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History

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Indian history can be broadly categorized into five major eras; Vedic Era, Golden age, Mughal Rule, the British Era and Modern India. For more details vide:

Main articles: History of India and History of the Republic of India

Vedic Era

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Main article: Vedic period

Stone Age rock shelters with paintings at the Bhimbetka rock shelters in Madhya Pradesh are the earliest known traces of human life in India. The first known permanent settlements appeared about 8,500 years ago and gradually developed into the Indus Valley Civilisation,[1] dating back to 3400 BCE in western India. It was followed by the Vedic period, which laid the foundations of Hinduism and other cultural aspects of early Indian society, and ended in the 500s BCE. From around 550 BCE, many independent kingdoms and republics known as the Mahajanapadas were established across the country.[2]

Damaged brown painting of a reclining man and woman.
Paintings at the Ajanta Caves in Aurangabad, Maharashtra, sixth century

Golden age

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Main article: Golden Age of India

In the third century BCE, most of South Asia was united into the Maurya Empire by Chandragupta Maurya and flourished under Ashoka the Great.[3] From the third century CE, the Gupta dynasty oversaw the period referred to as ancient "India's Golden Age".[4] Empires in Southern India included those of the Chalukyas, the Cholas and the Vijayanagara Empire. Science, technology, engineering, art, logic, language, literature, mathematics, astronomy, religion and philosophy flourished under the patronage of these kings. Trade and commerce were also at it's peak during this era.[5][6] Aryabhata the philosopher was from this age.[7] The place-value system, first seen in the 3rd century Bakhshali Manuscript, was clearly in place in his work. While he did not use a symbol for zero, the French mathematician Georges Ifrah argues that knowledge of zero was implicit in Aryabhata's place-value system as a place holder for the powers of ten with null coefficients.[8] The approximate numerical value of pi () is also believed to have been first calculated by him.[9]

Mughal Rule

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Main article: Mughal Empire

Following invasions from Central Asia between the 10th and 12th centuries, much of North India came under the rule of the Delhi Sultanate and later the Mughal Empire. Under the rule of Akbar the Great, India enjoyed much cultural and economic progress as well as religious harmony.[10][11] Mughal emperors gradually expanded their empires to cover large parts of the subcontinent. However, in North-Eastern India, the dominant power was the Ahom kingdom of Assam, among the few kingdoms to have resisted Mughal subjugation. The first major threat to Mughal imperial power came from a Hindu Rajput king Maha Rana Pratap of Mewar in the 16th century and later from a Hindu state known as the Maratha confederacy, that ruled much of India in the mid-18th century.[12] Akbar Shah II acceded to the much diminished empire of the Mughals and ruled until 1837. His son Bahadur Shah Zafar would be the last emperor of Mughals before the British deposed him in 1858 and the Mughal dynasty would officially come to an end.[13]

British Era

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Main article: British Raj
A 1912 map of 'Northern India The Revolt of 1857-59'
A 1912 map of 'Northern India The Revolt of 1857-59' showing the centres of rebellion including the principal ones: Meerut, Delhi, Cawnpore (Kanpur), Lucknow, Jhansi, and Gwalior.

From the 16th century, European powers such as Portugal, the Netherlands, France, and Great Britain established trading posts and later took advantage of internal conflicts to establish colonies in the country. The British East India Company had been given permission by the Mughal emperor Jahangir in 1617 to trade in India.[14] Gradually their increasing influence led the de-jure Mughal emperor Farrukh Siyar to grant them dastaks or permits for duty free trade in Bengal in 1717.[15] The Nawab of Bengal Siraj Ud Daulah, the de facto ruler of the Bengal province, opposed British attempts to use these permits. This led to the Battle of Plassey in 1757, in which the 'army' of East India Company, led by Robert Clive, defeated the Nawab's forces[16] and the subsequent commencement of the Company rule in India.[17] The rule lasted until 1858, when, after the Indian rebellion of 1857 and consequent of the Government of India Act 1858, the British government assumed the task of directly administering India in the new British Raj.[18] The direct British imperialist rule saw a rapid development of the railways, roads, canals, bridges and telegraph links so that raw materials, such as cotton, could be transported more efficiently from the hinterlands to ports, such as Bombay, for subsequent export to England.[19] Similarly, costlier finished goods from England were transported back just as efficiently, for sale in the burgeoning Indian markets.[20] Although famines were not new to the subcontinent, the Raj was marked by an increase in the number of large-scale famines in India.[21] Despite efforts by the colonial authorities to reduce the impact of the severe famines caused by numerous drought and crop failures, British economic and trade policies towards colonial India contributed to the problems and between 1760 - 1944, tens of millions died within British India due to famine.[22]

Two smiling men in robes sitting on the ground, with bodies facing the viewer and with heads turned toward each other. The younger wears a white Nehru cap; the elder is bald and wears glasses. A half dozen other people are in the background.
Mahatma Gandhi (right) with Jawaharlal Nehru, 1937. Nehru would go on to become India's first prime minister in 1947.

In the 20th century, a nationwide struggle for independence was launched by the Indian National Congress and other political organisations.[23] Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi led millions of people in several national campaigns of non-violent civil disobedience.[24] Gandhi promoted the principle of ahimsa very successfully by applying it to all spheres of life, particularly to politics.[25] His non-violent resistance movement satyagraha had an immense impact on India, impressed public opinion in Western countries and influenced the leaders of various civil rights movements such as Martin Luther King Jr. In Gandhi’s thought ahimsa precludes not only the act of inflicting a physical injury, but also mental states like evil thoughts and hatred, unkind behavior such as harsh words, dishonesty and lying, all of which he saw as manifestations of violence incompatible with ahimsa.[26]

Modern India

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On 15 August 1947, India gained independence from British rule, but at the same time the Muslim-majority areas were partitioned to form a separate state of Pakistan.[27] On 26 January 1950, India became a republic and a new constitution came into effect.[28]

Since independence, India has faced challenges from religious violence, casteism, naxalism, terrorism and regional separatist insurgencies, especially in Jammu and Kashmir and Northeast India. Since the 1990s terrorist attacks have affected many Indian cities. India has unresolved territorial disputes with the People's Republic of China, which, in 1962, escalated into the Sino-Indian War, and with Pakistan, which resulted in wars in 1947, 1965, 1971 and 1999. India is a founding member of the United Nations (as British India) and the Non-Aligned Movement.

India is a state armed with nuclear weapons; having conducted its first nuclear test in 1974,[29] followed by another five tests in 1998.[29] Beginning 1991, significant economic reforms[30] have transformed India into one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, increasing its global clout.[31] All these factors propelled her to become a full time G-20 member state. In spite of its recent economic successes, military might and global clout Indians continue to die due to malnutrition and hunger.[32] The Supreme Court of India took cognizance of the fact that food rot in government silos and ordered the them to distribute the food for free to millions of its poor.[33]

References

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  1. ^ "Introduction to the Ancient Indus Valley". Harappa. 1996. Retrieved 18 June 2007.
  2. ^ Krishna Reddy (2003). Indian History. New Delhi: Tata McGraw Hill. p. A107. ISBN 0070483698.
  3. ^ Jona Lendering. "Maurya dynasty". Retrieved 17 June 2007.
  4. ^ "Gupta period has been described as the Golden Age of Indian history". National Informatics Centre (NIC). Retrieved 3 October 2007.
  5. ^ "At any rate, when Gallus was prefect of Egypt, I accompanied him and ascended the Nile as far as Syene and the frontiers of Ethiopia, and I learned that as many as one hundred and twenty vessels were sailing from Myos Hormos to India, whereas formerly, under the Ptolemies, only a very few ventured to undertake the voyage and to carry on traffic in Indian merchandise." Strabo II.5.12. Source
  6. ^ "minimaque computatione miliens centena milia sestertium annis omnibus India et Seres et paeninsula illa imperio nostro adimunt: tanti nobis deliciae et feminae constant. quota enim portio ex illis ad deos, quaeso, iam vel ad inferos pertinet?" Pliny, Historia Naturae 12.41.84.
  7. ^ Bhau Daji (1865). "Brief Notes on the Age and Authenticity of the Works of Aryabhata, Varahamihira, Brahmagupta, Bhattotpala, and Bhaskaracharya". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. p. 392.
  8. ^ George. Ifrah (1998). A Universal History of Numbers: From Prehistory to the Invention of the Computer. John Wiley & Sons. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |address= ignored (|location= suggested) (help)
  9. ^ Jacobs, Harold R. (2003). Geometry: Seeing, Doing, Understanding (Third ed.). New York: W.H. Freeman and Company. p. 70.
  10. ^ "The Mughal Legacy".
  11. ^ "The Mughal World : Life in India's Last Golden Age".
  12. ^ The Mughals: The Marathas.
  13. ^ Dalrymple, William (November–December 2007). "The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi, 1857; Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire" (HTML). Council on Foreign Relations. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  14. ^ "The Great Moghul Jahangir: Letter to James I, King of England, 1617 A.D." Indian History Sourcebook: England, India, and The East Indies, 1617 CE. Internet Indian History Sourcebook, Paul Halsall. June 1998. Retrieved 2007-05-07.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link) From: James Harvey Robinson, ed., Readings in European History, 2 Vols. (Boston: Ginn and Co., 1904-1906), Vol. II: From the opening of the Protestant Revolt to the Present Day, pp. 333–335.
  15. ^ "KOLKATA (CALCUTTA) : HISTORY". Calcuttaweb.com. Retrieved 2007-05-07.
  16. ^ Rickard, J. (1 November 2000). "Robert Clive, Baron Clive, 'Clive of India', 1725-1774". Military History Encyclopedia on the Web. historyofwar.org. Retrieved 2007-05-07.
  17. ^ Bose & Jalal 2003, p. 76
  18. ^ Wolpert, Stanley (1989). A New History of India (3d ed.), pp. 239–40. Oxford University Press. ISBN 019505637X.
  19. ^ Stein, Burton (2001), A History of India, New Delhi and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp. xiv, 432, p. 258, ISBN 0195654463
  20. ^ Raza, Moonis (1986). Transport Geography of India. New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company. p. 49. ISBN 81-7022-089-0. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  21. ^ Mark, Davis (2001). Late Victorian Holocausts. USA: Verso. p. 173. ISBN 1-85984-739-0.
  22. ^ Stein, Burton (2001), A History of India, New Delhi and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp. xiv, 432, p. 260, ISBN 0195654463
  23. ^ Markovits, Claude, ed. (2004). A History of Modern India, 1480–1950. Anthem South Asian Studies. Anthem Press. p. 345. ISBN 1-84331-152-6.
  24. ^ Cite error: The named reference CONCISE ENCYCLOPEDIA 3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  25. ^ Tähtinen p. 116-124.
  26. ^ Walli p. XXII-XLVII; Borman, William: Gandhi and Non-Violence, Albany 1986, p. 11-12.
  27. ^ written by John Farndon. (1997). Concise Encyclopedia. Dorling Kindersley Limited. p. 322. ISBN 0-7513-5911-4.
  28. ^ "CIA Factbook: India". CIA Factbook. Retrieved 10 March 2007.
  29. ^ a b "India Profile". Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI). 2003. Retrieved 20 June 2007.
  30. ^ Montek Singh Ahluwalia (2002). "Economic Reforms in India since 1991: Has Gradualism Worked?" (Document). Journal of Economic Perspectives. {{cite document}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |version= (help); Unknown parameter |accessdate= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |format= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |url= ignored (help)
  31. ^ Cite error: The named reference ERS was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  32. ^ "4800 Starvation Deaths in India in Last 4 Years". Outlook. AUG 02, 2009. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  33. ^ Sinha, Bhadra (00:25 IST(13/8/2010). "Don't let food rot, distribute it free to the poorest: SC". Hindustan Times. New Delhi. Retrieved 01:55 IST(20/8/2010). {{cite journal}}: Check |authorlink= value (help); Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help); External link in |authorlink= (help)
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