About one sixth of
all the human beings on Earth live in India, the world's most populous
democracy. Its borders encompass a vast variety of peoples, practicing
most of the world's major religions, speaking scores of different
languages, and divided into thousands of socially exclusive castes. A
civilized, urban society has existed in India for well over 4,000
years, and there have been periods when its culture was as brilliant
and creative as any in history. The country is also known by its
ancient Hindi name, Bharat.
India's leaders have played a prominent role in world affairs since the country became independent in 1947. Nevertheless, the standard of living of most of its citizens is low. The huge population strains the nation's limited resources. Fertile, cultivable land is scarce, yet about two thirds of the people depend directly on agriculture for their livelihood. Many millions of Indians are inadequately nourished, poorly housed, and lacking in basic educational, medical, and sanitary services.
Although the modern nation of India encompasses the greater part of South Asia, it is smaller than the Indian Empire formerly ruled by Britain. Burma a mainly Buddhist country lying to the east, was administratively detached from India in 1937. Ten years later, when Britain granted independence to the peoples of the Indian subcontinent, two regions with Muslim majorities—a large one in the northwest (West Pakistan) and a smaller one in the northeast (East Pakistan)—were partitioned from the predominantly Hindu areas and became the separate nation of Pakistan. East Pakistan broke away from Pakistan in 1971 to form the independent nation of Bangladesh. Also bordering India on its long northern frontier are the People's Republic of China and the relatively small kingdoms of Nepal and Bhutan. The island republic of Sri Lanka lies just off India's southern tip. India's capital is New Delhi.
Lower mountain ranges branch off from both ends of the Himalayan system, running along the border with Myanmar toward the Bay of Bengal in the east and—mainly through Pakistan—toward the Arabian Sea in the west. Thus, the low-lying country to the south is relatively isolated from the rest of Asia. This accounts for its recognition as a subcontinent.
The greater part of the Indo-Gangetic Plain is drained by the Ganges River, which rises in the southern Himalayas and flows in a generally south to southeast direction to the Bay of Bengal. Its principal tributary, the Yamuna, or Jumna, flows past New Delhi, the capital of India, to join the Ganges near Allahabad. North of Goalundo Ghat in Bangladesh, the Ganges is joined by the Brahmaputra. The Indus and its tributaries drain the western and southwestern parts of the plain. The northern part of this area, now divided between India and Pakistan, is traditionally known as the Punjab, or Land of the Five Rivers, for the five major tributaries of the Indus—the Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Sutlej, and Beas. Also on the India–Pakistan border and considered part of the plain is the arid Thar, or Great Indian, Desert.
The coastal plains flanking the Deccan are relatively narrow, ranging from 6 to 80 miles (10 to 130 kilometers). The eastern plain is drained by several large deltas, including, from north to south, those of the Mahanadi, Godavari, Krishna, and Kaveri rivers.
India is rich in nonenergy mineral resources and moderately well endowed with coal, but it is poor in proven reserves of petroleum and natural gas. The principal mineral deposits lie south of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. Foremost among mineral-rich regions is the Chota Nagpur Plateau. This area contains India's main coal deposits as well as large quantities of high-grade iron ore, copper, bauxite, limestone, mica, and chromite. At more than 100 billion tons, the country's coal reserves are the fifth largest in the world. However, most of the coal is of poor quality because of its high ash and moisture content. Proven on-land petroleum reserves are insufficient to meet current demand. There has been some success with offshore exploration. Many of India's rivers are potential sources of hydroelectric power.
Strong, humid winds from the southwest and south usually bringing very heavy rains that fall almost daily in the middle or late afternoon—the “burst of the monsoon”—herald the start of the wet season. It may begin as early as late May in the south. Eventually, the rains taper off, and by late October cool, dry, northerly air has replaced the humid marine air over all of India except the southeastern third of the peninsula. This “retreat of the monsoon” marks the start of the cool season.
Average annual precipitation varies widely. Cherrapunji in the Shillong Plateau just north of Bangladesh receives 450 inches (1,143 centimeters), making it the second rainiest place on Earth, after Mount Waialeale in Hawaii (460 inches, 1,168 centimeters). At the other extreme, the western Thar Desert averages only 4 inches (10 centimeters). In the driest parts of India, however, the rainfall is highly variable.
Temperature varies as does rainfall in different parts of India. Hill stations in the Himalayan region, such as Darjeeling and Simla, record the lowest temperatures, with annual averages of between about 54° and 57° F (12° and 14° C). In the Indo-Gangetic Plain, Delhi and Allahabad register an average of 79° F (26° C).
Areas with from 40 to 80 inches (100 to 200 centimeters) of rainfall (enough to grow at least one crop of rice) include almost the whole northeastern peninsular region, the eastern Gangetic Plain, a narrow belt on the plains and hills just south of the Himalayas as far west as Kashmir, another belt just east of the crest of the Western Ghats, and most of the southeastern, or Coromandel, coast. In these areas, as average rainfall declines the forests become progressively shorter, less dense, and less varied.
In addition, as rainfall declines from 80 to 60 inches (200 to 150 centimeters) evergreens gradually give way to deciduous species, which in these regions lose their leaves during the cool, dry season. Where government protection from slash-and-burn agriculture has kept forests intact, they include good stands of teak, sal, and other excellent timber species.
Most of the rest of India averages from 20 to 40 inches (50 to 100 centimeters), enough to grow one crop of grain other than rice. The natural vegetation consists of low, open forests, intermixed with thorny shrubs and grasses. Little of the original vegetative cover remains.
A wide variety of distinctive vegetation types occurs as a result of special ecological conditions. Tall grass savannas, with scattered acacias, grow on the moist soils of the Terai, the fringe of plains bordering the northern mountains. Mangrove forests are found in the brackish deltas of the east coast, and many types of palms grow in sandy or salty soils. Often impenetrable stands of bamboo sprout up in fields formerly given over to slash-and-burn cultivation.
The alterations in India's vegetation over the centuries have brought about many changes in the animal life. Today the dominant forms are cattle, goats, buffalo, sheep, and, in the drier regions, camels. While cattle are essential to the nation's economy, there is a religious taboo against their slaughter.
In the forests and the high, rugged areas where wild species are still dominant, the array of animals remains rich. Among large mammals are the Indian elephant, still regularly rounded up and domesticated in several areas; the rhinoceros, living almost exclusively in game sanctuaries; over a dozen species of deer and antelope; and wild cattle, sheep, goats, and boars.
Carnivores, or meat eaters, include tigers and leopards; lions, once wide-ranging but now confined to the Gir Forest on the Kathiawar Peninsula; the nearly extinct cheetah; and a variety of bears. Monkeys, especially langurs and rhesuses, are common even in cities. The cobra is the best-known reptile. Three species of crocodiles are found. There are about 1,200 species of birds, among them vultures, parrots, mynas, quail, and bustards.
This long history of migrations and invasions resulted in the numerous ethnic groups that make up the population of present-day India. Although the people tend to vary in appearance in different parts of the country, they collectively have come to be called Indians.
Other important Indo-Aryan languages are Bengali (the official language of the state of West Bengal and also of Bangladesh), Panjabi (the official language of the state of Punjab and the most widely spoken language of Pakistan), and Marathi, Gujarati, Oriya, Assamese, and Kashmiri (respectively, the official languages of the states of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Orissa, Assam, and Jammu and Kashmir). Two other languages of the Indo-Aryan family are among the 15 regarded as official languages by the constitution: Sanskrit, a classical literary language, and Sindhi, spoken largely in the Sind province of Pakistan and also by Hindu refugees who came to India after partition in 1947. The list of official languages includes four Dravidian tongues: Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, and Kannada, which predominate, respectively, in the southern states of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Karnataka.
English is understood by most educated persons. While it is not one of the 15 languages, it is officially recognized and is used, for example, for correspondence between Hindi-speaking and non–Hindi-speaking states. It is also the language shared by the Dravidian-speaking south and the Hindi-speaking north. Of the scores of languages not officially recognized, many are spoken almost exclusively by tribal peoples, known collectively as Adibasis.
There are thousands of jatis, but most may be grouped into four great social classes called varnas. The highest are the Brahmans, the priestly castes that traditionally dominated the learned professions and still wield great influence. Next are the Kshatriyas, traditionally warriors, rulers, and large landowners. Third are the Vaishyas, once mainly farmers but now chiefly associated with commerce. Lowest are the Shudras, who today constitute the mass of India's artisans and laborers.
Below the Shudras are a number of castes with no varna designation. Traditionally these outcastes were regarded as “Untouchables.” They were considered to be ritually impure and able to convey pollution to others because of their association with unclean occupations, such as scavenging and leatherworking. These groups have always been subject to considerable prejudice. The nationalist leader Mohandas K. Gandhi, who tried to ensure that they were treated humanely, bestowed on them the name Harijan, or children of God, by which they are now popularly known.
Officially they are recognized as “scheduled castes.” The Indian constitution, which outlaws untouchability, requires that a “schedule” of such groups be prepared in every state as an aid to providing them with special benefits. The aim is to help them overcome their disadvantaged position. Thus, they are guaranteed seats in the national and state parliaments, at least in proportion to their 15 percent of the population, as well as minimum quotas for placement in universities and government, and various other benefits. Similarly, the tribal peoples, 7.5 percent of the population, are designated as “scheduled tribes” and given corresponding benefits.
Although Islam, unlike Hinduism, stresses the equality of people, the institution of caste is so strong in the subcontinent that it has affected the communities professing Islam and most other faiths. Thus, most Indian Muslims intermarry within graded, castelike groups, many of which have traditional occupations. Muslims form a majority of the population in Jammu and Kashmir and substantial minorities in the states of Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Assam, and Kerala.
Two ancient and related faiths, Buddhism and Jainism, each have several million followers in India. Although Buddhism originated in India, it became virtually extinct there and remained so until 1956, when a renowned leader of the scheduled castes, B.R. Ambedkar, converted to it. Millions of his followers subsequently followed suit. Jainism, though the religion of only a small minority of the population, has contributed enormously to Indian art, architecture, and religious thought. For centuries the small Jaina community has been especially prominent in commerce. Both Jainas and Buddhists practice ahimsa, or nonviolence, one of many religious beliefs they share with the Hindus. The Zoroastrians, known as Parsis, form another small (barely 100,000) but influential and highly educated religious community. Members of a religion founded in the 6th century BC by the Iranian prophet Zoroaster, they are descendants of Zoroastrians who fled to India from the 10th century onward to escape Muslim persecution.
It is claimed that Christianity in India dates back to AD 52, when St. Thomas, one of the 12 apostles, is said to have landed on the west coast. He is recognized as the founder of the Syrian Christians. Roman Catholics, including many descendants of 16th-century converts, are the most numerous Christian group, especially on the west coast and in the far south. During the last two centuries, Protestant missionaries have been especially successful among tribal and scheduled caste groups. Collectively, Christians make up nearly 3 percent of India's population. A small percentage follows Judaism, which was introduced by early Jewish traders who established settlements in coastal towns, notably Cochin.
Recent Indian censuses have reported only a few million of India's large tribal population as practicing animistic religions. Nevertheless, there is a strong element of spirit worship in the religious practices of most of India's tribes, blended in varying degrees with forms borrowed from Hinduism.
In much of India the typical village dwelling is a modest one-story mud hut of one or several rooms. Roofs are generally flat in the dry regions and peaked in areas of heavier rainfall. Most houses have no windows, but many have a shaded veranda where social activities take place. A cubicle or a corner of the yard is set aside for the kitchen hearth, normally containing an earth stove fueled by cow dung or firewood. Furniture is scarce, indoor plumbing is virtually unknown, and electricity is uncommon. Water, brought home from wells, is stored in large clay jars, which are also used to keep perishable foods.
Over most of India (though not in the south or northeast), a girl marries outside her village, usually while still in her teens. Even where a female marries within the village, she moves to the husband's household. Widow remarriage is frowned upon. Married couples display a marked preference for male children. Boys are desired not only because of their anticipated contribution to the family income but also because sons are needed to perform certain rites at a parent's cremation. Girls, on the other hand, are seen as a liability because they require expensive dowries when they are married. Various state governments have tried to discourage this practice, but often families still go into debt to provide dowries; a family with several daughters and no sons may face financial disaster. Boys are expected to help in the fields and girls in the home. The freedom that girls enjoy is restricted after they reach the age of puberty; in northern India, even among the Hindus, female seclusion is common.
The simple tools used by most Indian farmers are generally made in the villages. Plows are wooden, with short iron tips. They furrow but do not turn the soil. Draft animals are mainly oxen in the drier regions and water buffalo in the wetter, rice-growing areas. Both cattle and water buffalo are milked, but yields are low. Transport is still largely by oxcart or buffalo cart, though the use of trucks is gaining as a result of road improvement. Tractor cultivation is rare except in Haryana and the Punjab.
Goods and services that are not available locally are obtained from nearby villages, at weekly outdoor markets, in towns and cities, and at fairs, usually held in connection with religious holidays. Payment for goods and services provided within the village may be either in cash or in kind. The latter type of payment, usually a portion of grain at the time of harvest, used to be the customary rule. Most specialized-caste families catered to a particular set of patron families, known as jajmans, with whom they were linked by hereditary ties. This jajmani system is breaking down over most of India, but patron-client alliances among various castes remain a common feature of village life.
Most villages have at least a primary school offering up to six years of instruction. Some also offer adult education classes in the evening. While few villages can support a well-trained doctor, many have practitioners of traditional medicine. Government-aided dispensaries are increasingly common.
For entertainment men join their fellow caste members or those from castes at levels close to their own to pass the evening hours smoking and chatting. Women and girls talk at the village well and may join groups to sing religious songs. Male youths sometimes form sports clubs or drama groups. Village-owned radios set up in public spaces are common, but television is rare. Traveling storytellers, musicians, acrobats, and snake charmers relieve the drabness of life, as do weddings, religious celebrations, trips to local fairs, and occasional religious pilgrimages.
Indian cities are generally poorly planned and are much more crowded than those of Europe or North America. Streets are narrow, the number of people in residential dwellings is high, and buildings with more than two stories are relatively scarce. The principal activity is retail trade, mainly carried out in small shops in specialized bazaar streets. Many shops combine a handicraft activity, often in a back room, and a sales outlet. The family of the shopkeeper normally lives just behind or above the shop.
Open spaces within larger cities and on their outskirts are likely to contain makeshift squatter settlements, occupied by recent immigrants from the countryside who have come to the city in search of employment. Many people lack any shelter at all and simply resort to sleeping in the streets, especially near railway stations where temporary day laborers are recruited each morning.
In the last few generations, many cities have spawned satellites located a considerable distance away from the densely settled cores. Some housed members of the civil administration during the period of British rule and are still known as civil lines. Others, designated as cantonments, included residences and special areas such as parade grounds set aside for the army. Since India achieved independence, many planned modern suburbs have sprung up. Modern factories, sometimes grouped in government-sponsored industrial estates, have increasingly been located outside the cities.
Like cities everywhere, those of India are centers of education, cultural activities, political ferment, and social change. In the urban setting, the caste and religious barriers that loom so large in the villages are considerably relaxed. Thus, there is somewhat more opportunity for talented individuals to rise in government, modern business, factories, and universities.
Painting is relatively less developed, and much of the work of the past has fallen victim to weather. However, the well-preserved, sensuous cave paintings at Ajanta, dating from the 1st century BC to the 7th century AD, demonstrate great technical proficiency at an early date. Altogether different is the lyric and romantic style of the various schools of miniature painting that flourished in the courts of the Mughals and the Rajput princes in the 16th and subsequent centuries. Modern painting, inspired by both European and Far Eastern models, has had several internationally recognized exponents.
Classical Indian music, dance, and drama are closely linked. Their roots go back nearly 2,000 years. Their mastery calls for great discipline and intensive practice. Each has a conventionalized “language” that demands considerable sophistication on the part of the audience. As with architecture, a number of regional styles have developed. Folk music and dance also show wide regional variations.
The literature of India covers many fields of knowledge, but religious and philosophical texts are particularly numerous. The oldest religious texts, the Vedas (beginning with the Rig Veda around 1400 BC), were transmitted only by word of mouth for many centuries before being committed to writing. For most Hindus the two best-known texts are the great epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, composed roughly 2,000 years ago. The former recounts the adventures of the god-king Rama and provides models of proper conduct for both men and women. The latter, the longest poem ever written, relates a great mythical war involving all the peoples of ancient India. The most important portion of that epic, the Bhagavadgita, is the principal Hindu tract on morality and ethics.
Indian Muslim literature covers a wide range of practical subjects. However, the authority of the Koran, Islam's holy book, leaves little room for religious speculation. Poetry is particularly admired.
India's first three universities, at Calcutta (Kolkata), Bombay (Mumbai), and Madras (Chennai), were chartered only in 1857. By independence the number of universities in what is now India had risen to 20, and today there are more than 150 with a combined student body of more than 6 million. Most universities have affiliated colleges scattered over a rather wide area. There are few towns with a population of more than 20,000 that do not have at least one such college.
The colleges have shown a gradual shift toward instruction in the official state languages. This makes higher education accessible to many more people, but it has also meant a decline of proficiency in English. Since postgraduate education is almost entirely in English, this may present a major problem in the future. Another problem, already serious, is the large number of graduates who are unemployed because college and university education has expanded much more rapidly than the economy.
The government is making considerable efforts to meet the health needs of the people. Thus, the average life expectancy at birth rose from about 32 years in 1951 to 53 years in 1981 and to 62 years in 2000. Immunization programs have greatly reduced the incidence of certain diseases, and smallpox, once a major killer, has been eradicated. A vigorous antimosquito campaign came close to wiping out malaria as well, but with the emergence of DDT-resistant strains of mosquitoes, the spread of malaria has continued.
The number of government-paid doctors in the countryside has increased substantially, and a network of rural primary-health-care centers has been established. These centers are staffed by “multipurpose health workers” who have taken a short medical course, enabling them to treat many common health problems that do not really need a doctor's attention. Throughout India there are also practitioners of traditional Indian systems of medicine that are reasonably effective for a number of ailments.
Apart from treating illnesses, the medical profession has been called on to play a major role in implementing India's family planning program. This involves giving advice to women or married couples who wish to practice birth control and performing sterilization operations on willing men and women. However, a controversial effort to enforce compulsory sterilization in the mid-1970s failed, and the Indian public has been slow to accept the desirability of limiting family size. While the birth rate has fallen significantly in recent decades, it is still quite high. A concurrent drop in the death rate has kept India's rate of population growth at a level that exceeds the world average.
Beginning in the late 1800s Indian agriculture became much more intensive as efforts were made to obtain the best yield from every piece of land. The first major changes resulted from the development of giant canal irrigation projects, especially in the western Indo-Gangetic Plain and on the Indus Plain, which now is largely in Pakistan. Following independence the government of India accelerated this effort. Multipurpose river basin development projects were established in all parts of the country. As the opportunities for additional surface water projects became limited, the emphasis shifted to irrigation from groundwater, usually by means of deep, cement-lined, power-driven tube wells.
Traditional Indian agriculture was overwhelmingly for subsistence, but from the 19th century onward there has been a great increase in commercial farming. Chief among the cash crops is cotton, which is grown mainly on the black lava soils of the Deccan. Jute, grown for fiber, is important in the Ganges delta area of West Bengal. Plantation crops include tea, grown in the highlands of the far south and northeast; coffee, a southern highland crop; and rubber and coconuts, produced mainly along the southwestern coast. Important specialty crops include tobacco, chilies, various spices, cashew nuts, and betel leaf (pan).
Forestry is not well developed. Most of the nation's forests—about 23 percent of the total area—are owned and managed by the state governments. Commercial exploitation is generally carried out by licensed companies. The principal timber species are sal and teak. However, much of the legal cutting and considerable poaching is for firewood and the manufacture of charcoal. Other forest products include wood for pulp, paneling, and matches; aromatic sandalwood; bamboo canes; medicinal plants; lac, which is used in shellac; resins; and tanning and dyeing materials. In a country where paper is scarce, leaves often serve as wrappers.
The oldest factory industry—and the most important as a source of employment—is the manufacture of cotton textiles. Though mills are found in most parts of the country, they are concentrated along the west coast, from Bombay (Mumbai) north to Ahmadabad. India ranks among the world's principal manufacturers and exporters of cottons. Other textile industries include the manufacture of jute for burlap bags and other uses, concentrated in cities on the Hooghly River north of Calcutta (Kolkata); woolens, in Kanpur (in Uttar Pradesh), Amritsar (in Punjab), and Srinagar (in Jammu and Kashmir); and rayon. In the widespread leather industry, as with textiles, modern factories offer severe competition to traditional craftspeople. In general, modern food industries are poorly developed, mainly because low incomes limit effective demand for their products. Among the exceptions are sugar refining and the processing of vegetable oils, tea, and coffee.
India's modern metallurgical industry got its start in 1907, when the Tata Iron and Steel Company was established at Jamshedpur (now in Jharkhand) on the Chota Nagpur Plateau. In addition to steel, India produces aluminum and copper for further processing. Other major products include machine tools, automobiles, motorcycles, bicycles, railway cars, diesel engines, pumps, and sewing machines, many of them produced for export. The country's electrical and chemical industries are expanding rapidly.
In the worst industrial accident in history, a highly toxic chemical escaped from a plant in Bhopal in December 1984. More than 3,300 people were killed. In 1989 the plant's owner, Union Carbide Corporation, paid 470 million dollars in relief to the victims, under the order of the Indian Supreme Court.
Since independence there has been a great spurt of road building. By the early 1990s the road network had grown to approximately 1,250,000 miles (2,000,000 kilometers), about 42 percent of which was surfaced. Most villages can now be reached by automobile, at least in the dry season. The use of motor vehicles rose correspondingly, but the total was still small: 1,433,000 trucks and buses, 2,284,000 private cars, and more than 12 million motorcycles.
India has the largest merchant shipping fleet among the world's less developed countries. In the early 1990s it totaled 10.5 million gross registered tons and operated out of 10 major and 170 minor ports. Companies engaged in overseas and coastal trade are both publicly and privately owned. Inland water traffic on the several thousand miles of navigable rivers and canals is no longer very important.
Air India, the government-owned international airline, flies to many parts of the world from Delhi, Bombay (Mumbai), Calcutta (Kolkata), and Madras (Chennai). The Indian Airlines Corporation, also a state monopoly, serves virtually all the nation's cities. For most Indians, however, air travel is no more than a distant dream. A typical family is happy to own a single bicycle. In the countryside, transportation of goods by cart and pack animals is still the general rule. Human porters are common in the cities, where every conceivable mode of ground transport exists on the crowded streets.
The communications system of India is not well developed. Postal and telegraphic services reach all parts of the country, but service is slow. The telephone system is overburdened and inefficient. The main radio and television services are government operated and noncommercial. Service to the cities is generally adequate, but many villages do not have a single radio. Television is virtually unknown in rural areas, except in the vicinity of a few major cities. Plans are under way, however, for satellite transmission that will reach more parts of the country.
Motion pictures are an especially powerful and popular communications medium. Open-air cinemas are features of fairs, and no town of any size is without a movie house. In some years India is the world's leading film producer. Several hundred feature films are released annually in a variety of regional languages. Most are escapist adventures and love stories, in color, with a number of dance and song sequences. However, some Indian filmmakers, like Satyajit Ray, have achieved international acclaim.
The vigorous Indian press provides about 16,000 newspapers, including more than 2,000 dailies. The English-language press is still the most prestigious and influential, but newspapers in Indian languages have been gaining rapidly in readership.
Laws are enacted by a Parliament consisting of two chambers—the popularly elected Lok Sabha, or House of the People, with 545 members and the indirectly elected Rajya Sabha, or Council of States, with not more than 250 members. The president nominates a small number of members of both houses. The prime minister is elected by the majority party or coalition in Parliament and then formally appointed by the president. Executive power is exercised by the appointed Council of Ministers, or cabinet, under the leadership of the prime minister. Elections to the Lok Sabha are held at least every five years; if there is a vote of no-confidence in the prime minister's government, the president must call for new elections. The Supreme Court decides on the constitutionality of federal laws, handles disputes between the central government and the states or between the states themselves, and judges appeals from lower courts.
India consists of 28 states, six union territories, and one national capital territory (Delhi). The governments of the states are organized in much the same way as the central government. The federal constitution gives the states control over certain issues, such as agriculture, and retains control over almost 100 others, such as foreign affairs. There is a third list of subjects, such as price control, on which both the central and state governments may pass laws. The union territories and the national capital territory are controlled directly by the central government. The national capital territory includes the capital, New Delhi, and the rest of the Delhi metropolis.
The federal constitution includes a lengthy list of fundamental rights. It guarantees freedom of speech and religion, among many other rights, and abolishes untouchability. It also specifies a set of Directive Principles of State Policy, designed to guide the government in the interests of the people. In periods of national emergency, which only the president can declare, the government may legally suspend certain rights for a limited period. Such an emergency was in force in India from June 1975 to March 1977.
Party politics are energetically pursued at both the national and state levels. There are many parties, and their orientations are diverse. The Indian National Congress, or its dominant faction, formed most of India's governments after independence. It was committed to a form of democratic socialism, with a mixture of private and state enterprise. Several other Socialist and Communist parties are ideologically to the left of Congress. The parties to the right of Congress have largely appealed either to Hindu interests (such as the Bharatiya Janata party) or to those of other religious, linguistic, or regional groups. With so many parties contesting parliamentary elections, independent candidates have a fairly good chance of being elected. Despite the high level of illiteracy, voter turnouts in Indian elections are normally large.
In foreign affairs India tried to maintain a policy of nonalignment in the political rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. It supported independence movements in areas subject to colonial rule, opposed racism in South Africa and elsewhere, and championed developing nations in their economic dealings with the affluent countries of Europe, North America, and Japan. India has played a prominent role in the United Nations and in many of its specialized agencies.
In 326 BC the armies of Alexander the Great reached the Hydaspes River, the modern Jhelum. Soon after Alexander's death in Babylon in 323, Candragupta founded the Maurya Empire. His grandson Asoka adopted Buddhism, then a relatively small sect, and energetically promoted that faith. Under Asoka the Maurya Empire extended over all India except the extreme south, but it began to break up shortly after his death. Candra Gupta I, who reigned from AD 320 to 330, was the founder of the imperial dynasty of the Guptas, which flourished until the mid–6th century. The Gupta Dynasty marked the peak of classical Indian civilization.
A succession of invaders, notably the Kushans, Sakas, and Ephthalites, or White Huns, penetrated the subcontinent during these centuries. Mongol forces of Genghis Khan made raids into Punjab in the 1200s, and in 1399 Timur Lenk's hordes poured in. In 1526 Baber, a descendant of Genghis Khan and Timur Lenk, came through the northwest passes from Afghanistan and seized the throne of Delhi, establishing the great Mughal Empire. This remained almost continuously powerful until the early 1700s. The south of India was never completely conquered, but the empire of the north, under such rulers as Akbar and Shah Jahan, was among the most brilliant in the history of the Orient. During the reign of Aurangzeb, the last of the great Mughals, from 1618 to 1707, the Marathas of the Deccan undermined the Mughal Empire.
British presence in India was threatened with extinction, but the genius of Robert Clive turned the tables. His storming and subsequent defense of Arcot in 1751 and his victory at Plassey in 1757 overthrew the French power and laid the foundations of the rule of the British East India Company. Later, trading rights gradually grew into political rule. It was a strange conquest, in which a private trading company conquered an empire chiefly through the use of soldiers (Sepoys) raised in the land itself. Warren Hastings, who became governor-general for the East India Company in 1774, built upon the foundation Clive had laid. By 1849 the rule of the company had been extended over virtually the whole of the subcontinent by conquest or treaties.
Certain high-handed methods used by the British company, as well as the teachings of missionaries and the introduction of European customs, now stirred a great wave of unrest. In 1857 a rumor was circulated among the company's Indian soldiers that the cartridge papers they had to tear with their teeth were greased with the fat of cows and pigs. The cow is sacred to Hindus, and the pig is abhorred by Muslims. This rumor started the great Sepoy Revolt, or Indian Mutiny, of 1857. The outbreak, though crushed, ended the powers of the East India Company. In 1858 the administration was transferred to the British Crown. In 1876 the British Parliament ruled that India should be designated an empire. The next year Queen Victoria was crowned empress of India.
British rule brought internal peace and some economic development. The British built roads and railways, canals, irrigation works, and mills and factories. They introduced Western law and police systems, modernized cities, and built schools. Most British civil service personnel were able, though their aloofness aroused resentment. Indian intellectuals, many of them educated in England, began to dream of a free India. In 1885 they founded the Indian National Congress to further the participation of Indians in their own government.
Rioting broke out when Parliament placed no Indians on the Simon Commission, appointed in 1927 to investigate the government of India. The British imprisoned Gandhi and his associates. In 1929 Jawaharlal Nehru was elected president of the Congress. Like Gandhi, Nehru was passionately devoted to the cause of freedom. He had absorbed Western ideas at Harrow and Cambridge, however, and, unlike Gandhi, wanted to bring modern technology and industrialization to India.
After three “round-table” conferences in London had considered the commission's report, Parliament passed a new Government of India Act in 1935. It provided for elected legislatures in the provinces, but property and educational requirements restricted the number of voters to about 14 percent of the population. To protect the interests of minorities, voting was by communal groups. Upper-caste Hindus, Untouchables, Muslims, Sikhs, and others voted for their own candidates. The system perpetuated religious strife. Mohammed Ali Jinnah, leader of the Muslim League, charged that Congress ministries mistreated their Muslim minorities. He agitated for the separation of the Muslim provinces from India and the creation of a state called Pakistan, which means “country of the pure.”
When World War II broke out, the Congress demanded complete and immediate freedom for India as the price for India's active participation. In 1942 Sir Stafford Cripps went to India with a plan for granting dominion status after the war, but Indian leaders could not agree on the terms. The Congress insisted on a unified India. The Muslim League demanded a separate Pakistan. The princes were determined to preserve their states.
The Japanese invaded northeast India from Burma with a small force in the spring of 1944. It was quickly driven out. In spite of opposition to British rule, India raised a volunteer army of nearly 2.5 million. Its industries expanded greatly to supply arms and other goods for the war effort.
The boundaries between India and Pakistan were drawn so as to separate Muslims from Hindus and Sikhs. The Punjab, Bengal, and Assam were split in two. Yet some 38 million Muslims remained in India and about 19 million Hindus and more than 1.5 million Sikhs were left in Pakistan. Rioting broke out. Millions poured across the borders to the country of their own faith. Hundreds of thousands were massacred or died of other causes while migrating. Hundreds of villages were burned in communal strife.
On Jan. 30, 1948, Gandhi was assassinated by a fanatical member of a militant Hindu group that disapproved of his efforts toward reconciliation. Hindus and Muslims alike mourned his death. The Indian government immediately acted against the extremist group, and violence subsided. In 1950 the two nations agreed to protect their religious minorities. By 1951 about 7.2 million Hindus and Sikhs had fled from Pakistan into India and 7.4 million Indian Muslims had entered Pakistan. Additional millions crossed later. Religious strife and violence persisted for decades, however, in spite of these migrations.
Both India and Pakistan coveted Jammu and Kashmir, a large princely state in the far north. When troops entered the state from Pakistan, the ruler of Kashmir joined his state to India and asked for India's help. For 14 months the two countries waged an undeclared war in Kashmir. The fighting ended on Jan. 1, 1949, when both agreed to permit the United Nations to hold a plebiscite in the state. It was never held. India and Kashmir announced in 1957 that Kashmir's accession to India was permanent, but it was not recognized by the United Nations. Part of it remains occupied by Pakistan.
When Britain withdrew from India, Portugal ruled Goa and several other territories on India's west coast with a total area of 1,472 square miles (3,813 square kilometers). France held Pondicherry and a number of other small areas totaling 196 square miles (508 square kilometers). Between 1950 and 1954 France's colonies were merged with India. The Portuguese possessions were seized by India in 1961.
As the vehicle of independence, the Congress party enjoyed great prestige, and throughout this period it maintained a firm grasp on the national government. As the state boundaries were redrawn to accommodate various language groups, however, parties emphasizing local and regional issues assumed increasing importance in state governments. In 1957 a Communist government took office in Kerala. Internationally, Nehru's efforts to maintain India's nonaligned course were made difficult by the Cold War between the Eastern and Western power blocs and by the continuing dispute with Pakistan. In 1962 a border dispute with China erupted into deep thrusts by Chinese troops into the Ladakh region of Kashmir and the North East Frontier Agency (now the union territory of Arunachal Pradesh). However, the Chinese subsequently withdrew to the areas they had controlled before the conflict.
Nehru's last years were marked by failing health. At the same time, the economy was losing momentum, and the Chinese incursion had wounded Indian pride. Nehru died in May 1964.
In 1967 and 1969 the Congress party suffered serious election losses, and in 1969 it split. However, the Congress (Ruling) party, led by Prime Minister Gandhi, captured two thirds of the seats in the Lok Sabha in 1971. Gandhi's popularity reached a peak in December 1971 when India won a brief war with Pakistan, fought in support of East Pakistan's struggle for independence . Afterward, she was accused of despotic behavior, and in 1975 the courts voided her 1971 election to the Lok Sabha because of improper procedures in her campaign and barred her from holding elective office. She responded by declaring a national state of emergency. The harsh measures carried out under it, together with a controversial mass sterilization program, contributed to her defeat at the polls in 1977. In late 1978 she was expelled from Parliament and was briefly imprisoned.
The victorious Janata (People's) party, actually a coalition of non-Communist parties, had difficulty governing. Prime Minister Morarji Desai resigned in July 1979. A month later his successor, Charan Singh, also resigned, and the president called for new elections. In January 1980 Gandhi, leading a new faction called the Congress (I)—the “I” for Indira—won a remarkable victory and returned to power.
A continuing domestic problem was the resistance of the tribal peoples to central government rule. Resentment in Assam against Bengali refugees who had settled there over several decades led to a massacre in 1983 in which more than 1,000 people were killed.
Also in 1983 the government took direct control of Punjab, where militant Sikhs repeatedly clashed with Hindus. To fight the movement for an independent Sikh nation, Gandhi sent troops into Punjab in June 1984. They invaded the Golden Temple, the holiest Sikh shrine, and killed more than 400 Sikhs. On Oct. 31, 1984, two Sikh guards shot and killed Gandhi in revenge as she left her home in New Delhi. Her surviving son, Rajiv Gandhi, was chosen as prime minister. General elections in November 1989 brought the defeat of Rajiv Gandhi. Officials in his government were accused of taking kickbacks from the Bofors Company of Sweden in a purchase of guns for the army. Vishwanath Pratap Singh, leader of the Janata Dal party, was sworn in as prime minister on Dec. 2, 1989. Earlier in the year the voting age had been lowered from 21 to 18, thus enlarging the electorate by about 50 million. In March 1990 India withdrew the last of its 50,000 troops from Sri Lanka. The peacekeeping force failed in its three-year effort to reconcile the Tamils with the majority Sinhalese . Chandra Shekhar replaced Singh in November 1990 but resigned four months later. Campaigning to return to office, Gandhi was killed by a bomb blast on May 21, 1991.
In July 1997 K.R. Narayanan was elected president of India. He became the first member of the long-oppressed scheduled castes to serve India in that office.
Sharp divisions within the United Front brought about the collapse of Gujral's government in late 1997. Parliamentary elections in early 1998 sparked incidents of violence in ethnically divided regions across the country. The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) won the largest share of seats in the Lok Sabha, and Atal Behari Vajpayee, the BJP leader, became prime minister.
Vajpayee's government ignited an international controversy when it conducted a series of underground nuclear weapons tests in May 1998. The tests, India's first since 1974, violated a de facto international moratorium on nuclear testing. Concern over a possible arms race on the Indian subcontinent heightened in late May when Pakistan—citing a need to ensure security in the face of Indian aggression—conducted its own series of nuclear weapons tests. After a series of negotiations, the two countries announced in the fall of 1998 that they would abide by international efforts to end nuclear weapons testing.
Nevertheless, tensions continued to mount between India and Pakistan. In April 1999 the Indian government conducted tests of a long-range missile capable of striking Pakistan. Pakistan responded by undertaking its own missile tests. Shortly thereafter hundreds of insurgents crossed from Pakistan into the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir. The Indian government responded by launching air strikes against the militants, marking the first time that the Indian air force had conducted attack operations in Kashmir since 1971. India accused the Pakistani government of supporting the militants, who also committed terrorist attacks that killed many civilians. These attacks were not limited to Kashmir. In late 2001 heavily armed terrorists made a bold but unsuccessful attempt to enter Parliament House in New Delhi. India and Pakistan restored diplomatic relations in 2003 and opened major peace talks in 2004.
The dispute over Kashmir contributed to the rise of Hindu nationalism in India during the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Supporters of the BJP and other Hindu nationalist parties sought to diminish minority rights and promote India as a Hindu state. Heightened nationalist rhetoric and political action led to intense and often violent conflict between Hindus and Muslims. In early 2002 a group of Muslims set fire to a train carrying Hindu pilgrims, killing 58 of them. The attack ignited Hindu-Muslim riots in the state of Gujarat. Hundreds of people were killed, and more than 100,000 Muslims were forced to take shelter in relief camps. India has also faced violence and disorder, along with demands for regional autonomy or independence, in the states of Punjab and Assam.
In 2004 the BJP-led ruling coalition suffered a surprise defeat at the hands of the Congress party in India's parliamentary elections. Sonia Gandhi, president of the Congress party and widow of Rajiv Gandhi, declined the prime minister's post and instead supported former finance minister and economist Manmohan Singh for the position. Singh took office in May 2004. A member of the Sikh faith, he was India's first non-Hindu prime minister.
In December 2004 a tsunami in the Indian Ocean battered parts of India, along with several other countries in southern Asia and eastern Africa. In India more than 15,000 people died or were missing and presumed dead. Hardest hit were the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and the coastal regions of the states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Kerala. India did not accept relief assistance from foreign governments and itself gave aid to Sri Lanka and the Maldives. On the devastated Andaman and Nicobar Islands tsunami survivors criticized the Indian government's slowness to provide them relief. Population (2004 estimate), 1,081,229,000.
India's leaders have played a prominent role in world affairs since the country became independent in 1947. Nevertheless, the standard of living of most of its citizens is low. The huge population strains the nation's limited resources. Fertile, cultivable land is scarce, yet about two thirds of the people depend directly on agriculture for their livelihood. Many millions of Indians are inadequately nourished, poorly housed, and lacking in basic educational, medical, and sanitary services.
Although the modern nation of India encompasses the greater part of South Asia, it is smaller than the Indian Empire formerly ruled by Britain. Burma a mainly Buddhist country lying to the east, was administratively detached from India in 1937. Ten years later, when Britain granted independence to the peoples of the Indian subcontinent, two regions with Muslim majorities—a large one in the northwest (West Pakistan) and a smaller one in the northeast (East Pakistan)—were partitioned from the predominantly Hindu areas and became the separate nation of Pakistan. East Pakistan broke away from Pakistan in 1971 to form the independent nation of Bangladesh. Also bordering India on its long northern frontier are the People's Republic of China and the relatively small kingdoms of Nepal and Bhutan. The island republic of Sri Lanka lies just off India's southern tip. India's capital is New Delhi.
Land and Natural Resources
Much of India's area of almost 1.3 million square miles (3.3 million square kilometers—including the parts of Kashmir occupied by Pakistan or China) is a peninsula jutting into the Indian Ocean between the Arabian Sea on the west and the Bay of Bengal on the east. There are three distinct physiographic regions. In the north the high peaks of the Himalayas lie partly in India but mostly just beyond its borders in Nepal, Bhutan, and Tibet. South of the mountains, the low-lying Indo-Gangetic Plain, shared with Pakistan and Bangladesh, extends more than 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) from the Arabian Sea to the Bay of Bengal. Finally, the peninsular tableland, largely the Deccan, together with its adjacent coastal plains, makes up more than half of the nation's area.The Himalayas
The northern mountain wall consists of three parallel ranges. The highest of these ranges is the Greater Himalayas, which include several peaks that rise above 25,000 feet (7,600 meters). Even the passes through these mountains are farther above sea level than the highest summits of the Alps. India has the world's largest area under snow and glaciers outside the polar regions.Lower mountain ranges branch off from both ends of the Himalayan system, running along the border with Myanmar toward the Bay of Bengal in the east and—mainly through Pakistan—toward the Arabian Sea in the west. Thus, the low-lying country to the south is relatively isolated from the rest of Asia. This accounts for its recognition as a subcontinent.
The Indo-Gangetic Plain
The Indo-Gangetic Plain, with an area of about 270,000 square miles (700,000 square kilometers), varies in width by several hundred miles. It is the world's most extensive tract of uninterrupted alluvium. These deep, river-deposited sediments give rise to fertile soils. In addition, they are rich in groundwater for well irrigation. The flat terrain also makes the area ideal for canal irrigation.The greater part of the Indo-Gangetic Plain is drained by the Ganges River, which rises in the southern Himalayas and flows in a generally south to southeast direction to the Bay of Bengal. Its principal tributary, the Yamuna, or Jumna, flows past New Delhi, the capital of India, to join the Ganges near Allahabad. North of Goalundo Ghat in Bangladesh, the Ganges is joined by the Brahmaputra. The Indus and its tributaries drain the western and southwestern parts of the plain. The northern part of this area, now divided between India and Pakistan, is traditionally known as the Punjab, or Land of the Five Rivers, for the five major tributaries of the Indus—the Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Sutlej, and Beas. Also on the India–Pakistan border and considered part of the plain is the arid Thar, or Great Indian, Desert.
The Deccan
The so-called tableland of India is actually a more complex landform region than that word suggests. Most of the 735,000 square miles (1.9 million square kilometers) of the Deccan are relatively flat, with elevations ranging from 1,000 to 2,000 feet (300 to 600 meters) above sea level. However, the terrain also includes numerous ranges of hills, as well as several long, prominent escarpments. Anai Mudi (8,842 feet, 2,695 meters), in the Southern Ghats, is the highest peak in peninsular India.The coastal plains flanking the Deccan are relatively narrow, ranging from 6 to 80 miles (10 to 130 kilometers). The eastern plain is drained by several large deltas, including, from north to south, those of the Mahanadi, Godavari, Krishna, and Kaveri rivers.
India is rich in nonenergy mineral resources and moderately well endowed with coal, but it is poor in proven reserves of petroleum and natural gas. The principal mineral deposits lie south of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. Foremost among mineral-rich regions is the Chota Nagpur Plateau. This area contains India's main coal deposits as well as large quantities of high-grade iron ore, copper, bauxite, limestone, mica, and chromite. At more than 100 billion tons, the country's coal reserves are the fifth largest in the world. However, most of the coal is of poor quality because of its high ash and moisture content. Proven on-land petroleum reserves are insufficient to meet current demand. There has been some success with offshore exploration. Many of India's rivers are potential sources of hydroelectric power.
Climate
In general, India's climate is governed by the monsoon, or seasonal, rain-bearing wind. Most of the country has three seasons: hot, wet, and cool. During the hot season, which usually lasts from early March to mid-June, very high temperatures are accompanied by intermittent winds and occasional dust storms.Strong, humid winds from the southwest and south usually bringing very heavy rains that fall almost daily in the middle or late afternoon—the “burst of the monsoon”—herald the start of the wet season. It may begin as early as late May in the south. Eventually, the rains taper off, and by late October cool, dry, northerly air has replaced the humid marine air over all of India except the southeastern third of the peninsula. This “retreat of the monsoon” marks the start of the cool season.
Average annual precipitation varies widely. Cherrapunji in the Shillong Plateau just north of Bangladesh receives 450 inches (1,143 centimeters), making it the second rainiest place on Earth, after Mount Waialeale in Hawaii (460 inches, 1,168 centimeters). At the other extreme, the western Thar Desert averages only 4 inches (10 centimeters). In the driest parts of India, however, the rainfall is highly variable.
Temperature varies as does rainfall in different parts of India. Hill stations in the Himalayan region, such as Darjeeling and Simla, record the lowest temperatures, with annual averages of between about 54° and 57° F (12° and 14° C). In the Indo-Gangetic Plain, Delhi and Allahabad register an average of 79° F (26° C).
Plant and Animal Life
Most of the far northeast (north and east of Bangladesh), northern West Bengal, and the west coast from Cochin to somewhat north of Bombay (Mumbai) get more than 80 inches (200 centimeters) of rainfall annually. This is usually enough to keep the soil moist throughout the year. The natural vegetation associated with these regions is an exceedingly varied, broadleaf, evergreen rain forest, typically tall and dense. Much of the rain forest, however, is in hilly regions that have been repeatedly burned over and cleared for slash-and-burn agriculture, a type of farming particularly associated with India's tribal population. As a result, the soil has become less fertile. Where the forest has grown again, it is generally lower and less open than the original vegetation.Areas with from 40 to 80 inches (100 to 200 centimeters) of rainfall (enough to grow at least one crop of rice) include almost the whole northeastern peninsular region, the eastern Gangetic Plain, a narrow belt on the plains and hills just south of the Himalayas as far west as Kashmir, another belt just east of the crest of the Western Ghats, and most of the southeastern, or Coromandel, coast. In these areas, as average rainfall declines the forests become progressively shorter, less dense, and less varied.
In addition, as rainfall declines from 80 to 60 inches (200 to 150 centimeters) evergreens gradually give way to deciduous species, which in these regions lose their leaves during the cool, dry season. Where government protection from slash-and-burn agriculture has kept forests intact, they include good stands of teak, sal, and other excellent timber species.
Most of the rest of India averages from 20 to 40 inches (50 to 100 centimeters), enough to grow one crop of grain other than rice. The natural vegetation consists of low, open forests, intermixed with thorny shrubs and grasses. Little of the original vegetative cover remains.
A wide variety of distinctive vegetation types occurs as a result of special ecological conditions. Tall grass savannas, with scattered acacias, grow on the moist soils of the Terai, the fringe of plains bordering the northern mountains. Mangrove forests are found in the brackish deltas of the east coast, and many types of palms grow in sandy or salty soils. Often impenetrable stands of bamboo sprout up in fields formerly given over to slash-and-burn cultivation.
The alterations in India's vegetation over the centuries have brought about many changes in the animal life. Today the dominant forms are cattle, goats, buffalo, sheep, and, in the drier regions, camels. While cattle are essential to the nation's economy, there is a religious taboo against their slaughter.
In the forests and the high, rugged areas where wild species are still dominant, the array of animals remains rich. Among large mammals are the Indian elephant, still regularly rounded up and domesticated in several areas; the rhinoceros, living almost exclusively in game sanctuaries; over a dozen species of deer and antelope; and wild cattle, sheep, goats, and boars.
Carnivores, or meat eaters, include tigers and leopards; lions, once wide-ranging but now confined to the Gir Forest on the Kathiawar Peninsula; the nearly extinct cheetah; and a variety of bears. Monkeys, especially langurs and rhesuses, are common even in cities. The cobra is the best-known reptile. Three species of crocodiles are found. There are about 1,200 species of birds, among them vultures, parrots, mynas, quail, and bustards.
People and Culture
Humans have lived in India for many thousands of years, but the time and place of the arrival of the first inhabitants is uncertain. Agriculturists settled in the area as early as the 7th millennium BC. Among the early arrivals were people who spoke languages of the Dravidian family. Between 2000 and 1500 BC Dravidian speakers moved from the northwest to the southeast of India. Around the same time a wave of migrants of inner Eurasian origin began to filter into India through passes on the northwestern frontier of the country. These invaders, known as Aryans, spoke languages related to those spoken by peoples in Iran and Europe. Over the course of centuries these people spread southwestward and eastward at the expense of other indigenous groups.Throughout history new groups continued to penetrate India, mainly from the northwest: Persians, Arabs, Turks, Mongols, and Afghans. All of these peoples contributed significantly to India's ethnic mix. In the 16th century small numbers of western Europeans began arriving in India. Although they greatly influenced Indian culture, they had relatively little impact on India's ethnic composition.This long history of migrations and invasions resulted in the numerous ethnic groups that make up the population of present-day India. Although the people tend to vary in appearance in different parts of the country, they collectively have come to be called Indians.
Language
Two linguistic groups, the Indo-Aryan and the Dravidian, account for all but a tiny proportion of India's population. Speakers of the various Indo-Aryan languages live mainly in northern India, and speakers of Dravidian tongues are concentrated in the south. Of the Indo-Aryan languages, Hindi, the official national language, is the most important. In its standard form and its many dialects, it is spoken by about two fifths of the population and is understood by a large number of others. It is predominant in the northern and central regions. Included among the Hindi variations is Urdu, referred to until 1947 as Hindustani or Khari Boli, which is recognized as a separate “official” language in the Indian constitution. Urdu is also the official language of Pakistan and is spoken by most Indian Muslims (except in the far south and east).Other important Indo-Aryan languages are Bengali (the official language of the state of West Bengal and also of Bangladesh), Panjabi (the official language of the state of Punjab and the most widely spoken language of Pakistan), and Marathi, Gujarati, Oriya, Assamese, and Kashmiri (respectively, the official languages of the states of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Orissa, Assam, and Jammu and Kashmir). Two other languages of the Indo-Aryan family are among the 15 regarded as official languages by the constitution: Sanskrit, a classical literary language, and Sindhi, spoken largely in the Sind province of Pakistan and also by Hindu refugees who came to India after partition in 1947. The list of official languages includes four Dravidian tongues: Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, and Kannada, which predominate, respectively, in the southern states of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Karnataka.
English is understood by most educated persons. While it is not one of the 15 languages, it is officially recognized and is used, for example, for correspondence between Hindi-speaking and non–Hindi-speaking states. It is also the language shared by the Dravidian-speaking south and the Hindi-speaking north. Of the scores of languages not officially recognized, many are spoken almost exclusively by tribal peoples, known collectively as Adibasis.
Hinduism
Although a number of religions flourish in India's tolerant social climate, four fifths of the people are Hindus. Hinduism evolved from Vedism, the religion of the early Aryan invaders. While it recognizes innumerable gods, they are widely regarded as diverse manifestations of one great universal spirit. Hinduism has no standard orthodox form. It is, in effect, what people who call themselves Hindus do in carrying out their dharma, or religious obligations. This varies considerably from one region and social group to another.Caste
The social groups with which Hindus identify most strongly are their jatis, or castes. A caste is a hereditary group whose members intermarry only among themselves. Each has its own origin myth, traditional occupation, rules relating to kinship, diet, and various forms of behavior. Castes are graded in a social and ritual hierarchy in which each expects respect from inferior groups and gives respect to superior ones. While obviously creating disparities, the caste system is not regarded by most Hindus as unjust. According to generally accepted beliefs associated with reincarnation, or rebirth after death, the caste into which one is born depends on one's karma—that is, one's accumulated good and bad deeds in previous existences. The way to achieve higher status in future incarnations is to accept one's station in life and live accordingly. This is the path that may eventually lead to salvation, called moksha, freedom from the continuous round of rebirths.There are thousands of jatis, but most may be grouped into four great social classes called varnas. The highest are the Brahmans, the priestly castes that traditionally dominated the learned professions and still wield great influence. Next are the Kshatriyas, traditionally warriors, rulers, and large landowners. Third are the Vaishyas, once mainly farmers but now chiefly associated with commerce. Lowest are the Shudras, who today constitute the mass of India's artisans and laborers.
Below the Shudras are a number of castes with no varna designation. Traditionally these outcastes were regarded as “Untouchables.” They were considered to be ritually impure and able to convey pollution to others because of their association with unclean occupations, such as scavenging and leatherworking. These groups have always been subject to considerable prejudice. The nationalist leader Mohandas K. Gandhi, who tried to ensure that they were treated humanely, bestowed on them the name Harijan, or children of God, by which they are now popularly known.
Officially they are recognized as “scheduled castes.” The Indian constitution, which outlaws untouchability, requires that a “schedule” of such groups be prepared in every state as an aid to providing them with special benefits. The aim is to help them overcome their disadvantaged position. Thus, they are guaranteed seats in the national and state parliaments, at least in proportion to their 15 percent of the population, as well as minimum quotas for placement in universities and government, and various other benefits. Similarly, the tribal peoples, 7.5 percent of the population, are designated as “scheduled tribes” and given corresponding benefits.
Islam
Muslims, who constitute 11 percent of the population, are the largest religious minority. Many of these followers of the monotheistic faith of Islam are descendants of invaders from the Middle East and Central Asia who began entering the subcontinent as early as the 8th century. Most, however, are descendants of converts from Hinduism and other faiths. The majority belong to the Sunnah branch of Islam, though the Shi'ah sect is well represented among Muslim trading groups of Gujarat.Although Islam, unlike Hinduism, stresses the equality of people, the institution of caste is so strong in the subcontinent that it has affected the communities professing Islam and most other faiths. Thus, most Indian Muslims intermarry within graded, castelike groups, many of which have traditional occupations. Muslims form a majority of the population in Jammu and Kashmir and substantial minorities in the states of Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Assam, and Kerala.
Other Religious Minorities
Sikhs, with 2.6 percent of the population, are predominant in the state of Punjab. Their faith, which dates from the early 16th century, combines aspects of Hinduism, such as belief in reincarnation, with ideas borrowed from Islam, in particular strict belief in only one God. Sikhs form a prominent part of India's army and are influential in many professions and in government.Two ancient and related faiths, Buddhism and Jainism, each have several million followers in India. Although Buddhism originated in India, it became virtually extinct there and remained so until 1956, when a renowned leader of the scheduled castes, B.R. Ambedkar, converted to it. Millions of his followers subsequently followed suit. Jainism, though the religion of only a small minority of the population, has contributed enormously to Indian art, architecture, and religious thought. For centuries the small Jaina community has been especially prominent in commerce. Both Jainas and Buddhists practice ahimsa, or nonviolence, one of many religious beliefs they share with the Hindus. The Zoroastrians, known as Parsis, form another small (barely 100,000) but influential and highly educated religious community. Members of a religion founded in the 6th century BC by the Iranian prophet Zoroaster, they are descendants of Zoroastrians who fled to India from the 10th century onward to escape Muslim persecution.
It is claimed that Christianity in India dates back to AD 52, when St. Thomas, one of the 12 apostles, is said to have landed on the west coast. He is recognized as the founder of the Syrian Christians. Roman Catholics, including many descendants of 16th-century converts, are the most numerous Christian group, especially on the west coast and in the far south. During the last two centuries, Protestant missionaries have been especially successful among tribal and scheduled caste groups. Collectively, Christians make up nearly 3 percent of India's population. A small percentage follows Judaism, which was introduced by early Jewish traders who established settlements in coastal towns, notably Cochin.
Recent Indian censuses have reported only a few million of India's large tribal population as practicing animistic religions. Nevertheless, there is a strong element of spirit worship in the religious practices of most of India's tribes, blended in varying degrees with forms borrowed from Hinduism.
Ways of Life
Three fourths of India's people live in villages. These settlements may contain a thousand or more households, but one hundred to several hundred families is typical. In northwestern India villages tend to have an almost urban appearance, with tightly clustered dwellings that often form parts of high-walled compounds with few windows facing the street. In the eastern and southern regions the villages are less cramped. The various castes within a village are residentially segregated. The higher and more powerful castes generally have their homes near the center of the village, while the scheduled castes and Muslims, if any, live on its outskirts. In southern India scheduled-caste hamlets half a mile or more from the main village are not uncommon.In much of India the typical village dwelling is a modest one-story mud hut of one or several rooms. Roofs are generally flat in the dry regions and peaked in areas of heavier rainfall. Most houses have no windows, but many have a shaded veranda where social activities take place. A cubicle or a corner of the yard is set aside for the kitchen hearth, normally containing an earth stove fueled by cow dung or firewood. Furniture is scarce, indoor plumbing is virtually unknown, and electricity is uncommon. Water, brought home from wells, is stored in large clay jars, which are also used to keep perishable foods.
The family
Households often consist of more than one married couple. These joint families are usually headed by a senior male, whose wife, mother, or another related senior female assigns domestic chores to the women and girls. Generally the extended family may include his unmarried children, his younger brothers and their wives and unmarried children, his unmarried sisters, and his married sons and grandsons and their wives and unmarried children. In practice, however, brothers commonly separate and form new households soon after the death of their father.Over most of India (though not in the south or northeast), a girl marries outside her village, usually while still in her teens. Even where a female marries within the village, she moves to the husband's household. Widow remarriage is frowned upon. Married couples display a marked preference for male children. Boys are desired not only because of their anticipated contribution to the family income but also because sons are needed to perform certain rites at a parent's cremation. Girls, on the other hand, are seen as a liability because they require expensive dowries when they are married. Various state governments have tried to discourage this practice, but often families still go into debt to provide dowries; a family with several daughters and no sons may face financial disaster. Boys are expected to help in the fields and girls in the home. The freedom that girls enjoy is restricted after they reach the age of puberty; in northern India, even among the Hindus, female seclusion is common.
The village economy
Most villagers are farmers. The majority own some land, usually in scattered parcels, but a substantial number must rent all or part of the land they farm, either for cash or for an agreed-upon share of the harvest. The amount depends on whether the cultivator or the landlord pays for seed and irrigation water, and on who provides the animals for plowing. Shares typically range from one third to one half the harvest. Many families, especially among the scheduled castes, have no land at all, and both adults and children must sell their labor to the larger farmers.The simple tools used by most Indian farmers are generally made in the villages. Plows are wooden, with short iron tips. They furrow but do not turn the soil. Draft animals are mainly oxen in the drier regions and water buffalo in the wetter, rice-growing areas. Both cattle and water buffalo are milked, but yields are low. Transport is still largely by oxcart or buffalo cart, though the use of trucks is gaining as a result of road improvement. Tractor cultivation is rare except in Haryana and the Punjab.
Goods and services that are not available locally are obtained from nearby villages, at weekly outdoor markets, in towns and cities, and at fairs, usually held in connection with religious holidays. Payment for goods and services provided within the village may be either in cash or in kind. The latter type of payment, usually a portion of grain at the time of harvest, used to be the customary rule. Most specialized-caste families catered to a particular set of patron families, known as jajmans, with whom they were linked by hereditary ties. This jajmani system is breaking down over most of India, but patron-client alliances among various castes remain a common feature of village life.
Most villages have at least a primary school offering up to six years of instruction. Some also offer adult education classes in the evening. While few villages can support a well-trained doctor, many have practitioners of traditional medicine. Government-aided dispensaries are increasingly common.
For entertainment men join their fellow caste members or those from castes at levels close to their own to pass the evening hours smoking and chatting. Women and girls talk at the village well and may join groups to sing religious songs. Male youths sometimes form sports clubs or drama groups. Village-owned radios set up in public spaces are common, but television is rare. Traveling storytellers, musicians, acrobats, and snake charmers relieve the drabness of life, as do weddings, religious celebrations, trips to local fairs, and occasional religious pilgrimages.
Local government
Village government is in the hands of a democratically elected council, known as a panchayat, presided over by a village headman. In former days virtually all panchayat members were men of the upper castes, usually those who owned the most land. Now many states require that a certain number of women and members of scheduled castes be included. Increasingly, elections are held by secret ballot. The panchayats are expected to work closely with the government-sponsored Community Development Program, which has divided the entire country into community development blocks, averaging about a hundred villages each. Village-level workers within each block are the chief links between the government and the villagers. They bring news to the villagers of developments that might benefit them and report back the sentiments of the people.Urban life
Approximately one fourth of all Indians live in urban places. Of these, more than half live in settlements of more than 100,000 people, officially defined as cities. The 2001 census listed 27 cities with more than 1 million people. The two largest—Bombay (Mumbai) and Delhi (including the capital, New Delhi)—had populations of more than 9 million each.Indian cities are generally poorly planned and are much more crowded than those of Europe or North America. Streets are narrow, the number of people in residential dwellings is high, and buildings with more than two stories are relatively scarce. The principal activity is retail trade, mainly carried out in small shops in specialized bazaar streets. Many shops combine a handicraft activity, often in a back room, and a sales outlet. The family of the shopkeeper normally lives just behind or above the shop.
Open spaces within larger cities and on their outskirts are likely to contain makeshift squatter settlements, occupied by recent immigrants from the countryside who have come to the city in search of employment. Many people lack any shelter at all and simply resort to sleeping in the streets, especially near railway stations where temporary day laborers are recruited each morning.
In the last few generations, many cities have spawned satellites located a considerable distance away from the densely settled cores. Some housed members of the civil administration during the period of British rule and are still known as civil lines. Others, designated as cantonments, included residences and special areas such as parade grounds set aside for the army. Since India achieved independence, many planned modern suburbs have sprung up. Modern factories, sometimes grouped in government-sponsored industrial estates, have increasingly been located outside the cities.
Like cities everywhere, those of India are centers of education, cultural activities, political ferment, and social change. In the urban setting, the caste and religious barriers that loom so large in the villages are considerably relaxed. Thus, there is somewhat more opportunity for talented individuals to rise in government, modern business, factories, and universities.
Art and Literature
The artistic and literary heritage of India is exceptionally rich. Probably most renowned are the country's architectural masterpieces. These date from many different ages. The ancient Buddhist domed stupa, or shrine, at Sanchi was probably begun by the emperor Asoka in the mid–3rd century BC. The Kailasa Temple at Ellora was carved out of solid rock in the 8th century. The enormous, elaborately sculptured Sun Temple at Konarak dates from the 13th century, and the Minakshi Temple in Madurai, with its striking outer towers and inner Hall of 1,000 Pillars, from the 16th century. The sublime Taj Mahal at Agra was built in the 17th century by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan as a mausoleum for his favorite wife. Every major region and religious group of India has produced works of extraordinary merit. Hindu and Jaina temples are usually richly embellished by sculpture. Because of the Islamic opposition to representative art, mosques are comparatively austere and rely for adornment largely on inlaid stonework, decorative tiles, geometric designs in stone, plaster, or wood, and ornate calligraphy.Painting is relatively less developed, and much of the work of the past has fallen victim to weather. However, the well-preserved, sensuous cave paintings at Ajanta, dating from the 1st century BC to the 7th century AD, demonstrate great technical proficiency at an early date. Altogether different is the lyric and romantic style of the various schools of miniature painting that flourished in the courts of the Mughals and the Rajput princes in the 16th and subsequent centuries. Modern painting, inspired by both European and Far Eastern models, has had several internationally recognized exponents.
Classical Indian music, dance, and drama are closely linked. Their roots go back nearly 2,000 years. Their mastery calls for great discipline and intensive practice. Each has a conventionalized “language” that demands considerable sophistication on the part of the audience. As with architecture, a number of regional styles have developed. Folk music and dance also show wide regional variations.
The literature of India covers many fields of knowledge, but religious and philosophical texts are particularly numerous. The oldest religious texts, the Vedas (beginning with the Rig Veda around 1400 BC), were transmitted only by word of mouth for many centuries before being committed to writing. For most Hindus the two best-known texts are the great epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, composed roughly 2,000 years ago. The former recounts the adventures of the god-king Rama and provides models of proper conduct for both men and women. The latter, the longest poem ever written, relates a great mythical war involving all the peoples of ancient India. The most important portion of that epic, the Bhagavadgita, is the principal Hindu tract on morality and ethics.
Indian Muslim literature covers a wide range of practical subjects. However, the authority of the Koran, Islam's holy book, leaves little room for religious speculation. Poetry is particularly admired.
Education
Although India boasts one of the world's largest pools of scientifically and technically trained persons, a large percentage of its people—approximately 35 percent of the total population—are still illiterate. The literacy rate for females (54 percent) is much lower than for males (76 percent), but the gap between the sexes is being reduced steadily. Similarly, the rural literacy rate is considerably lower than that for urban areas. The central and state governments are attempting to eradicate illiteracy. Thanks to a rapid increase in the number of schools following independence, especially in the villages, most of the children aged 6–11 are now enrolled. Enrollment drops sharply thereafter, however, even though education is free in most states at least until age 14.India's first three universities, at Calcutta (Kolkata), Bombay (Mumbai), and Madras (Chennai), were chartered only in 1857. By independence the number of universities in what is now India had risen to 20, and today there are more than 150 with a combined student body of more than 6 million. Most universities have affiliated colleges scattered over a rather wide area. There are few towns with a population of more than 20,000 that do not have at least one such college.
The colleges have shown a gradual shift toward instruction in the official state languages. This makes higher education accessible to many more people, but it has also meant a decline of proficiency in English. Since postgraduate education is almost entirely in English, this may present a major problem in the future. Another problem, already serious, is the large number of graduates who are unemployed because college and university education has expanded much more rapidly than the economy.
Health
In general, the level of health among the Indian population is far from good. Because of impure drinking water and lack of public sanitation, diseases such as dysentery and typhoid are fairly common. Cholera, malaria, filariasis, and other illnesses associated with wet, tropical climates are serious problems. Although few people now starve to death in times of scarcity, many millions are improperly nourished and afflicted by various deficiency diseases.The government is making considerable efforts to meet the health needs of the people. Thus, the average life expectancy at birth rose from about 32 years in 1951 to 53 years in 1981 and to 62 years in 2000. Immunization programs have greatly reduced the incidence of certain diseases, and smallpox, once a major killer, has been eradicated. A vigorous antimosquito campaign came close to wiping out malaria as well, but with the emergence of DDT-resistant strains of mosquitoes, the spread of malaria has continued.
The number of government-paid doctors in the countryside has increased substantially, and a network of rural primary-health-care centers has been established. These centers are staffed by “multipurpose health workers” who have taken a short medical course, enabling them to treat many common health problems that do not really need a doctor's attention. Throughout India there are also practitioners of traditional Indian systems of medicine that are reasonably effective for a number of ailments.
Apart from treating illnesses, the medical profession has been called on to play a major role in implementing India's family planning program. This involves giving advice to women or married couples who wish to practice birth control and performing sterilization operations on willing men and women. However, a controversial effort to enforce compulsory sterilization in the mid-1970s failed, and the Indian public has been slow to accept the desirability of limiting family size. While the birth rate has fallen significantly in recent decades, it is still quite high. A concurrent drop in the death rate has kept India's rate of population growth at a level that exceeds the world average.
Economy
Because of low levels of productivity, both per worker and per acre of agricultural land, average incomes in India are among the lowest in the world. Almost all production must go to meet the subsistence needs of the population, and savings and investment are difficult to promote. Hence, the nation finds it difficult to escape from a vicious cycle of poverty. Nevertheless, by a combination of careful economic planning and foreign economic aid India has managed to make remarkable progress since independence. Major sources of aid have been the United States, the World Bank and other international agencies, and the Soviet Union before its collapse. Because the growth rate of agricultural production has substantially exceeded that of the population, acute famine no longer appears to be a serious threat. Growth in manufacturing has been impressive, and India now ranks among the world's leading industrial nations.Agriculture
The pattern of Indian agriculture varies greatly from one region to another. Almost everywhere, grains form the principal crop: rice in the wetter portions of the east and south, wheat in the north and northwest, sorghum and millet over much of the peninsular interior. Leguminous crops such as gram, often grown with grain, are also widely cultivated, as are various oilseeds. Sugarcane is a highly profitable crop in places where modern crushing plants are accessible. Certain fruits, especially mangoes, are exceedingly abundant in season. Nevertheless, the total area given over to fruits and vegetables is insufficient to provide most Indians with a balanced diet.Beginning in the late 1800s Indian agriculture became much more intensive as efforts were made to obtain the best yield from every piece of land. The first major changes resulted from the development of giant canal irrigation projects, especially in the western Indo-Gangetic Plain and on the Indus Plain, which now is largely in Pakistan. Following independence the government of India accelerated this effort. Multipurpose river basin development projects were established in all parts of the country. As the opportunities for additional surface water projects became limited, the emphasis shifted to irrigation from groundwater, usually by means of deep, cement-lined, power-driven tube wells.
The Green Revolution
Another major change has been the spread of new, high-yielding varieties of hybrid seeds. In some areas use of these seeds has multiplied wheat yields several-fold. There have also been impressive gains in rice production. However, these varieties require large inputs of fertilizers, irrigation water, and pesticides. Thus, a whole new technology, popularly called the Green Revolution, is needed. States such as Punjab and Haryana, where the new methods have been practiced on a large scale, have prospered greatly. Other states that have been unable to adapt them are still struggling.Traditional Indian agriculture was overwhelmingly for subsistence, but from the 19th century onward there has been a great increase in commercial farming. Chief among the cash crops is cotton, which is grown mainly on the black lava soils of the Deccan. Jute, grown for fiber, is important in the Ganges delta area of West Bengal. Plantation crops include tea, grown in the highlands of the far south and northeast; coffee, a southern highland crop; and rubber and coconuts, produced mainly along the southwestern coast. Important specialty crops include tobacco, chilies, various spices, cashew nuts, and betel leaf (pan).
Livestock
Because of the scarcity of land and the widely held taboos against eating meat, especially beef and pork, little livestock is raised for slaughter. Mutton from sheep and goats is widely consumed, however, as are poultry and eggs. Animals are economically important for plowing and transportation; for milk and milk products; for leather, skins, and wool; and as sources of dung for fuel and fertilizer.Fishing and Forestry
There are some taboos against eating fish, but they are less prevalent than those against meat. Hence, fishing at sea and in rivers provides a modest supplement to a diet generally poor in protein. Increasingly, rice paddies are being stocked with carp and other fishes. Shrimp have become a significant export.Forestry is not well developed. Most of the nation's forests—about 23 percent of the total area—are owned and managed by the state governments. Commercial exploitation is generally carried out by licensed companies. The principal timber species are sal and teak. However, much of the legal cutting and considerable poaching is for firewood and the manufacture of charcoal. Other forest products include wood for pulp, paneling, and matches; aromatic sandalwood; bamboo canes; medicinal plants; lac, which is used in shellac; resins; and tanning and dyeing materials. In a country where paper is scarce, leaves often serve as wrappers.
Mining
A great variety of minerals are mined and quarried. Foremost in importance and in value of production is coal, which is mined at many sites but chiefly in the Chota Nagpur Plateau. Coal supplies more than half of India's energy needs. Petroleum production, from small fields in Assam and Gujarat and the promising offshore Bombay High field, is expanding fairly rapidly, but domestic production meets only half of the demand for petroleum products. Hydroelectricity, an important supplementary source of energy, provides nearly two fifths of the nation's electrical power requirements. India is a major producer and exporter of iron ore. It also produces several important minerals used in ferroalloys, such as manganese and chromite. Other metals include copper, gold, zinc, lead, bauxite, and silver. Limestone, phosphorite, dolomite, and gypsum are used in the manufacture of cement, fertilizers, and other products. High-quality building stones, gems, mica, and kaolin, or china clay, are produced in significant quantities.Manufacturing
Indian handicraft industries, especially those producing textiles, have been renowned for centuries. Before the Industrial Revolution the products of these industries were avidly sought for European markets. Subsequently, however, millions of artisans in India found it virtually impossible to compete with the cheap products of British mills and lost their traditional forms of livelihood. Before independence attempts were made to boycott British imports, as advocated by Mohandas K. Gandhi. This, together with official support for small-scale industry after 1947, led to some resurgence of handicrafts. In India as elsewhere, however, the economic advantages of large-scale production have forced ever greater reliance on factory production.The oldest factory industry—and the most important as a source of employment—is the manufacture of cotton textiles. Though mills are found in most parts of the country, they are concentrated along the west coast, from Bombay (Mumbai) north to Ahmadabad. India ranks among the world's principal manufacturers and exporters of cottons. Other textile industries include the manufacture of jute for burlap bags and other uses, concentrated in cities on the Hooghly River north of Calcutta (Kolkata); woolens, in Kanpur (in Uttar Pradesh), Amritsar (in Punjab), and Srinagar (in Jammu and Kashmir); and rayon. In the widespread leather industry, as with textiles, modern factories offer severe competition to traditional craftspeople. In general, modern food industries are poorly developed, mainly because low incomes limit effective demand for their products. Among the exceptions are sugar refining and the processing of vegetable oils, tea, and coffee.
India's modern metallurgical industry got its start in 1907, when the Tata Iron and Steel Company was established at Jamshedpur (now in Jharkhand) on the Chota Nagpur Plateau. In addition to steel, India produces aluminum and copper for further processing. Other major products include machine tools, automobiles, motorcycles, bicycles, railway cars, diesel engines, pumps, and sewing machines, many of them produced for export. The country's electrical and chemical industries are expanding rapidly.
In the worst industrial accident in history, a highly toxic chemical escaped from a plant in Bhopal in December 1984. More than 3,300 people were killed. In 1989 the plant's owner, Union Carbide Corporation, paid 470 million dollars in relief to the victims, under the order of the Indian Supreme Court.
Transportation and Communication
India's railway system, begun in the mid–19th century, is an important inheritance from the period of British rule. With approximately 38,000 miles (61,000 kilometers), the government-owned network is the fourth largest in the world. Although the volume of freight carried is not impressive, the number of passenger-miles per year in the late 1980s was surpassed only by those of the Soviet Union and Japan. Trains on main lines offer frequent and efficient service. Few places are more than a day's walk from a railroad line.Since independence there has been a great spurt of road building. By the early 1990s the road network had grown to approximately 1,250,000 miles (2,000,000 kilometers), about 42 percent of which was surfaced. Most villages can now be reached by automobile, at least in the dry season. The use of motor vehicles rose correspondingly, but the total was still small: 1,433,000 trucks and buses, 2,284,000 private cars, and more than 12 million motorcycles.
India has the largest merchant shipping fleet among the world's less developed countries. In the early 1990s it totaled 10.5 million gross registered tons and operated out of 10 major and 170 minor ports. Companies engaged in overseas and coastal trade are both publicly and privately owned. Inland water traffic on the several thousand miles of navigable rivers and canals is no longer very important.
Air India, the government-owned international airline, flies to many parts of the world from Delhi, Bombay (Mumbai), Calcutta (Kolkata), and Madras (Chennai). The Indian Airlines Corporation, also a state monopoly, serves virtually all the nation's cities. For most Indians, however, air travel is no more than a distant dream. A typical family is happy to own a single bicycle. In the countryside, transportation of goods by cart and pack animals is still the general rule. Human porters are common in the cities, where every conceivable mode of ground transport exists on the crowded streets.
The communications system of India is not well developed. Postal and telegraphic services reach all parts of the country, but service is slow. The telephone system is overburdened and inefficient. The main radio and television services are government operated and noncommercial. Service to the cities is generally adequate, but many villages do not have a single radio. Television is virtually unknown in rural areas, except in the vicinity of a few major cities. Plans are under way, however, for satellite transmission that will reach more parts of the country.
Motion pictures are an especially powerful and popular communications medium. Open-air cinemas are features of fairs, and no town of any size is without a movie house. In some years India is the world's leading film producer. Several hundred feature films are released annually in a variety of regional languages. Most are escapist adventures and love stories, in color, with a number of dance and song sequences. However, some Indian filmmakers, like Satyajit Ray, have achieved international acclaim.
The vigorous Indian press provides about 16,000 newspapers, including more than 2,000 dailies. The English-language press is still the most prestigious and influential, but newspapers in Indian languages have been gaining rapidly in readership.
Government
India's present constitution went into effect on Jan. 26, 1950. At that time, the nation changed its status from a dominion to a federal republic, though it remained within the Commonwealth. The governor-general, appointed by the British Crown, was replaced by a president, chosen by an electoral college. The president is the official chief of state, but the office is largely ceremonial.Laws are enacted by a Parliament consisting of two chambers—the popularly elected Lok Sabha, or House of the People, with 545 members and the indirectly elected Rajya Sabha, or Council of States, with not more than 250 members. The president nominates a small number of members of both houses. The prime minister is elected by the majority party or coalition in Parliament and then formally appointed by the president. Executive power is exercised by the appointed Council of Ministers, or cabinet, under the leadership of the prime minister. Elections to the Lok Sabha are held at least every five years; if there is a vote of no-confidence in the prime minister's government, the president must call for new elections. The Supreme Court decides on the constitutionality of federal laws, handles disputes between the central government and the states or between the states themselves, and judges appeals from lower courts.
India consists of 28 states, six union territories, and one national capital territory (Delhi). The governments of the states are organized in much the same way as the central government. The federal constitution gives the states control over certain issues, such as agriculture, and retains control over almost 100 others, such as foreign affairs. There is a third list of subjects, such as price control, on which both the central and state governments may pass laws. The union territories and the national capital territory are controlled directly by the central government. The national capital territory includes the capital, New Delhi, and the rest of the Delhi metropolis.
The federal constitution includes a lengthy list of fundamental rights. It guarantees freedom of speech and religion, among many other rights, and abolishes untouchability. It also specifies a set of Directive Principles of State Policy, designed to guide the government in the interests of the people. In periods of national emergency, which only the president can declare, the government may legally suspend certain rights for a limited period. Such an emergency was in force in India from June 1975 to March 1977.
Party politics are energetically pursued at both the national and state levels. There are many parties, and their orientations are diverse. The Indian National Congress, or its dominant faction, formed most of India's governments after independence. It was committed to a form of democratic socialism, with a mixture of private and state enterprise. Several other Socialist and Communist parties are ideologically to the left of Congress. The parties to the right of Congress have largely appealed either to Hindu interests (such as the Bharatiya Janata party) or to those of other religious, linguistic, or regional groups. With so many parties contesting parliamentary elections, independent candidates have a fairly good chance of being elected. Despite the high level of illiteracy, voter turnouts in Indian elections are normally large.
In foreign affairs India tried to maintain a policy of nonalignment in the political rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. It supported independence movements in areas subject to colonial rule, opposed racism in South Africa and elsewhere, and championed developing nations in their economic dealings with the affluent countries of Europe, North America, and Japan. India has played a prominent role in the United Nations and in many of its specialized agencies.
History
Archaeological excavations at Mohenjo-daro and Harappa (both in Pakistan) reveal the existence of a civilization in the Indus Valley as long ago as about 2500 BC . The remains show that an urban manner of living had developed in which the people had wells, bathrooms, drainage systems, handsome jewelry, and well-made household utensils and copper weapons. The Rig Veda, composed in about 1400 BC, tells of the struggle between the Aryan invaders and the prior occupants of the land. By the 6th century BC at least 16 Aryan states had been established south of the Himalayas, and Brahmanism was flourishing.In 326 BC the armies of Alexander the Great reached the Hydaspes River, the modern Jhelum. Soon after Alexander's death in Babylon in 323, Candragupta founded the Maurya Empire. His grandson Asoka adopted Buddhism, then a relatively small sect, and energetically promoted that faith. Under Asoka the Maurya Empire extended over all India except the extreme south, but it began to break up shortly after his death. Candra Gupta I, who reigned from AD 320 to 330, was the founder of the imperial dynasty of the Guptas, which flourished until the mid–6th century. The Gupta Dynasty marked the peak of classical Indian civilization.
A succession of invaders, notably the Kushans, Sakas, and Ephthalites, or White Huns, penetrated the subcontinent during these centuries. Mongol forces of Genghis Khan made raids into Punjab in the 1200s, and in 1399 Timur Lenk's hordes poured in. In 1526 Baber, a descendant of Genghis Khan and Timur Lenk, came through the northwest passes from Afghanistan and seized the throne of Delhi, establishing the great Mughal Empire. This remained almost continuously powerful until the early 1700s. The south of India was never completely conquered, but the empire of the north, under such rulers as Akbar and Shah Jahan, was among the most brilliant in the history of the Orient. During the reign of Aurangzeb, the last of the great Mughals, from 1618 to 1707, the Marathas of the Deccan undermined the Mughal Empire.
Arrival of the Europeans
Meanwhile, the struggle between European powers for dominance in Indian affairs had begun. In 1498 Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese navigator, discovered the ocean route around the Cape of Good Hope, and by the early 17th century the Dutch, British, and French began to challenge the Portuguese for the Indian trade. In 1600 the British East India Company was chartered, and within a century it had trading posts at Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta (then called Fort William). The French organized local troops, and their role in the quarrels of Indian rulers brought much of the Deccan under French influence by 1751.British presence in India was threatened with extinction, but the genius of Robert Clive turned the tables. His storming and subsequent defense of Arcot in 1751 and his victory at Plassey in 1757 overthrew the French power and laid the foundations of the rule of the British East India Company. Later, trading rights gradually grew into political rule. It was a strange conquest, in which a private trading company conquered an empire chiefly through the use of soldiers (Sepoys) raised in the land itself. Warren Hastings, who became governor-general for the East India Company in 1774, built upon the foundation Clive had laid. By 1849 the rule of the company had been extended over virtually the whole of the subcontinent by conquest or treaties.
Certain high-handed methods used by the British company, as well as the teachings of missionaries and the introduction of European customs, now stirred a great wave of unrest. In 1857 a rumor was circulated among the company's Indian soldiers that the cartridge papers they had to tear with their teeth were greased with the fat of cows and pigs. The cow is sacred to Hindus, and the pig is abhorred by Muslims. This rumor started the great Sepoy Revolt, or Indian Mutiny, of 1857. The outbreak, though crushed, ended the powers of the East India Company. In 1858 the administration was transferred to the British Crown. In 1876 the British Parliament ruled that India should be designated an empire. The next year Queen Victoria was crowned empress of India.
The Indian Empire
The viceroy of India, appointed by the crown, ruled directly only in the provinces of British India. Hindu and Muslim princes continued to govern almost 600 native, or princely, states. These were nominally autonomous, but they were forbidden to make war on one another, and the viceroy kept an agent at each court to advise the ruler.British rule brought internal peace and some economic development. The British built roads and railways, canals, irrigation works, and mills and factories. They introduced Western law and police systems, modernized cities, and built schools. Most British civil service personnel were able, though their aloofness aroused resentment. Indian intellectuals, many of them educated in England, began to dream of a free India. In 1885 they founded the Indian National Congress to further the participation of Indians in their own government.
The Struggle for Independence
During World War I Indian troops served the British loyally, but nationalist agitation increased afterward. The British Parliament passed a reform act in 1919, providing for provincial councils of Indians with some powers of supervision over agriculture, education, and public health. Far from satisfied, the extreme nationalists, led by Mohandas K. Gandhi, gained control of the Congress. Gandhi preached resistance to the British by “noncooperation”. Hundreds of thousands joined his civil disobedience campaigns. The Congress party quickly gained a mass following.Rioting broke out when Parliament placed no Indians on the Simon Commission, appointed in 1927 to investigate the government of India. The British imprisoned Gandhi and his associates. In 1929 Jawaharlal Nehru was elected president of the Congress. Like Gandhi, Nehru was passionately devoted to the cause of freedom. He had absorbed Western ideas at Harrow and Cambridge, however, and, unlike Gandhi, wanted to bring modern technology and industrialization to India.
After three “round-table” conferences in London had considered the commission's report, Parliament passed a new Government of India Act in 1935. It provided for elected legislatures in the provinces, but property and educational requirements restricted the number of voters to about 14 percent of the population. To protect the interests of minorities, voting was by communal groups. Upper-caste Hindus, Untouchables, Muslims, Sikhs, and others voted for their own candidates. The system perpetuated religious strife. Mohammed Ali Jinnah, leader of the Muslim League, charged that Congress ministries mistreated their Muslim minorities. He agitated for the separation of the Muslim provinces from India and the creation of a state called Pakistan, which means “country of the pure.”
When World War II broke out, the Congress demanded complete and immediate freedom for India as the price for India's active participation. In 1942 Sir Stafford Cripps went to India with a plan for granting dominion status after the war, but Indian leaders could not agree on the terms. The Congress insisted on a unified India. The Muslim League demanded a separate Pakistan. The princes were determined to preserve their states.
The Japanese invaded northeast India from Burma with a small force in the spring of 1944. It was quickly driven out. In spite of opposition to British rule, India raised a volunteer army of nearly 2.5 million. Its industries expanded greatly to supply arms and other goods for the war effort.
Birth of the New Nations
In February 1947 the British government announced that it would leave India not later than June 1948. Muslim threats of civil war then forced the Hindu leaders to agree to the establishment of the separate state of Pakistan. The British Parliament rushed through the Indian Independence Act in July. On Aug. 15, 1947, the Indian Empire came to an end.The two new dominions—India and Pakistan—had complete self-rule. Though they remained in the Commonwealth, they were free to withdraw. India took over the Indian Empire's membership in the United Nations. Jinnah became the first governor-general of Pakistan. Nehru, a moderate socialist, took office as India's first prime minister.The boundaries between India and Pakistan were drawn so as to separate Muslims from Hindus and Sikhs. The Punjab, Bengal, and Assam were split in two. Yet some 38 million Muslims remained in India and about 19 million Hindus and more than 1.5 million Sikhs were left in Pakistan. Rioting broke out. Millions poured across the borders to the country of their own faith. Hundreds of thousands were massacred or died of other causes while migrating. Hundreds of villages were burned in communal strife.
On Jan. 30, 1948, Gandhi was assassinated by a fanatical member of a militant Hindu group that disapproved of his efforts toward reconciliation. Hindus and Muslims alike mourned his death. The Indian government immediately acted against the extremist group, and violence subsided. In 1950 the two nations agreed to protect their religious minorities. By 1951 about 7.2 million Hindus and Sikhs had fled from Pakistan into India and 7.4 million Indian Muslims had entered Pakistan. Additional millions crossed later. Religious strife and violence persisted for decades, however, in spite of these migrations.
Status of Princely States and Foreign Areas
The Indian Independence Act applied only to the provinces of British India. The 562 native states were left outside both dominions. A few joined Pakistan. The rest were brought into India. Hyderabad, the largest princely state, insisted on remaining independent. India sent in troops, and in November 1948 it became a part of IndiaBoth India and Pakistan coveted Jammu and Kashmir, a large princely state in the far north. When troops entered the state from Pakistan, the ruler of Kashmir joined his state to India and asked for India's help. For 14 months the two countries waged an undeclared war in Kashmir. The fighting ended on Jan. 1, 1949, when both agreed to permit the United Nations to hold a plebiscite in the state. It was never held. India and Kashmir announced in 1957 that Kashmir's accession to India was permanent, but it was not recognized by the United Nations. Part of it remains occupied by Pakistan.
When Britain withdrew from India, Portugal ruled Goa and several other territories on India's west coast with a total area of 1,472 square miles (3,813 square kilometers). France held Pondicherry and a number of other small areas totaling 196 square miles (508 square kilometers). Between 1950 and 1954 France's colonies were merged with India. The Portuguese possessions were seized by India in 1961.
India Under Nehru
In 1949 India adopted a new constitution. It became effective on Jan. 26, 1950. India then became a republic, though it remained in the Commonwealth. Nehru, the best-known leader of the independence movement next to Gandhi, served as prime minister until his death in 1964. During that time he succeeded in putting his imprint on the new nation. His guiding principles in domestic affairs were democracy, socialism, unity, and secularism. In foreign policy, he attempted to steer a nonaligned course between the Communist and the non-Communist powers, hoping to maintain peaceful relations with all nations. Unlike Gandhi, Nehru favored industrialization, and under his leadership India made substantial progress. Under the first two five-year plans (1951 to 1956 and 1956 to 1961) national income rose 42 percent. Great strides were made in the steel, electric power, cement, and fertilizer industries.As the vehicle of independence, the Congress party enjoyed great prestige, and throughout this period it maintained a firm grasp on the national government. As the state boundaries were redrawn to accommodate various language groups, however, parties emphasizing local and regional issues assumed increasing importance in state governments. In 1957 a Communist government took office in Kerala. Internationally, Nehru's efforts to maintain India's nonaligned course were made difficult by the Cold War between the Eastern and Western power blocs and by the continuing dispute with Pakistan. In 1962 a border dispute with China erupted into deep thrusts by Chinese troops into the Ladakh region of Kashmir and the North East Frontier Agency (now the union territory of Arunachal Pradesh). However, the Chinese subsequently withdrew to the areas they had controlled before the conflict.
Nehru's last years were marked by failing health. At the same time, the economy was losing momentum, and the Chinese incursion had wounded Indian pride. Nehru died in May 1964.
Rule of Indira Gandhi
Lal Bahadur Shastri succeeded Nehru as prime minister. In 1965 the quarrel with Pakistan over Kashmir flared into heavy fighting. After three weeks United Nations intervention brought about a cease- fire. On Jan. 10, 1966, the heads of the two nations signed a pact aimed at a peaceful settlement of the Kashmir dispute. The following day Shastri died. He was succeeded as prime minister by Indira Gandhi, Nehru's daughter.In 1967 and 1969 the Congress party suffered serious election losses, and in 1969 it split. However, the Congress (Ruling) party, led by Prime Minister Gandhi, captured two thirds of the seats in the Lok Sabha in 1971. Gandhi's popularity reached a peak in December 1971 when India won a brief war with Pakistan, fought in support of East Pakistan's struggle for independence . Afterward, she was accused of despotic behavior, and in 1975 the courts voided her 1971 election to the Lok Sabha because of improper procedures in her campaign and barred her from holding elective office. She responded by declaring a national state of emergency. The harsh measures carried out under it, together with a controversial mass sterilization program, contributed to her defeat at the polls in 1977. In late 1978 she was expelled from Parliament and was briefly imprisoned.
The victorious Janata (People's) party, actually a coalition of non-Communist parties, had difficulty governing. Prime Minister Morarji Desai resigned in July 1979. A month later his successor, Charan Singh, also resigned, and the president called for new elections. In January 1980 Gandhi, leading a new faction called the Congress (I)—the “I” for Indira—won a remarkable victory and returned to power.
A continuing domestic problem was the resistance of the tribal peoples to central government rule. Resentment in Assam against Bengali refugees who had settled there over several decades led to a massacre in 1983 in which more than 1,000 people were killed.
Also in 1983 the government took direct control of Punjab, where militant Sikhs repeatedly clashed with Hindus. To fight the movement for an independent Sikh nation, Gandhi sent troops into Punjab in June 1984. They invaded the Golden Temple, the holiest Sikh shrine, and killed more than 400 Sikhs. On Oct. 31, 1984, two Sikh guards shot and killed Gandhi in revenge as she left her home in New Delhi. Her surviving son, Rajiv Gandhi, was chosen as prime minister. General elections in November 1989 brought the defeat of Rajiv Gandhi. Officials in his government were accused of taking kickbacks from the Bofors Company of Sweden in a purchase of guns for the army. Vishwanath Pratap Singh, leader of the Janata Dal party, was sworn in as prime minister on Dec. 2, 1989. Earlier in the year the voting age had been lowered from 21 to 18, thus enlarging the electorate by about 50 million. In March 1990 India withdrew the last of its 50,000 troops from Sri Lanka. The peacekeeping force failed in its three-year effort to reconcile the Tamils with the majority Sinhalese . Chandra Shekhar replaced Singh in November 1990 but resigned four months later. Campaigning to return to office, Gandhi was killed by a bomb blast on May 21, 1991.
Recent Events
P.V. Narasimha Rao became prime minister after the Congress party triumphed in 1991 elections. The country's religious tensions were inflamed in December 1992 when a Hindu mob destroyed a centuries-old Muslim mosque built on a Hindu sacred site in Ayodhya. Hundreds were killed in the ensuing riots that broke out in cities across India. Elections in 1996 brought the United Front, a coalition of center-left parties, to power in Parliament. H.D. Deve Gowda became prime minister but served for only 10 months before failing to win a vote of confidence from Parliament. In April 1997 the governing coalition chose Inder K. Gujral as his replacement.In July 1997 K.R. Narayanan was elected president of India. He became the first member of the long-oppressed scheduled castes to serve India in that office.
Sharp divisions within the United Front brought about the collapse of Gujral's government in late 1997. Parliamentary elections in early 1998 sparked incidents of violence in ethnically divided regions across the country. The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) won the largest share of seats in the Lok Sabha, and Atal Behari Vajpayee, the BJP leader, became prime minister.
Vajpayee's government ignited an international controversy when it conducted a series of underground nuclear weapons tests in May 1998. The tests, India's first since 1974, violated a de facto international moratorium on nuclear testing. Concern over a possible arms race on the Indian subcontinent heightened in late May when Pakistan—citing a need to ensure security in the face of Indian aggression—conducted its own series of nuclear weapons tests. After a series of negotiations, the two countries announced in the fall of 1998 that they would abide by international efforts to end nuclear weapons testing.
Nevertheless, tensions continued to mount between India and Pakistan. In April 1999 the Indian government conducted tests of a long-range missile capable of striking Pakistan. Pakistan responded by undertaking its own missile tests. Shortly thereafter hundreds of insurgents crossed from Pakistan into the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir. The Indian government responded by launching air strikes against the militants, marking the first time that the Indian air force had conducted attack operations in Kashmir since 1971. India accused the Pakistani government of supporting the militants, who also committed terrorist attacks that killed many civilians. These attacks were not limited to Kashmir. In late 2001 heavily armed terrorists made a bold but unsuccessful attempt to enter Parliament House in New Delhi. India and Pakistan restored diplomatic relations in 2003 and opened major peace talks in 2004.
The dispute over Kashmir contributed to the rise of Hindu nationalism in India during the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Supporters of the BJP and other Hindu nationalist parties sought to diminish minority rights and promote India as a Hindu state. Heightened nationalist rhetoric and political action led to intense and often violent conflict between Hindus and Muslims. In early 2002 a group of Muslims set fire to a train carrying Hindu pilgrims, killing 58 of them. The attack ignited Hindu-Muslim riots in the state of Gujarat. Hundreds of people were killed, and more than 100,000 Muslims were forced to take shelter in relief camps. India has also faced violence and disorder, along with demands for regional autonomy or independence, in the states of Punjab and Assam.
In 2004 the BJP-led ruling coalition suffered a surprise defeat at the hands of the Congress party in India's parliamentary elections. Sonia Gandhi, president of the Congress party and widow of Rajiv Gandhi, declined the prime minister's post and instead supported former finance minister and economist Manmohan Singh for the position. Singh took office in May 2004. A member of the Sikh faith, he was India's first non-Hindu prime minister.
In December 2004 a tsunami in the Indian Ocean battered parts of India, along with several other countries in southern Asia and eastern Africa. In India more than 15,000 people died or were missing and presumed dead. Hardest hit were the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and the coastal regions of the states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Kerala. India did not accept relief assistance from foreign governments and itself gave aid to Sri Lanka and the Maldives. On the devastated Andaman and Nicobar Islands tsunami survivors criticized the Indian government's slowness to provide them relief. Population (2004 estimate), 1,081,229,000.
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