History

Indus Valley Civilisation

Urban culture on the subcontinent first emerged in the Indus Valley, straddling the modern India–Pakistan border, where the Harappan culture flourished for over 1000 years from around 2500 BC. Its greatest cities were Moenjodaro and Harappa in Pakistan; Lothal near Ahmedabad is a major site in India. Many elements of Harappan culture would later become assimilated into Hinduism: Harappan clay figurines suggest worship of a mother goddess (later personified as Kali) and a male three-faced god in yogi pose (believed to be the historic Shiva).

The Aryans & the Rise of Religions

A traditional explanation for the decline of Harappan civilisation is that from around 1500 BC Aryan tribes from Afghanistan and Central Asia began to filter into northwest India, eventually controlling northern India as far as the Vindhya Hills, with many of the original inhabitants, the Dravidians, being pushed south. A rival theory claims that the Aryans (from a Sanskrit word for ‘noble’) were the original inhabitants of India. It's questionable whether the Aryans were a distinct race, so any 'invasion' could simply have been an arrival of new ideas from neighbouring cultures.

What is certain is that the Aryans were responsible for the great Sanskrit literary tradition. The Hindu sacred scriptures, the Vedas, were written between 1500 and 1200 BC, and the caste system became formalised.

Two of India’s most significant religions, Buddhism and Jainism, arose in the northern plains around 500 BC. Both the Buddha and Jainism’s Mahavir questioned the Vedas and were critical of the caste system, attracting many lower-caste followers.

The Mauryan Empire

Chandragupta Maurya, who came to power in 321 BC, was the founder of the first great Indian empire. With its capital at Pataliputra (modern-day Patna), the Mauryan empire eventually stretched from Bengal to Afghanistan and south into modern-day Karnataka. It reached its peak under emperor Ashoka, who converted to Buddhism in 262 BC and spread the faith across the subcontinent.

Ashoka’s rule was characterised by flourishing art and sculpture, while his reputation as a philosopher-king was enhanced by the expressive rock-hewn 'Ashokan edicts' that he used to instruct his people, express remorse at the suffering resulting from his battles, and delineate his enormous territory. Most of these mention and define the concept of dhamma, variously as good behaviour, obedience, generosity and goodness.

But after Ashoka's death in 232 BC, the disparate Mauryan empire rapidly disintegrated, collapsing altogether in 185 BC. One of his many legacies is the Indian national flag: its central design is the Ashoka Chakra, a wheel with 24 spokes.

The Golden Age of the Guptas

North India's next major empire didn't arise till the 4th century AD, when Chandragupta I, king of a minor tribe called the Guptas, came to prominence by marrying a princess of one of the most powerful tribes, the Liccavis. The Gupta empire grew rapidly and under Chandragupta II (r 375–413) achieved its greatest extent. The Chinese pilgrim Fa-hsien, visiting India at the time, described a people ‘rich and contented’, ruled over by enlightened and just kings.

Astronomy, medicine and the arts flourished, with some of the finest work done at Ajanta, Ellora, Sanchi and Sarnath. The Guptas were tolerant of Buddhism but towards the end of their period, Hinduism became the dominant religious force, eclipsing Jainism and Buddhism.

The invasions of the Huns at the beginning of the 6th century signalled the end of Gupta power, and power in North India again devolved to a number of separate Hindu kingdoms.

The Hindu South

Southern India has always laid claim to its own unique history, insulated by distance from the political developments in the north. It was from the fertile coastal plains that the greatest southern empires – the Cholas, Pandyas, Chalukyas, Cheras and Pallavas – came into their own.

The Chalukyas ruled mainly over the Deccan region of south-central India, although their power occasionally extended further north. In the far south, the Pallavas ruled from the 4th to 9th centuries and pioneered Dravidian architecture, with its exuberant, almost baroque, style.

The south’s prosperity was based on trading links with other civilisations, among them Egypt and Rome. In return for spices, pearls, ivory and silk, the Indians received Roman gold. Indian merchants also extended their influence to Southeast Asia. The Cholas, based in modern-day Tamil Nadu, set about turning trade influence into territorial conquest. Under Rajaraja Chola I (985–1014) they controlled almost the whole of South India, the Deccan plateau, Sri Lanka, parts of the Malay peninsula and the Sumatran-based Srivijaya kingdom.

Throughout this period, Hinduism remained the bedrock of South Indian culture.

The Muslim North

Small, pioneering Arabian forces first reached North India in 663, but it wasn't until more than three centuries later that land assaults seriously began to convulse the north.

At the vanguard of Islamic expansion was Mahmud of Ghazni, who turned Ghazni (in today's Afghanistan) into one of the world’s most glorious capital cities. From 1001 to 1025, Mahmud conducted 17 raids into India, most notably on the famous Shiva temple at Somnath in Gujarat. A Hindu force of 70,000 died trying to defend this temple, which fell in early 1026. Mahmud transported a massive haul of gold and other booty back to his capital. These raids shattered the balance of power in North India, allowing subsequent invaders to claim territory for themselves.

In 1191, Mohammed of Ghur advanced into India in brutal fashion, before being defeated in a major battle against a confederacy of Hindu rulers. He returned the following year and routed his enemies. One of his generals, Qutb ud-din Aibak, captured Delhi and was appointed governor; it was during his reign that the great Delhi landmark, the Qutb Minar Complex, containing India's first mosque, was built. Within a short time almost all of North India was under Muslim control.

Qutb ud-din Aibak became the first sultan of Delhi. Ala-ud-din Khilji, who came to power in 1296, pushed the borders of the Delhi sultanate inexorably south.

North Meets South

Mohammed bin Tughlaq ascended the Delhi throne in 1324. With dreams of controlling South India directly as part of his empire, Tughlaq decided to move his capital 1100km south to Daulatabad, near Aurangabad in Maharashtra. Tughlaq forcefully marched the entire population of Delhi south to his new city – but soon realised this left the north undefended, so the entire capital was moved north again. The superb Daulatabad fortress remains as a monument to his megalomanic vision.

The last great sultan of Delhi, Firoz Shah, died in 1388, and the sultanate's fate was sealed when Timur (Tamerlane) made a devastating raid from Samarkand in 1398. Timur’s sacking of Delhi was truly merciless; some accounts say his soldiers slaughtered every Hindu inhabitant.

After Tughlaq’s withdrawal from the south, several splinter kingdoms arose. The two most significant were the Islamic Bahmani sultanate, which emerged in 1345 with its capital at Gulbarga, and later Bidar, and the Hindu Vijayanagar empire, founded in 1336 with its capital at Hampi. The battles between the two were among the bloodiest communal violence in Indian history and ultimately resolved nothing in the two centuries before the Mughals ushered in a more enlightened age.

The Mughals

At its height the Mughal empire covered almost the entire subcontinent. Its significance, however, lay not only in its size. Mughal emperors presided over an artistic golden age and had a passion for building that resulted in some of the finest architecture in India, including Shah Jahan’s sublime Taj Mahal.

The founder of the Mughal line, Babur, marched into Punjab from his capital at Kabul in 1525. With technological superiority brought by firearms, Babur defeated the larger armies of the sultan of Delhi at the Battle of Panipat in 1526.

Babur’s son, Humayun (r 1530–56) was defeated by a powerful ruler of eastern India, Sher Shah, in 1539 and forced to withdraw to Iran – a fact reflected in the Iranian style of his tomb in Delhi. Humayun eventually conquered Delhi in 1555, dying the following year to be succeeded by his son Akbar (r 1556–1605), who managed to extend the empire over a mammoth area.

Akbar, whose name means ‘great’ in Arabic, was indeed probably the greatest of the Mughals: he not only had military ability but was also a man of culture and a wise leader, skilfully integrating Hindus into his empire, using them as advisers, generals and administrators.

Akbar's son Jehangir (r 1605–27) kept his father's empire intact, despite challenges to his authority. His son Shah Jahan (r 1627–58) secured his position by executing all male relatives who stood in his way. He also built the Taj Mahal (the mausoleum of his wife Mumtaz Mahal), as well as constructing the mighty Red Fort in Delhi and converting Agra Fort into a palace that would later become his own prison.

The last of the great Mughals, Aurangzeb (r 1658–1707), imprisoned his father (Shah Jahan) and gained the throne after a two-year struggle against his brothers. Aurangzeb devoted his resources to extending the empire’s boundaries, and thus fell into much the same trap as Mohammed Tughlaq three centuries earlier. He faced serious challenges from the Hindu Marathas under their great leader Shivaji, in central India, and from the British in Bengal. Dissatisfaction among the Hindu population at taxes and religious intolerance also weakened the Mughal grip. After Aurangzeb’s death, Delhi was sacked by Persia’s Nadir Shah in 1739. Mughal ‘emperors’ continued to rule until the First War of Independence (Indian Uprising) in 1857, but they were emperors without an empire.

The Rise of European Power

During the 15th century, the Portuguese sought a sea route to the Far East so they could trade directly in spices. En route, they found lucrative trading opportunities on the Indian coast, when Vasco da Gama arrived on the Kerala coast in 1498, having sailed around Africa. In 1510, the Portuguese captured Goa and in its heyday, the trade flowing through ‘Golden Goa’ was said to rival that passing through Lisbon. The Portuguese enjoyed a century-long monopoly over Indian and Far Eastern trade with Europe, but they lacked the resources to maintain a worldwide empire, and were quickly eclipsed after the arrival of the British and French.

In 1600, Queen Elizabeth I granted a London trading company a monopoly on British trade with India. In 1613, the East India Company established its first trading post at Surat in Gujarat. Further posts governed by the company were established at Madras (Chennai) in 1639, Bombay (Mumbai) in 1661 and Calcutta (Kolkata) in 1690.

The French, who established themselves at Pondicherry (Puducherry) by 1672, vied with the British for control of Indian trade. At one stage, they appeared to hold the upper hand, even taking Madras in 1746. But they were outmanoeuvred by the British, and by the 1750s were no longer a serious influence on the subcontinent.

Britain's Surge to Power

Following the establishment of the British trading post at Calcutta in 1690, business expanded rapidly. Under the apprehensive gaze of the nawab (local ruler), the ‘factories’ took on an increasingly permanent (and fortified) appearance. In June 1756, the nawab attacked Calcutta and locked his British prisoners in a tiny cell. The space was so cramped and airless that many were dead by the following morning.

Six months later, Robert Clive, an employee in the military service of the East India Company, led an expedition to retake Calcutta and made an agreement with one of the nawab’s generals to overthrow the nawab himself. He did this in June 1757, at the Battle of Plassey (now called Palashi). The company’s agents embarked on a period of unbridled profiteering, and when a subsequent nawab was defeated at the Battle of Baksar in 1764, the British were confirmed as the paramount power in east India.

In 1771, Warren Hastings was made governor in Bengal. During his tenure, the company greatly expanded its control and concluded a series of treaties with local rulers in the power vacuum following the disintegration of the Mughal empire.

In the south, a local ruler, Hyder Ali, and his son Tipu Sultan, waged a brave and determined campaign against the British. But in the Fourth Mysore War (1789–99), Tipu Sultan was killed at Srirangapatnam, and British power took another step forward. The long-running struggle with the Marathas in central India was concluded a few years later.

By the early 19th century, India was effectively under British control, although there remained a patchwork of nominally independent 'princely states' governed by maharajas (or similarly titled princes) and nawabs. Trade and profit remained the main focus of British rule in India: iron and coal mining were developed, tea, coffee and cotton became key crops, and a start was made on the vast rail network that’s still in use today. The Mughal-era zamindar (landowner) system was encouraged, further entrenching the growth of an impoverished, landless peasantry.

The First War of Independence (Indian Uprising)

In 1857, half a century after establishing firm control of India, the British suffered a serious setback. To this day, the causes of the Indian Uprising are the subject of debate. The key factors included the influx of cheap goods, such as textiles, from Britain that destroyed many livelihoods; the dispossession of territories from many rulers; and taxes on landowners.

The incident popularly held to have sparked the uprising took place at an army barracks in Meerut in Uttar Pradesh on 10 May 1857. A rumour leaked out that a new type of bullet was greased with what Hindus claimed was cow fat, while Muslims maintained that it came from pigs; pigs are considered unclean to Muslims, and cows are sacred to Hindus.

In Meerut, the commanding officer lined up his soldiers and ordered them to bite off the ends of their bullets. Those who refused were immediately marched off to prison. The following morning, the soldiers of the garrison rebelled, shot their officers and marched to Delhi. Of the 74 Indian battalions of the Bengal army, 47 mutinied. The soldiers and peasants rallied around the ageing Mughal emperor in Delhi. They held Delhi for some months and besieged the British residency in Lucknow for five months before they were finally suppressed.

Almost immediately, the East India Company was wound up and direct control of India was assumed by the British government.

The Road to Independence

Opposition to the British increased at the turn of the 20th century, spearheaded by the Indian National Congress, the country’s oldest political party, which first met in 1885 and soon began to push for participation in government.

India contributed hugely to Britain's WWI effort, with more than one million Indian volunteers enlisted and sent overseas, suffering more than 100,000 casualties. The contribution was sanctioned by Congress leaders, but no rewards for it resulted after the war, and disillusion followed. Disturbances were particularly persistent in Punjab, and in April 1919 a British army contingent was sent to quell the unrest in Amritsar, where it fired ruthlessly into a crowd of unarmed protesters at Jallianwala Bagh. News of the massacre quickly turned huge numbers of otherwise apolitical Indians into Congress supporters.

Mahatma Gandhi

One of the great figures of the 20th century, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born in 1869 in Porbandar, Gujarat. After studying in London (1888–91), he worked as a barrister in South Africa, where he became politicised, railing against the discrimination he encountered.

Gandhi returned to India in 1915 with the doctrine of ahimsa – nonviolence – central to his political plans, and committed to a simple and disciplined lifestyle. Within a year, Gandhi had won his first victory, defending farmers in Bihar from exploitation. This was when it’s said he first received the title ‘Mahatma’ (Great Soul).

Gandhi came to the forefront in the Congress movement after the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, coordinating a national campaign of satyagraha (nonviolent protest) against British rule. Not everyone involved in the struggle agreed with Gandhi’s policy of nonviolence, yet the Congress Party and Gandhi remained at the forefront of the push for independence.

In early 1930, Gandhi captured the imagination of the country by leading a march of several thousand followers to Dandi on the Gujarat coast, where he ceremoniously made salt by evaporating sea water, thus publicly defying the much-hated salt tax. Released from jail in 1931 to represent the Indian National Congress at the second Round Table Conference in London, he won the hearts of many British people but failed to gain any real concessions from the government.

As political power-sharing began to look more likely, India's large Muslim minority realised that an independent India would be dominated by Hindus and that, while Gandhi’s approach was fair-minded, others in the Congress Party might not be so willing to share power. By the 1930s Muslims were raising the possibility of a separate Islamic state.

Disillusioned with politics, Gandhi resigned his parliamentary seat in 1934. He returned spectacularly to the fray in 1942 with the Quit India campaign, urging the British to leave India immediately. His actions were deemed subversive, and he and most of the Congress leadership were imprisoned.

In the frantic independence bargaining that followed the end of WWII, Gandhi stood almost alone in urging the preservation of a single India, and his work on behalf of all communities drew resentment from some Hindu hardliners. He was assassinated at Birla House in Delhi on 30 January 1948 by a Hindu zealot, Nathuram Godse.

Independence & Partition

The Labour Party victory in the British elections in July 1945 dramatically altered the political landscape. For the first time, Indian independence was accepted as a legitimate goal. The two major Indian parties, however, had deeply divergent ideas of what form independence would take. Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the leader of the Muslim League, championed a separate Islamic state, while the Congress Party, led by Jawaharlal Nehru, campaigned for an independent greater India.

In early 1946, a British mission failed to bring the two sides together and the country slid closer towards civil war. In February 1947, the nervous British government made the momentous decision that Independence would come by June 1948. A new viceroy, Lord Louis Mountbatten, encouraged the rival factions to agree upon a united India, but to no avail. A decision was made to divide the country and, faced with increasing civil violence, Mountbatten made the precipitous decision to bring forward Independence to 15 August 1947.

Dividing the country into separate Hindu and Muslim territories was immensely tricky; some areas were clearly Hindu or Muslim, but others were evenly mixed, and there were ‘islands’ of communities in areas predominantly settled by other religions. An independent British referee was given the odious task of drawing the borders, well aware that the effects would be catastrophic for countless people. The problem was worst in Punjab, one of the most fertile and affluent regions of the country, which had large Muslim, Hindu and Sikh communities, with antagonisms already running at fever pitch. The Sikhs saw their homeland divided down the middle.

Huge population exchanges took place and the resulting bloodshed was even worse than anticipated. Trains full of Muslims, fleeing westward, were held up and slaughtered by Hindu and Sikh mobs. Hindus and Sikhs fleeing to the east suffered the same fate at Muslim hands. The army sent to maintain order proved totally inadequate. By the time the Punjab chaos had run its course, more than 10 million people had changed sides and at least 500,000 had been killed.

India and Pakistan became sovereign nations in August 1947 as planned, but the violence and migrations continued and the integration of a few states, especially Kashmir, was yet to be completed. The Constitution of India went into effect on 26 January 1950, and, after untold struggles, independent India officially became a Republic.

Independent India

Jawaharlal Nehru tried to steer India towards a policy of nonalignment, balancing cordial relations with Britain with moves towards the USSR.

The 1960s and 1970s were tumultuous times for India. A border war with China resulted in the loss of parts of Aksai Chin (Ladakh) and smaller areas in the northeast. Wars with Pakistan in 1965 (over Kashmir) and 1971 (over Bangladesh) also contributed to a sense among many Indians of having enemies on all sides.

The hugely popular Nehru died in 1964 and his daughter Indira Gandhi (no relation to Mahatma Gandhi) was elected prime minister in 1966. Unlike Nehru, however, Indira Gandhi was always a profoundly controversial figure whose historical legacy remains hotly disputed.

In 1975, facing serious opposition and unrest, she declared a state of emergency (which later became known as the Emergency). Freed of parliamentary constraints, Gandhi was able to boost the economy, control inflation remarkably well and decisively increase efficiency. On the negative side, political opponents often found themselves in prison, India’s judicial system was turned into a puppet theatre and the press was fettered.

Gandhi was bundled out of office in the 1977 elections, but the 1980 election brought her back to power with a larger majority than ever before, firmly laying the foundation for a family dynasty that would continue to dominate Indian politics for decades. Indira Gandhi was assassinated in 1984 by one of her Sikh bodyguards after her decision to attack the Golden Temple in Amritsar, which was being occupied by a fundamentalist Sikh preacher. Her son Rajiv took over and was subsequently killed in a suicide bomb attack in 1991. His widow, Sonia, later became president, with Manmohan Singh as prime minister. However, the Congress party lost popularity as the economy slowed, and has been accused of cronyism and corruption.

The 2014 federal elections saw the Congress party suffer a humiliating defeat under the shaky leadership of Rahul Gandhi, Indira's grandson. The BJP, headed by Narendra Modi, swept to power in a landslide victory, promising to shake up Indian politics and usher in a new era of neoliberal economics. Modi was formerly chief minister of Gujarat, which had been transformed into an economic powerhouse during his tenure. Some continue to ask questions about Modi’s role in riots in Gujarat in 2002, which killed nearly 1000 people, mostly Muslims, but an official inquiry in 2014 cleared him of any wrong-doing. His forceful, charismatic style has made him hugely popular with business leaders and the BJP's Hindu-nationalist traditionalists, as well as with the ordinary man on the street, and as prime minister, Modi has thus far offered vision and hope, and a broadly inclusive agenda, focusing on the economic situation rather than religious rivalries.