 India's extraordinary
history is intimately tied to its geography. A meeting ground between the East and the
West, it has always been an invader's paradise, while at the same time its natural
isolation and magnetic religions allowed it to adapt to and absorb many of the peoples who
penetrated its mountain passes. No matter how many Persians, Greeks, Chinese nomads,
Arabs, Portuguese, British and other raiders had their way with the land, local Hindu
kingdoms invariably survived their depradations, living out their own sagas of conquest
and collapse. All the while, these local dynasties built upon the roots of a culture well
established since the time of the first invaders, the Aryans. In short, India has always
been simply too big, too complicated, and too culturally subtle to let any one empire
dominate it for long. True to the haphazard ambiance of the country, the discovery of
India's most ancient civilization literally happened by accident. British engineers in the
mid-1800's, busy constructing a railway line between Karachi and Punjab, found ancient,
kiln-baked bricks along the path of the track. This discovery was treated at the time as
little more than a curiosity, but archaeologists later revisited the site in the 1920's
and determined that the bricks were over 5000 years old. Soon afterward, two important
cities were discovered: Harappa on the Ravi river, and Mohenjodaro on the Indus.
The civilization that laid the
bricks, one of the world's oldest, was known as the Indus. They had a written language and
were highly sophisticated. Dating back to 3000 BC, they originated in the south and moved
north, building complex, mathematically-planned cities. Some of these towns were almost
three miles in diameter and contained as many as 30,000 residents. These ancient
municipalities had granaries, citadels, and even household toilets. In Mohenjodaro, a
mile-long canal connected the city to the sea, and trading ships sailed as far as
Mesopotamia. At its height, the Indus civilization extended over half a million square
miles across the Indus river valley, and though it existed at the same time as the ancient
civilizations of Egypt and Sumer, it far outlasted them.
The first group to invade India
were the Aryans, who came out of the north in about 1500 BC. The Aryans brought with them
strong cultural traditions that, miraculously, still remain in force today. They spoke and
wrote in a language called Sanskrit, which was later used in the first documentation of
the Vedas. Though warriors and conquerors, the Aryans lived alongside Indus, introducing
them to the caste system and establishing the basis of the Indian religions. The Aryans
inhabited the northern regions for about 700 years, then moved further south and east when
they developed iron tools and weapons. They eventually settled the Ganges valley and built
large kingdoms throughout much of northern India.
The second great invasion into
India occurred around 500 BC, when the Persian kings Cyrus and Darius, pushing their
empire eastward, conquered the ever-prized Indus Valley. Compared to the Aryans, the
Persian influence was marginal, perhaps because they were only able to occupy the region
for a relatively brief period of about 150 years. The Persians were in turn conquered by
the Greeks under Alexander the Great, who swept through the country as far as the Beas
River, where he defeated king Porus and an army of 200 elephants in 326 BC. The tireless,
charismatic conqueror wanted to extend his empire even further eastward, but his own
troops (undoubtedly exhausted) refused to continue. Alexander returned home, leaving
behind garrisons to keep the trade routes open.
While the Persians and Greeks
subdued the Indus Valley and the northwest, Aryan-based kingdoms continued developing in
the East. In the 5th century BC, Siddhartha Gautama founded the religion of Buddhism, a
profoundly influential work of human thought still espoused by much of the world. As the
overextended Hellenistic sphere declined, a king known as Chandragupta swept back through
the country from Magadha (Bihar) and conquered his way well into Afghanistan. This was the
beginning of one India's greatest dynasties, the Maurya. Under the great king Ashoka
(268-31 BC), the Mauryan empire conquered nearly the entire subcontinent, extending itself
as far south as Mysore. When Ashoka conquered Orissa, however, his army shed so much blood
that the repentant king gave up warfare forever and converted to Buddhism. Proving to be
as tireless a missionary as he had been as conqueror, Asoka brought Buddhism to much of
central Asia. His rule marked the height of the Maurya empire, and it collapsed only 100
years after his death.
After the demise of the Maurya
dynasty, the regions it had conquered fragmented into a mosaic of kingdoms and smaller
dynasties. The Greeks returned briefly in 150 BC and conquered the Punjab, and by this
time Buddhism was becoming so influential that the Greek king Menander forsook the
Hellenistic pantheon and became a Buddhist himself. The local kingdoms enjoyed relative
autonomy for the next few hundred years, occasionally fighting (and often losing to)
invaders from the north and China, who seemed to come and go like the monsoons. Unlike the
Greeks, the Romans never made it to India, preferring to expand west instead.
In AD 319, Chandragupta II
founded the Imperial Guptas dynasty, which conquered and consolidated the entire north and
extended as far south as the Vindya mountains. When the Guptas diminished, a golden age of
six thriving and separate kingdoms ensued, and at this time some of the most incredible
temples in India were constructed in Bhubaneshwar, Konarak, and Khahurajo. It was time of
relative stability, and cultural developments progressed on all fronts for hundreds of
years, until the dawn of the Muslim era.
Arab traders had visited the
western coast since 712, but it wasn't until 1001 that the Muslim world began to make
itself keenly felt. In that year, Arab armies swept down the Khyber pass and hit like a
storm. Led by Mahmud of Ghazi, they raided just about every other year for 26 years
straight. They returned home each time, leaving behind them ruined cities, decimated
armies, and probably a very edgy native population. Then they more or less vanished behind
the mountains again for nearly 150 years, and India once again went on its way.
But the Muslims knew India was
still there, waiting with all its riches. They returned in 1192 under Mohammed of Ghor,
and this time they meant to stay. Ghor's armies laid waste to the Buddhist temples of
Bihar, and by 1202 he had conquered the most powerful Hindu kingdoms along the Ganges.
When Ghor died in 1206, one of his generals, Qutb-ud-din, ruled the far north from the
Sultanate of Delhi, while the southern majority of India was free from the invaders.
Turkish kings ruled the Muslim acquisition until 1397, when the Mongols invaded under
Timur Lang (Tamerlane) and ravaged the entire region. One historian wrote that the
lightning speed with which Tamerlane's armies struck Delhi was prompted by their desire to
escape the stench of rotting corpses they were leaving behind them.
Islamic India fragmented after
the brutal devastation Timur Lang left in Delhi, and it was every Muslim strongman for
himself. This would change in 1527, however, when the Mughal (Persian for Mongol) monarch
Babur came into power. Babur was a complicated, enlightened ruler from Kabul who loved
poetry, gardening, and books. He even wrote cultural treatises on the Hindus he conquered,
and took notes on local flora and fauna. Afghan princes in India asked for his help in
1526, and he conquered the Punjab and quickly asserted his own claim over them by taking
Delhi. This was the foundation of the Mughal dynasty, whose six emperors would comprise
most influential of all the Muslim dynasties in India.
Babur died in 1530, leaving
behind a harried and ineffective son, Humayun. Humayun's own son, Akbar, however, would be
the greatest Mughal ruler of all. Unlike his grandfather, Akbar was more warrior than
scholar, and he extended the empire as far south as the Krishna river. Akbar tolerated
local religions and married a Hindu princess, establishing a tradition of cultural
acceptance that would contribute greatly to the success of the Mughal rule. In 1605, Akbar
was succeed by his son Jahangir,  who passed the expanding empire along to
his own son Shah Jahan in 1627.Though he spent much of his time subduing Hindu kingdoms to
the south, Shah Jahan left behind the colossal monuments of the Mughal empire, including
the Taj Majal (his favorite wife's tomb), the Pearl Mosque, the Royal Mosque, and the Red
Fort. Jahan's campaigns in the south and his flare for extravagant architecture
necessitated increased taxes and distressed his subjects, and under this scenario his son
Aurungzebe imprisoned him, seeking power for himself in 1658.
Unlike his predecessors,
Aurungzebe wished to eradicate indigenous traditions, and his intolerance prompted fierce
local resistance. Though he expanded the empire to include nearly the entire subcontinent,
he could never totally subdue the Mahrattas of the Deccan, who resisted him until his
death in 1707. Out of the Mahrattas' doggedness arose the legendary figure of Shivaji, a
symbol of Hindu resistance and nationalism. Aurungzebe's three sons disputed over
succession, and the Mughal empire crumbled, just as the Europeans were beginning to flex
their own imperialistic muscles.
The Portuguese had traded in Goa
as early as 1510, and later founded three other colonies on the west coast in Diu,
Bassein, and Mangalore. In 1610, the British chased away a Portuguese naval squadron, and
the East India Company created its own outpost at Surat. This small outpost marked the
beginning of a remarkable presence that would last over 300 years and eventually dominate
the entire subcontinent. Once in India, the British began to compete with the Portuguese,
the Dutch, and the French. Through a combination of outright combat and deft alliances
with local princes, the East India Company gained control of all European trade in India
by 1769.
How a tiny island nation,
thousands of miles away, came to administer a huge territory of 300 million people is one
of history's great spectacles. A seemingly impossible task, it was done through a highly
effective and organized system called the Raj. Treaties and agreements were signed with
native princes, and the Company gradually increased its role in local affairs. The Raj
helped build infrastructure and trained natives for its own military, though in theory
they were for India's own defense. In 1784, after financial scandals in the Company
alarmed British politicians, the Crown assumed half-control of the Company, beginning the
transfer of power to royal hands.
In 1858, a rumor spread among
Indian soldiers that the British were greasing their bullets with the fat of cows and
pigs, the former sacred animals to Hindus and the latter unclean animals to Muslims. A
year-long rebellion against the British ensued. Although the Indian Mutiny was
unsuccessful, it prompted the British government to seize total control of all British
interests in India in 1858, finally establishing a seamless imperialism. Claiming to be
only interested in trade, the Raj steadily expanded its influence until the princes ruled
in name only.
The Raj's demise was partially a
result of its remarkable success. It had gained control of the country by viewing it as a
source of profit. Infrastructure had been developed, administration established, and an
entire structure of governance erected. India had become a profitable venture, and the
British were loath to allow the Indian population any power in a system that they viewed
as their own accomplishment. The Indians didn't appreciate this much, and as the 20th
century dawned there were increasing movements towards self-rule.
The profound impact Gandhi had
on India and his ability to gain independence through a totally non-violent mass movement
made him one of the most remarkable leaders the world has ever known. He led by example,
wearing homespun clothes to weaken the British textile industry and orchestrating a march
to the sea, where demonstrators proceeded to make their own salt in protest against the
British monopoly. Indians gave him the name Mahatma, or Great Soul. The British promised
that they would leave India by 1947.
Independence came at great cost.
Mohammed Ali Jinnah was fronting a Muslim group called the Muslim League.
Jinnah advocated the division of India into two separate states: Muslim and Hindu, and he
was able to achieve his goal. When the British left, they created the separate states of
Pakistan and Bangladesh (known at that time as East Pakistan), and violence erupted when
stranded Muslims and Hindu minorities in the areas fled in opposite directions. Within a
few weeks, half a million people had died in the course of the greatest migration of human
beings in the world's history. The aging Gandhi vowed to fast until the violence stopped,
which it did when his health was seriously threatened. At the same time, the British
returned and helped restore order.
In 1948, Gandhi was assassinated
by a Hindu fanatic. His right-hand man, Jawarhalal Nehru, became India's first Prime
Minister. Nehru was a successful leader, steering the young nation through a period of
peace that was contrasted by the rule of Lal Bahadur Shastri, who fought Pakistan after it
invaded two regions of India. Shastri died in 1966 after only 20 months in power, and he
was succeeded by Nehru's daughter, Indira Gandhi.
With the name Gandhi (though no
relation to Mahatma), Indira was a powerful, unchallenged leader. She was defeated at the
polls in 1977 by Morarji Desai of the Janata party. She won back power in '79, however,
but was later assassinated in 1984. Although India's political climate remains divisive,
the country has attained apparent stability in recent years. Today, India seems poised to
realize its potential as an international economic power. Indians had put their mark on
world as IT Experts. India is growing fastly and soon will become a superpower in every
field.
Below are some sites
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