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The area within our frame, despite being relatively flat, has always been too large and diverse to have strong central rule. Even the British colonial overlords, with their famed bureaucracy and connecting rail system, allowed regional autonomy and indeed used it to play local leaders off against each other. The linguistic and cultural diversity is partially due to the differences in climate - for example, the freezing north of the Himalayas in contrast to the jungles of the south - but it is also because of the subcontinent's rivers and religions.