Does Mauryan Empire has a role in present situation of India

This post was written in response to following question on Quora-

What would be the current position of India if there were strong rulers of the Mauryan Empire who were able to maintain their rule over India and defend it from all subsequent invasions that we faced?

I do not think that would have made much difference. All over the world there have been great empires in different ages, ruled by different dynasties. I do not think few more stronger generations of Mauryans could have made any difference. Even after Mauryans there have been large empires but none of those was of all India character. 

Other strong kingdoms:

The thing that could have saved India was if we were able to meet last onslaught of middle east invasion and that happened more than 1000 years after Mauryans. In between there have been many glorious dynasties in east (Pals), West (Rashtrakuts), North (Harsha) and South (Cholas) to mention few. But when crucial time came we did not have anybody.

Marathas:

Marathas were last hope which could have made the fate of India different as they could have saved us from British loot, but then they lost to Ahmed Shah Durrani of Afghanistan. 

Reasons:

There are various reasons for these changes and surprisingly those were more economic and social than political. 

Most important of those was rigid caste system. And this did not arise in one day. It did not even became rigid in one day. It has different political and economic history altogether. According to Adam Smith, known as father of economics, as any society progress there is division of labour for more efficient production. And that is how this caste system started. Slowly it became so rigid that it divided the society and divided society became so weak that anybody could invade and defeat it and then started a long downward spiral. We are still struggling against it. Only solution was social reforms.

 - Social Reforms:

And it is not that social reforms did not take place. Time to time social reforms happened. There were Gautam Buddha, Mahavir Jain, Guru Nanak Dev etc. But at a crucial junction we became a rotting society largely around 17th and 18th century.

Conclusion:

So the present situation is because of two periods. One in 12th and thirteenth century when we lost to outsiders decidedly and then in 17th - 18th century where we could not do any social reform and lagged behind in technology for the first time while Europe moved fastest after its social reforms in 16th and 17th century.

Final Solution:

Way ahead is to come out of caste system at present, spread education and reform our education system drastically to make it value based and bring it away from McCaully (system of producing useful slaves for British empire). And we have our last chance now.