead weight.
If you go by India's definition, then we reject all the above definitions and have our own definition called a 'civilizational state' where we have many ethnic groups, language groups, religions etc, but the core civilizational values are common (spanning from cuisine to attitudes towards money, saving, relationships, respect for elders). It is not limited by geography. That is why, even though we lost 30% land in partition, as per civilization theory, everything from Sindh river to Himalays is a part of our Sindhu civilization. The political setback of partition is seen as a temporary tactical loss, hence the idea of an Akhand Bharat looms in our minds because that is our civilizational concept of nationhood, which does not match the nation-state concept which was imposed on us when we were colonized. Similar Afghanistan has its own definition of Afghan nationhood which is civilizational in nature but they have not been colonized.
Nations built on the Christian concept of nationhood have crumbled already. The EU project failed because member states, despite being all white skinned people with Christian beliefs couldn't find common ground. Within that division, there are sub divisions where Scotts want to split apart, the Irish have already split apart, not to mention IRA terrorist groups. So, despite having so many common and overlapping markers (all white Christians), in addition to a big economy and low population density they couldn't keep their people glued together with a common narrative.
Afghanistan is just the opposite of that. There is no homogenous 'Afghan' ethnicity, just like there is no one Indian ethnicity. They have their Shias, and Sunnis, Pathans and Hazaras, their haves and have nots, their elites and tribals, Urdu speakers and Pashto, Darri speakers, but despite all the differences there is one common civilizational glue binding them together. They absorbed groups which they wanted to absorb and the new 'invaders' became naturalized citizens of the Afghan nationhood narrative, and they themselves defended the nation from other invaders. This is not the same as the US or Russia invading Afghanistan. When these powers invaded, they did it with the intention of retaining their own identity and imposing it on the Afghans, so they were rejected by Afghan society, unlike the central Asian 'invaders' which you mentioned who settled and intermingled with Afghan society.
The Sikhs went there, the Dogras went there, the Rajputs went there, the Marathas went there, even Buddhists went there, and each one of them has fought and won battles in Afghanistan, but were they able to stay, subjugate and colonize Afghanistan on a long term basis like the British or Mughals colonized India? Were the invaders successful in imposing their own culture in such a manner Afghans started saying, "we are not Afghans anymore, we are Mughals/Christians?".
Now compare that with Pakistan, which is an artificial state, where people think they are not Indian but Arabs. Now, THAT is true colonization where the subject loses his own identity and takes on the identity of the colonizer.
