Download the history of india

THE HISTORY OF INDIA:
EARLY BEGINNINGS
TO
INDEPENDENCE
2015–2016
PENTATHLON
SOCIAL SCIENCE
RESOURCE GUIDE
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Pentathlon Social Science Resource Guide 2015-1016
Introduction
South Asia is divided into seven nation-states. India is bordered by Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan,
Bhutan, with the island-nations of Sri Lanka and the Maldives to the south and south-west. These
borders were formed during the 20th century as a result of the withdrawal of the British Empire
after World War II. In 1947, India won its Independence.
“Life on the Campus:” the painting below illustrates the diverse experiences of modern Indian
life during the last years of British rule. The campus was Visva Bharati University, a university
founded by Rabindranath Tagore. Tagore is one of the most revered figures in Indian history for
his literature, non-fiction, poetry, and monumental social and political achievements. In 1913, he
became the first Indian and the first non-European to win the Noble Prize in Literature.
Visva Bharati University sought to provide an alternative to colonial educational institutions
emphasizing Tagore’s beliefs on patriotism and internationalism. Instruction in classes was
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Bengali rather than English. Classes were held outdoors; science was emphasized along with
study of the arts and humanities. Additional studies focused on other non-European societies
such as China, Japan, and the Middle East. Many visitors came to Visva Bharati from abroad as
well.1
As we proceed, we will study the lives of great women and men and their influences on the
development of modern India. Though India may sometimes feel far away, many of the people
we will study shared similar ideas on democracy and freedom as the American colonies
experienced in the 18th century.
This resource guide is divided into five sections. We begin with a definition of modern India. We
have also sought to show that there were many influences on India. India’s history and culture is
complex and is a composed of multiple interwoven influences that are braided together.
In Section I, we will cover the geography and religious influences of India. In Section II we will
learn about the early civilizations of the subcontinent as well as the great south Indian kingdom
Vijayanagara, the Mughal Empire, and European trading powers. In Section III we will consider
how the British emerged from among these European trading powers and gradually begin to shift
their operations from trade to rule over India. Section IV begins with a study of the uprising of
1857 in which Indians almost unseated British rule, examining the founding of Indian
nationalism, and the series of events leading to Indian and Pakistani Independence and Partition
in 1947. Section V considers the foundations of the flourishing of Indian democracy after
Independence.
Note to Students: Throughout the resource guide you will notice that some terms have been boldfaced and others
have been both boldfaced and underlined. Boldface indicates a key term or phrase. Terms that are underlined as
well as boldfaced are included in the glossary of terms at the end of the resource guide.
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SECTION I:
“INDIA BEFORE EUROPE”2
GEOGRAPHIC FEATURES OF INDIA
India, home to 1.2 billion people, is the world’s largest democracy.2 Today, India shares
borders with four other sovereign nation-states. Pakistan, with a population of 196 million, lies
to India’s northwest. On India’s northern border lies Nepal (population 31 million) and to its east
Bangladesh (166 million) and the mountainous kingdom of Bhutan (734,000). Just south of
India, separated only by a narrow channel, is the island nation of Sri Lanka (22 million).
Finally, off of India’s southwestern coast is the island chain of the Maldives (394,000).3
The Indian subcontinent can be divided into three geographic zones: the Indo-Gangetic Plain, the
Himalayan Mountains, and the Deccan Plateau.
The Deccan Plateau was formed in prehistoric times when the Indian tectonic plate ran into Asia,
forming the Himalayan Mountains.4 The Deccan Plateau is mainly made of granite and is not as
favorable to agriculture as the coastal regions to its east and west. India’s eastern Malabar and
western Coromandel Coasts are divided from the Deccan Plateau by the rocky ghats. Ghats are
long granite mountain ranges running up and down western and eastern India. At the start of the
Western Ghats, on the Arabian Sea, lies Bombay.
Mountains form a natural boundary of the South Asian subcontinent, both to the west and east.
To the northeast lies Tibet. The Kirthar and Sulaiman ranges form a boundary on the northwest.
Though these mountains are daunting, they have historically been passable, linking India into
great trans-Asian trade and intellectual developments.5 The Tibetan Plateau that lies just beyond
the Himalayan Mountains provides many river systems to the north Indian heartland. This rich
agrarian plain is called the Indo-Gangetic Plain after the two river systems between which it
lies, the Indus to the west and the Ganges to the east.6
The land between the Yamuna River and the Ganges is called the doab (“two rivers”) and the
land where five rivers run off the Indus is called the Punjab (“five rivers”).7 Located in the heart
of the doab (the term “doab” refers to a tract of land lying between two rivers) is India’s current
capital, New Delhi. New Delhi is located alongside the Yamuna River. As the Yamuna traces
east, it merges with the Ganges River at Allahabad, or Prayag as it is known in Hinduism. From
there the two rivers flow together across eastern India toward the equally significant port city of
Calcutta (today called Kolkata). Eventually the Ganges gives way to the Brahmaputra, which
also has its origin in the Tibetan Plateau, and they finally combine as the Padma to form the
largest delta in the world, south of Bangladesh’s capital at Dhaka.8
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An additional important feature of India’s geography is its rainfall pattern, mostly concentrated
in the two yearly monsoons that bring much-needed rain in vast quantities. The monsoons, wind
patterns carrying rain from the Indian Ocean, have shaped the conditions of agriculture and the
rhythms of long-distance shipping and trade. Beginning in June and July, Indian Ocean air
currents direct moisture in vast sheets to the southeastern Indian coast, where the weather system
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Map of British India, 1860. India’s colonial encounter with Britain was long lasting,
deep-seated, and had many effects.
then travels north and west across India. Next, the monsoon “retreats,” providing another dose of
rainfall for an additional growing season. The first monsoon, blowing from west to east,
historically allowed long-distance shipping across the Indian Ocean. The second monsoon,
blowing from east to west, would also allow eastward seafaring from India’s Malabar Coast.
These favorable climactic conditions contributed to the growth of large-scale, settled, agrarian
empires.
THE TERM “INDIA”
Prior to Indian independence in 1947, the territories that are now India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh
formed a vast band of territory, mostly under the control of the British colonial government. In
1947, at the end of a long independence struggle, this territory was divided into two independent
nation-states: India and Pakistan. In 1971, the eastern wing of Pakistan gained independence as
Bangladesh.
Here we will use the term “India” historically. When discussing the period prior to 1947, when
we say India, we shall refer to the entire area of the Indian subcontinent. When we are discussing
the period after 1947, we shall use India to refer to the contemporary nation-state of India.
Today, government agencies and scholars use the phrase “South Asia” to indicate all the nation6
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states of the sub-continent: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and the
Maldives. Since 2007, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation has also included
Afghanistan in this list.9
A further note is needed regarding Indian place names. Since Independence, many of India’s
cities and states have changed the official spelling of their names to reflect their rejection of
colonial-era spellings. So, for example, Bombay became Mumbai in 1995; Calcutta became
Kolkata in 2001; and Bangalore became Bengaluru in 2014.
APPROACHES TO INDIAN HISTORY
KEYWORDS: COLONIALISM, NATION, MODERNITY
India’s colonial encounter with Britain was long lasting, deep-seated, and had many effects.
Colonialism is the rule of one group of people by another without complete permission.
European colonialism is usually divided into phases: the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century
Iberian (Spanish and Portuguese) expansion in the New World and the Dutch spice trade; the
seventeenth- and eighteenth-century commercial empires exemplified by Holland in Java and
Britain in India; and, perhaps best-known, the nineteenth-century scramble for Africa and Asia,
in which France, Britain, Germany, and Holland divvied up much of the world. By the twentieth
century, nationalist movements around the world successfully challenged colonial governments
with demands for self-rule.10 Colonial powers had different motivations, but they were usually at
first primarily economic.
Today the nation-state is the basic unit of world governance.11 The nation is thought to be a
collection of individuals residing in a more or less neighboring territory, with shared bonds of
culture, homeland, language, history, and ethnic and religious identity. A state exists to govern
that nation. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, many European communities had to be
blended together into groupings such as “French” or “Italian.” Helped by communication
technologies, such as newspapers, the telegraph, railways (which speeded up communications
via mail), and radio (in the twentieth century), the diverse communities shared historical
experience.
Likewise, the idea of India as a distinct nation-state developed slowly over the course of the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In all cases, it was a gradual process. In many countries,
especially those Asian and African countries whose borders were determined by colonial powers,
the untiring, ethnic minorities supported independence for their own states. For example, in India
separatist groups have demanded their own nation-states on the basis of a shared language,
religion, tribal group, or shared historical and ethnic identity. For the most part, however,
nationalism in general and the idea of the Indian nation have been very successful in drawing
together diverse peoples. In multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic India, in which society is sometimes
divided by caste, gender, religion, and class, nationalism has provided a unifying belief.
Our topic is covers the history of India to its Independence. When did modern India begin? This
question, too, causes multiple arguments. One view might place the date at 1757, the Battle of
Plassey, suggesting that it was the British who brought modernity to India, while others propose
the beginning of modern India was in 1885 when the Indian National Congress was founded.12
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Indian modernity was not solely an
import from Britain, but was a product of
also the past. Therefore we will begin our
account with the early civilizations of
India and then visit the two great early
modern empires in India: Vijayanagara
and the Mughal Empire.
INDIAN SOCIETY
RELIGIONS
Hindu holy men arrive at a religious procession. Most
Indians today (80.5 percent) are Hindus.
As scholars discuss the impact of
colonialism on economic and political
systems, they also debate its impact on
Indian social structures. Historically, India has been home to a diverse, tolerant, and constantly
changing religious landscape. Yet religious tensions resulted in the Partition of India and
Pakistan and remain fault lines in modern India.
Most Indians today are Hindus (80.5 percent).13 Hinduism is an ancient religion that has many
branches of sacred knowledge, practice, and belief. Hindus most often worship their deities in
temples; in a practice known as darshan (vision), worshippers appease the deity and receive
blessings through their “seeing” of the deity. Hinduism is polytheistic and accepting; deities can
be pan-Indian or local.
Hinduism also has a base of religious scriptures that help the
individual’s exploration of religion and moral principles. The most famous of these are the
philosophical Vedas and the two great epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana.
Before British rule, Hindu beliefs varied throughout the regions and often identified themselves
as a follower of a particular deity or saint. Some scholars argue that Hinduism as a unified
religion was invented by the British because the British grouped the diverse and competing
beliefs into large and general groups. Key deities in Hinduism include Brahma, the creator;
Vishnu, the protector; and Shiva, the destroyer. Each of the three god-heads also has many
avatars, which do the work of the gods among humans.
In the sixth century BCE, Buddhism (0.8 percent) and Jainism (0.4 percent) developed.14
Buddhism at first flourished in India. The ancient Indian emperor Ashoka (304–232 BCE)
famously converted to Buddhism and adopted the philosophy of ahimsa (non-violence) as policy
for his empire in penance for his destructive conquest of Orissa. However, in the medieval period
Buddhism died out in India. It was preserved in other parts of Asia. In contrast, Jainism, a similar
religion, remained confined to a small number of followers but has maintained a continuous
existence within India. Both religions criticized the Hindu doctrine of karma and rebirth: the
notion that one’s ethical record in this life would influence his/her position in the next.
These renouncer religions asked followers to detach themselves from desire, including the desire
to be reborn in a better position. Buddhism maintained that the root of suffering was desire; Jains
hold that any action whatsoever results in matter weighing down the soul.15 In its most extreme
form this could include fasting to death, so perhaps it is no surprise that the modern pioneer of
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that tactic, Mohandas K. Gandhi, was from the
Jain heartland of Gujarat. Jain philosophy
requires strict adherence to non-violence in all
things, even forbidding followers from eating root
vegetables because their harvest might kill small
bugs in the soil. Because Jain religious beliefs
have limited occupational choices, many became
merchants and capitalists. The British colonial
state treated Buddhists and Jains as Hindus.
Though Islam (13.4 percent)16 is often associated
with its Arabian birthplace, in fact, the second
largest Muslim population in the world is
concentrated in the Indian subcontinent. Today
India has the second largest Muslim population after Indonesia and Pakistan the third. If India,
Pakistan, and Bangladesh were counted as one unit, it would have the largest Muslim population
in the world.
Cheraman Masjid, built around 788 ce, claims to
be the first Jama Masjid, or central mosque, in
India.
It is difficult to know whether Islam first arrived in India by land or by sea, for the events were
of the same period. Founded in 632, the rise of Islam was rapid as the Umayyad Caliphate spread
its territory from Spain to Central Asia and on to Sindh in the seventh and eighth centuries.
Arab political control did not extend beyond Sindh further into Gujarat or Punjab. However, in
coastal India, Islam also took root along trade networks. The Mappilas are a community of
Muslims centered near Cochin, Kerala, who claim to have converted to Islam during the lifetime
of the Prophet Muhammad. Arab traders found that India’s caste-system worked against their
intermarriage and inter-dining with upper-caste practices within their communities. However, the
fishing community of the Mappilas did not observe such strict beliefs and intermarried with these
Arabs, becoming some of the first Indian Muslims. Mappilas spoke the local language
(Malayalam, not Arabic), dressed like their
neighbors, and continued their cultural
practices.17 One very early and valuable
artifact of this community is the Cheraman
Masjid, a wooden mosque. The mosque
was probably built in the seventh century
and rebuilt after its destruction in the
sixteenth century.18 This mosque is very
different from Umayyad mosques built in
the Arabian heartland of Islam and claims
to be the first Jama Masjid, or central
mosque, in India.19
In north India in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, Islam spread on a wide
scale during the era of central Asian
dynasties centered at Delhi—first the Delhi
Indian Muslims pray outside a mosque on Eid AlFitr, an important Islamic religious holiday marking the
end of Ramadan. Islam has deep roots on the Indian
subcontinent, and India has been a crucial site of Islamic
knowledge and practice.
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Sultanate and then the Mughal Empire. Muslim holy men brought Islam to local peoples. With
its simple beliefs and radical message of equality, the appeal of Islam to the north Indian peasant
is easy to understand. It was particularly noticeable in Bengal in eastern India. Although the state
did nothing to encourage Islam, the religion flourished through the work of these shrines and
holy men.20
The very earliest Christians in India converted just after Christ’s death by his disciple Thomas,
who is said to have come to India. These Christians belonged to the Syrian Christian tradition. 21
The Portuguese tried to bring these Christians and Hindus into the Catholic fold. During the
colonial era, conversions did not occur in the vast numbers missionaries hoped for, though in the
northeast Christianity took deep root as a result of missionary zeal.
Another small minority religion in India is Zoroastrianism, whose adherents are called Parsis.
Parsis fled to India from Iran and quickly became an important merchant-trading community on
India’s western coast. India also has a miniscule population of Jews descended from trading
communities settled in India centuries ago. At the end of this section, we will examine India’s
third-largest religion, Sikhism (1.9 percent),22 in detail.
CASTE
Varna
Throughout
general
Jati
India; Jati categories tend to be
local and specific, though
they can be part of Indiawide/global networks
Five
main Thousands
groupings
Broad descriptive Highly occupation specific
categories
(i.e., carpenter versus clerk
versus trader)
Caste has been identified by many as a
peculiar and unique feature of Indian life.
Caste actually comes from a Portuguese
word, casta. Casta simply means lineage or
breed, but over four centuries of use in
India, the term has taken on a complex life
of its own. Most often, when westerners
refer to caste, they are referring to a system
of social division based on religiousoccupational categories.
Hindu tradition places people to different
classes.
Each class has its own
responsibilities, privileges, and limitations.
The class or “caste” defines a person’s
General descriptive Highly influential in
social state. The term “caste” actually
terms; relevance
determining appropriate
encompasses two categories: varna and
primarily in
marriage partners (this is
jati. Varna is the term that refers to five
religious literature
changing, however),
broad categories of religious-occupational
and ritual
mobilizing credit, and
status: Brahmins (priests); Kshatriyas
gaining and using political
(warriors); Vaishyas (traders and farmers);
power
Shudras (laborers); and Dalits. The term
“Dalit” needs a special note: in colonial
India those Indians who fell outside the caste system were referred to with terms such as
“outcastes” and “untouchables.” Today, these offensive terms have been replaced with “Dalit,” a
term meaning “oppressed” that has been reclaimed as an empowering identity marker.
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Though varna is perhaps simpler to understand, in day-to-day life, the main categories are
divided into hundreds of subcastes called jatis.23 The table on the previous page shows some of
the key differences.
Section I Summary

South Asia consists of three geographic zones (the Deccan Plateau, the Himalayas, and the IndoGangetic plain) and is currently divided into eight countries (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal,
Sri Lanka, Bhutan, the Maldives, and Afghanistan).

About 81.5 percent of India’s 1.2 billion people are Hindu and 13.4 percent are Muslim.
Hinduism is a polytheistic and ancient religion that allows great scope for diverse practices and
beliefs. One basic doctrine is that of reincarnation. India and Pakistan together have the largest
population of Muslims in the world, and Islam has long had an important role in Indian life.
Other religious groups include Sikhs, Parsis, Christians, and Jews.

Caste can refer to both varna and jati, the latter of which is more important in everyday life.
Caste represents a hierarchical division of society along occupational lines.
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SECTION II:
INDIA BEFORE EUROPEAN COLONIZATION
Indus Valley Civilization, 3300–1300 BCE
On the banks of the Indus River, an early, sophisticated civilization flourished. The Indus
Valley Civilization was the earliest formal society to develop in South Asia.24 It is one of the
three major early urban river-valley cultures, along with Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt.
Although our knowledge of these civilizations is somewhat limited, excavations of two of its
leading cities, Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, uncovered evidence of an advanced society. Also
known as the Harappan civilization (after the first major site to be discovered and excavated),
this culture flourished along the Indus river in present-day Pakistan and northern India.
From approximately 3300 to 1300 BCE, the Indus Valley Civilization developed a relatively
uniform culture across a number of locations, including Harappa, Ganweriwala Thar,
Kalibangan, and Mohenjo-daro. Evidence at these sites shows a highly sophisticated level of
urban planning, with carefully line streets, brick houses, a sewage systems as well as major
advancements in technology. Archeological evidence confirms that the inhabitants of the Indus
Valley were among the first to adopt a system of standardized weights and measures, and that
they developed new techniques in metallurgy that allowed them to produce and trade items made
of copper, bronze, lead, and tin.
It is generally believed that many aspects of their religious practices evolved into later religious
systems such as Hinduism and Buddhism. Surprisingly, no structures that can be identified as
temples or other obvious places of worship have been discovered to date. A variety of sculptural
objects believed to relate to religious activities have been unearthed, including figurines
depicting animals such as cows, bears, monkeys, and dogs, as well as statuettes of dancing girls
in gold, terracotta, and stone.
Historians have also found many jewelry pieces—necklaces, bracelets, and other ornaments—
worked in a variety of materials such as shell, ceramics, agate, and glazed soapstone beading.
Most intriguingly, Indus Valley sites have supplied a number of small, soapstone seals with
carved designs of animal and narrative motifs, as well as a script that remains indecipherable.
It is not entirely clear why the Indus Valley Civilization declined. By approximately 1700 BCE
most of the cities had been deserted, probably as a result of sustained drought and climate change
in the area, as well as a decline in the maritime trade activity, which had largely supported the
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Historical map of the Indus Valley Civilization.
Image: Encyclopedia Britannica Kids
region’s prosperity. Unfortunately, many details of the Indus Valley Civilization continue to
remain unknown to us. Little of the material culture of this society is left to us, especially when
compared to the cultures in Egypt and the Near East which flourished at the same time the
Harrapan civilization. While this necessarily restricts our historical perspective, further research
and discovery will only expand our understanding. The sites of the Indus Valley, including the
very important remnants of the city at Mohenjo-daro, continue to provide clues to one of the
earliest urban settlements in human history.
The Mohenjo-daro Site
Mohenjo-daro is one of the most important Indus Valley sites. Located in present-day Pakistan, it
is the best preserved of the Indus Valley Civilization cities. It has provided historians with an
excellent overview of the sophisticated urban planning techniques present in the region during
the ancient period.
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The excavated ruins of Mohenjo-daro in present-day Sindh, Pakistan.
Mohenjo-daro was very well planned—it was set along a grid pattern of streets oriented to the
points of the compass. Multi-story structures were made of baked brick and included a variety of
building types, both domestic and commercial. The trade economy was supported by structures
such as dockyards, warehouses, and granaries, and the city featured an elevated citadel area
surrounded by a massive protective wall. The function of this wall is not clear, although its
primary use was most likely to divert flood waters rather than being mainly a defensive device.
One of the most sophisticated aspects of Indus Valley Civilization city planning was the
development of the first urban sanitation systems. Individual homes, served by wells, had
specific rooms which appear to have been set aside for bathing and lavatory functions. Waste
water was directed from the home to the street, where covered drains channeled it away. These
systems were very effective and were actually more efficient than some of the sanitation methods
used in India and Pakistan today.
In addition to the general water system, Mohenjo-daro also featured a large complex of
structures known today as the Great Bath. Here, a series of rooms were centered around a watertight, sunken brick pool, approximately 39 feet long, 23 feet wide, and 8 feet deep. It is believed
that this area was not used for recreational purposes, but rather for some form of ritualized
bathing.
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Today, more than a thousand Indus Valley communities are known, and Mohenjo-daro is one of
the most important of the approximately one hundred which have been examined in depth. In
1980, the city received formal UNESCO World Heritage Site status. [For an animation showing
a reconstruction model of the Mohenjo-daro site and life during the Indus Valley Civilization,
see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZC4Da3LRWo.]
The Aryans and the Vedic Age, 1500-500 BCE
During the decline of the Indus Valley Civilization, a nomadic, warlike people from Central Asia
settled into northern India known as the Aryans. Although the Aryans did not build great cities,
the Aryans established the language of Sanskrit. From written literature, such as the
Mahabharata and the Ramayana. These epic poems described stories of war, brave heroes, and
Aryan kings. Our knowledge of the religion of the Aryans comes from a collection known as the
Vedas, meaning “knowledge.” The Vedas contained religious poems, hymns, and rituals that
became the first scriptures of Hinduism.25 Because of the sacred texts, historians call this
segment of Indian history (between 1500 and 500 BCE) the Vedic Period. It is through their
literature that we learn about the Aryan way of life, which, in turn, is the basis of Indian culture
and tradition.
A Sanskrit manuscript copy of the Heart Sutra at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.
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Primarily herdsmen, the Aryans lived in small,
independent villages governed by a headman or a
council of village elders. The center of Aryan
life was the family unit; each member had his/her
own duties. After marriage, the sons did not seek
new households but stayed within the family unit
of their father or grandfather.26
India’s caste system was developed by the
Aryans. Dividing its population into distinct
social groups, the Indians were governed by
strict rules in almost every aspect of life. For
example, the caste you were born into dictated
where you lived, your occupation, what clothes
you wore, what food you could eat, and even
who you could marry. As previously mentioned
on page 10 of this Resource Guide, the Indian
caste system consisted of thousands of castes and
subcastes that were under four major groups:
Brahmins (priests); Kshatriyas (warriors);
Vaishyas (traders and farmers); Shudras
(laborers).
The Mauryan Empire, 322–185 BCE
At the end of the Vedic Period, India was divided
into sixteen major states and kingdoms. The
largest and most powerful state, Magadha, was ruled by Bimbisara.27 In 322, BCE, Chandragupta
Maurya, believed to be in the Kshatriya (warrior/prince) caste, conquered the Aryan kingdoms
and united the lands of northern and central India under his rule establishing the Mauryan
Empire.
The four-headed lion of the Asokachkra is
India’s national symbol.
The most famous ruler of the Mauryan Empire was Chandragupta’s grandson, Asoka. During
Asoka’s rule, the empire controlled all of the land on the Indian peninsula except its southern tip.
The acquisition of the land came a great cost of lives. Sickened by the bloodshed, Asoka
renounced war and converted to Buddhism. He spent the remainder of his life helping the poor
and performing acts of charity. The message of peace and nonviolence was spread throughout
India, Sri Lanka, Central Asia, and Afghanistan. Buddhist principles on morality were inscribed
on rock and pillars. One pillar, the Asoka pillar, is topped with a four-headed lion and a chakra,
or wheel, and the center. Today, Asoka’s pillar is India’s national symbol. It symbolizes
spiritual fearlessness and diligence.28 He is also credited with building thousands of Buddhist
shrines, or stupas, throughout his lands.
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The Maurya Empire
(332 - 185 BC)
The Gupta Empire, 185 BCE-550 CE
After the death of Asoka in 232 BCE, the Mauryan Empire declined and finally collapsed when
the last of the Mauryan kings was assassinated in 185
BCE.29. India was divided into smaller kingdoms. For
the next five hundred years, turmoil resulted as the
kingdoms fought against each other. India also
experienced invasions by Greek and Central Asian
peoples. In 320 CE, a ruler from the northern
territories, Chandra Gupta, brought India under his
control. He revived many of the governmental
principles of the Mauryan rulers and he and his
successors expanded the empire’s territories. The
empire prospered greatly during dynastic rule of Gupta
kings from the 4th to 6th centuries CE. Trade
flourished and advancements in mathematics,
astronomy, science, religion, literature, and philosophy
developed.
Literature developed during the Gupta Empire spread
into other parts of world because of its imaginative
Indian postage stamp showing scene
from a poem of Kalidas
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fairy tales and stories of adventures.
Narrative histories, religious and
meditative writing, and lyric poetry
emerged to enrich, educate, and
entertain the people.30 The best known
poet and dramatist of this age, Kalidasa,
is considered to be the greatest figure in
classical Sanskrit literature. Because of
his work, he is known as “the Indian
Shakespeare.”31
The Arabic numbers we use today
originated
in
India.
Indian
mathematicians were one of the first
mathematicians
to
use
negative
numbers, the decimal and the zero.
Additionally,
Aryabhatta,
a
mathematician, proposed that earth was
a rotating sphere centuries before
Columbus made his famous voyage.
Aryabhatta also calculated the length of
the solar year as 365.358 days — only
three hours over the figure calculated by
modern scientists.32 Alongside these
scholarly achievements, magnificent
architecture, sculpture, and painting also
developed. Among the greatest paintings
of this period are those that were found
Painting of Padmapani (Buddha) from Cave No. 1
at Ajanta Caves.
on the walls of the Ajanta Caves in the
plains of southern India. The paintings
illustrate the various lives of the Buddha. An 18-foot statue of the Hindu god Shiva was also
found within a Gupta-dynasty rock temple near Bombay.33
During the 6th century, the Gupta Empire experienced invasions by the Huns from western
China. Weakened by war, the Gupta Empire finally collapsed in 550 CE. The former empire
split into independent kingdoms ruled kings called rajas. The disunity of the kingdoms allowed
additional invasions from Arabs, Turks, Afghans, and Mongols. During centuries of invasions,
Buddhist and Hindu temples containing treasures, gold, and jewels were plundered by the
invaders but it was not until 1206 that a Muslim kingdom, the Delhi Sultanate (1205-1526), was
established in northern India. Conflict in Indian society arose between the Muslim and Hindu
inhabitants of India.
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The Gupta Empire
(185 -550 AD)
THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD (MEDIEVAL INDIA)
Vijayanagara, 1346–1565
In southern India on the Deccan Plateau, Hindu kings ruled from the imposing, sophisticated
fort-city of Vijayanagara (literally, city of victory).34 The rulers were strict worshipers of the
Hindu Gods and Goddess, but also tolerant towards the other religions. For over three centuries,
the rulers were great patrons of art and culture. The region influenced a development in the
streams of music, literature and architecture. Many temples built in the territories of the south
represent the style of Vijaynagar kingdom. The economy of the region flourished and several
coins were introduced during the reign of the rulers of the Vijaynagar Empire.35 At its height in
the mid-fifteenth century, Vijayanagara successfully borrowed technology from its rivals,
focusing especially on mounted horse warfare. This knowledge gave the Hindu kingdom a
distinct advantage against the Muslim sultans (rulers).
In the early sixteenth century, under the reign of Krishna Deva Raya (r. 1509–29),
Vijayanagara’s lands were expanded and the government was strengthened. Krishna Deva Raya
used his military strengths, well-timed campaigns, and political marriage alliances to reduce his
major competitors in the Deccan. However, in 1565, an alliance of four Muslim sultanates
attacked Vijayanagara in the Battle of Talikota. Several hundreds of thousands soldiers fought in
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Ruins at Vijayanagara, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
the five month battle but it was the Muslim artillery that gave the advantage to the Sultanates.
This battle famously marked the end of Vijayanagara dominance in south India.
The Rise and Fall of the Timurid Empire,
1370-1507
In the 14th century, a new Central Asian
conqueror emerged. Timurlane, a member of
a Mongol-Turkish tribe, set out to restore the
fierce Mongol conquer, Genghis Khan. The
Mongols were central Asian, nomadic raiding
groups who fought on horseback. Claiming to
be a descendent of Genghis Khan, Timurlane
raised an army and swiftly attacked and
conquered parts of Southeast Asia while
plundering treasures and massacring peoples
of his conquered lands, including the city of
Delhi. Over one hundred thousand of the city’s
inhabitants were killed. Delhi was reduced to
ruins. His conquests, known as the Timurid
Empire, stretched from the Middle East to
India. In 1405, while planning an invasion of
China, Timurlane died. His empire collapsed
shortly after his death. Five generations later,
it was divided into emirates.
The Vijayanagara, 1346–1565
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The Mughal Empire, 1526–1857
The Mughal Empire, 1526–1857
The term Mughal can be a confusing one. It comes from the term Mongol and is the basis for the
modern English word “mogul.” The Mughal Empire grew from a central Asian tribal structure
into a great administrative land-based empire over two centuries in India. The Mughal Empire
is known for its imposing and exquisite monuments, built out of red sandstone and marble. They
are not only tourist sites, but in some cases are also still the homes of military and cultural
institutions. The most famous of these, of course, is the Taj Mahal, Shah Jahan’s monument to
his wife Mumtaz Mahal in the north Indian city of Agra. For most of its history, spanning from
about 1526 until 1858, the capital of the Mughal Empire was located in Delhi or nearby Agra.
Babur, “The Tiger”
Babur (1483-1530) known as “The Tiger,” was a descendant of both Genghis Khan and
Timurlane. He was the leader of a Turkish-Mongol tribe located in present-day Afghanistan.
Babur set his sights on Timurlane’s former lands in India. After gathering an army of twelve
thousand men, Babur invaded India and captured the city of Delhi. He was the first ruler of the
Mughal Empire.
The Mughal rulers were Muslim. However, unlike Timurlane, they were tolerant of Indian
culture and Hinduism. The Mughal rulers expanded the empire and established order through
law while bringing governmental reforms. By implementing religious toleration, Babur won the
trust of the Hindu population.
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Mughal Ruler
Years of Rule
Babur
1526–30
Humayun
1530–56
Akbar
1556–1605
Jahangir
1605–28
Shah Jahan
1628–58
Aurangzeb
1658–1707
[From Trautmann, India: Brief History of a
Civilization, p. 154]
Sketch of Sher Shah Suri by Afghan artist Abdul
Ghafoor Breshna. Sher Shah Suri’s reign was stunning:
In a short seven years, Suri’s genius and vigor
laid the foundation for much
that was to be great and lasting
under the Mughals.
Humayun
Though Babur began conquering land in
India, he ultimately could not hold onto his
gains, and it was left to his son, Humayun
(1508-1556), to regain and expand upon
his father’s holdings and innovations.”36
However, Mughal territories were lost
during Humayun’s rule.
In 1540, A
Pashtun noble, Sher Shah Suri seized the
Mughal territories from Humayun and
ruled northern India for the next five years.
Known as a brilliant general and an able administrator, he efficiently administered the army and
tax collections, and built roads, rest houses, and wells for his people.37 After his death in 1545,
his successors were unable to hold on the territories and with help from Persia, Humayun
returned fifteen years later to reestablish Mughal rule. Accompanied by a large group of Persian
noblemen, the culture of the Mughal court became influenced by Persian art, architecture,
language and literature. There are many stone carvings and thousands of Persian manuscripts in
India dating from the time of Humayun.
Akbar
The greatest Mughal ruler was Babur’s grandson, Akbar (1556-1605). Under his rule, the
blending of the art, architecture, music, and dance of both Muslim and Hindu traditions began.
Humayun’s successor Akbar (r. 1556–1605) is especially revered in Indian history because he is
seen as one of the few rulers who successfully united almost all of India. For later Indian
nationalists, Akbar’s successes represented a lost legacy of Indian unity. For example, India’s
first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, described Akbar this way: “Daring and reckless, an able
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general, and yet gentle and full of
compassion, an idealist and a dreamer…In
him the old dream of a united India again
took shape, united not only politically in
one state but organically fused into one
people.”38 Akbar’s reign was marked by
experimentation, a commitment to seeking
knowledge, an expansiveness of spirit, and
a concern for the welfare of his subjects.39
When Akbar came to power, the Mughal
Empire extended only over part of the north
Indian doab. By the end of Akbar’s reign,
the empire was considerably greater than
before, with both western India and eastern
India under Mughal rule. Not only did
Akbar incorporate the Persian elite into his
government but he also turned to Indian
elites,
both
Hindu
and
Muslim.
Additionally, Akbar used marriage
alliances and the incorporation of defeated
enemies to successfully bring most Rajput
kingdoms into the empire.
Jesuits at Akbar’s court, c. 1605, Akbarnam. Akbar
is especially revered in Indian history because
he is seen as one of the few rulers who
successfully united almost
all of India.
Having secured a large and rich territorial
base, Akbar spent the decade of the 1570s
refining the Mughal administrative system
put in place by Sher Shah Suri.41 This was
called the mansabdari system. Mansab
means rank, and a mansabdar was a rank
holder. Each mansabdar was required to
provide men and horses to the Mughal state
set at a certain amount, starting from ten
horsemen ranging up to over thirty-three
ranks to five thousand.
Akbar was interested in various religions and invited holy men of each to his court to give
lectures. One of his explicit polices was sulh-i kul, or universal toleration.41 Akbar’s religious
experiments extended to creating the din-i-ilahi, (“Religion of G-d”) similar to a new religion.
The din-i-ilahi was “a discipleship order intended to bind the highest nobles in complete loyalty
to the emperor.”42 Some scholars have termed Akbar’s religion as a cult or a religion; most say it
was an elite religion with Akbar at the center.
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Jahangir
Akbar’s son, Jahangir (1569-1627)
encouraged Persian culture in Mughal
India. He possessed a sensitivity to
nature, landscaping Mughal gardens
into replicas of a Persian paradise.
From his love of painting, schools
specialized in miniature paintings were
established.43
Shah Jahan
Shah Jahan (1592-1666) was the fifth
ruler of the Mughal dynasty. During
his reign, from 1628 to 1658, the Mogul
Empire reached its zenith in prosperity
and luxury. He is best remembered for
massive construction projects, such as
forts and mosques.
However the
construction of the Taj Mahal remains
his most notable accomplishment.
Aurangzeb shown seated on the Peacock Throne.
Aurangzeb’s reign has been viewed by historians as
an apogee of Islamic conservatism, though
recently historians have developed new
interpretations of Aurangzeb’s
religious policy.
Although his mother was Hindu, Shah
Jahan did not follow the religious
policy instituted by his grandfather,
Emperor Akbar. In 1632 he ordered all
Hindu temples recently erected or in the
process of erection to be torn down.
Christian churches at Agra and Lahore
were also demolished.44
The splendor of the Mughal court was
at its height during Shah Jahan’s rule.
However, Shah Jahan’s building
projects and military campaigns brought the empire to the verge of bankruptcy; eventually
leading to the decline of the Mughal empire. 45
Aurangzeb
Aurangzeb’s (1618-1707) accession to the throne was considerably less civil and far more
violent than father Shah Jahan’s and grandfather Jahangir’s. In 1657, Aurangzeb imprisoned his
own father in Agra Fort to take the throne.
A devout Muslim, Aurangzeb set out to reform the religious practices of his court and empire. In
Some of the steps Aurangzeb took included banning music at the court, decreasing the sacral
qualities of kingship by stopping his subjects from worshipping as a deity, and reducing the
generous distribution of gold at the court. Aurangzeb also re-instituted a poll tax called the jizya
on non-Muslims in 1679.46 In India, this poll tax had not been enforced by Muslim rulers, who
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took advantage of an exemption for members of the two other Abrahamic religions, Judaism and
Christianity. Usually Muslim rulers in India stretched this exception to include the vast majority
of Indians who were Hindus.47
Because of heavy taxes, unrest grew among a Hindu warrior class known as the Marathas.
Under the leadership of Shivaji Bhonsle (r. 1630–80), Aurangzeb committed his army to the
capture of Shivaji. In 1674, Shivaji declared himself an independent ruler and allied himself
with the strongest of the Deccan Sultanates.
On Shivaji’s death in 1680, Aurangzeb moved the capital to his new city of Aurangabad in the
Deccan, in order to subdue the Marathas and incorporate the Deccan sultanates into his empire.48
Within the decade Aurangzeb achieved his goals, first defeating two Deccan kings and then
Shivaji’s son Shambuji (1689).
Aurangzeb treated these conquests and their inhabitants, nobility and peasants alike, as subjects;
instituting heavy taxes. The royal treasury was supported by these taxes and funds generated
from the temples. His subjects, landless laborers and peasants, became bonded servants.49
Aurangzeb was unable to defeat the Marathas. By 1719, the Mughals had to give up control and
revenue from the land in the Deccan to the Marathas.
The Mughal Empire grew from a Central Asian tribal structure into a great administrative landbased empire over two centuries in India. Like other Indian empires of its time, such as
Vijayanagara, the Mughals collected land revenue and facilitated the great domestic trade. The
mansabdar system effectively organized the revenue and troops needed to build and expand a
great empire. A culture of loyalty to the king was accompanied by the successful mixing of
diverse cultures into the court culture: Persian, Rajput, Central Asian, Muslim, and Hindu. Even
after the Empire began to decline due to overextension, its elite cultures and administrative
systems influenced the governments of Mughal successor states, as in Bengal and Awadh.
Muhammad Shah and the Decline of Mughal Power
After Aurangzeb’s death in 1707, disintegration and instability continued; it was not until over a
decade later that a firm successor, Muhammad Shah (r. 1719–1748), took control of the throne.
By this time, however, the various portions of the Mughal Empire had already broken away and
made strong starts on forming their own kingdoms.
Sikhism
One such kingdoms (successor states) slowly took root in the region of north India known as the
Punjab, which today straddles the India-Pakistan heartland border. There is a close historical
association between this region and the founding of the religion of Sikhism, today the religion of
20 million.50 The founder of the religion, Guru Nanak, lived a remarkably long life in the late
fifteenth and early sixteenth century, from 1469 to 1539. After the death of the tenth guru, it was
declared that there were to be no more living gurus but rather that the head of the Sikh religion
would be its holy text, Adi Granth. The Adi Granth compiled the teachings of the Sikh gurus
and diverse other religious leaders, Hindu and Muslim included, over the course of the sixteenth
century.51 The Adi Granth is accorded the respect due to a king and is treated as a living Guru.
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Sikhism has played an important role in
South Asian history and politics, right
up to the present day. Its great success
as a religion is attributable to its simple
message of peace and justice found in
the revelations of Waheguru [the Sikh
term for God]. It is open attitude to allcomers without distinction of caste,
race, or gender. The warm bonds of
community are fostered by its day-today practice. The langar, in which a
communally prepared meal is enjoyed
in long orderly rows that do not admit
distinctions of caste or class. Indeed,
early followers of Sikhism came from a
variety of communities, including a
high-caste Hindu administrative group
called
Khatris,
the
peasant
agriculturalist Jat community found
across north India, certain merchant
and artisan communities, and lower
caste groups rejected by Hinduism.
The ten Gurus of Sikhism lived lives
during the time of the Mughal Empire.
Their land in Punjab bordered Mughal
land.
As Sikh land strengthened,
prospered, and grew in population,
Mughal emperors saw the Sikhs as a
military threat. Shah Jahan imprisoned the sixth guru and Aurangzeb executed his successor. In
1699, the actions of the Mughals led Guru Gobind Singh to found the Khalsa, a militaristic bloc
within Sikhism. Members of the Khalsa were required to have military skill and experience a
process of an initiation. This initiation process created the Five K’s: kesh (uncut hair); kara
(distinctive steel bracelet); kanga (comb); kaccha (cotton undergarments); and kirpan (steel
sword).52 These have become the modern and most distinctive aspects of Sikh identity, though it
should be noted that not all Sikhs at first took on this Khalsa identity and even today they are not
mandatory. In the next section, we shall examine the rise of Mughal successor states such as the
Maratha confederacy and the Sikhs.
A late nineteenth-century painting depicting Guru
Nanak, the ten Sikh Gurus, and Guru
Nanak’s companions, Bhai Bala
and Bhai Mardana.
For centuries Punjab had been at the crossroads of an overland luxury trade. The road between
the India and Persia was well trodden, with at least 25,000 camel loads moving between through
the region. The Mughal state allowed Indians of all faiths to practice their religions peacefully;
the particular problem in the Punjab was not the faith of Sikhism, but the threatening bases of
regional power it created. Before doing so, let us briefly turn our attention to the complicated and
multicultural Indian Ocean trade found on India’s coasts.
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INDIA AND THE WORLD
The Arrival of the Portuguese in
India
Beginning in the 15th century,
European
countries,
particularly
Portugal and Spain, began a series of
expeditions seeking new trade routes.
The King of Portugal in 1487 sent
Bartholomeu Dias down the coast of
Africa in order to find a new route to
India. A violent storm occurred as he
rounded the tip of Spain blowing his
ship out of the sight of land for
thirteen days. Because of the storm,
Dias named the southern tip of Africa,
“The Cape of Storms.” Dismayed by
the effects of the storm, his frightened
crew refused to go any further. Dias
was forced to return to Portugal.
Though he did not complete his
mission to sail to an Indian port, his
expedition gave the king of Portugal
confidence that an all-water route to
India was indeed possible. The king
changed the name of the tip of Africa
to “The Cape of Good Hope.”
In 1497, Vasco da Gama of Portugal
led an expedition to once again find
an all-water route to India. Not
following Dias’s exact path, da
Gama’s fleet of ships sailed into open
Painting of Vasco da Gama landing
waters for more favorable currents
at Calicut.
and winds. One year later, da Gama
arrived in the port city of Calicut. In Calicut, the Portuguese encountered Muslim merchants who
controlled trade in the area.53
Calicut lay at the center of the three crucial circuits of the Indian Ocean trade. These three zones
were: 1) the world of the Arabian Sea, the Mediterranean, and Europe; 2) the eastern half of the
Indian Ocean world, stretching from the Persian Gulf to India’s east coast; and 3) the western
half of the Indian Ocean, stretching from India’s east coast through Southeast Asia to China.
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The Indian Ocean Trade Routes
Behind Portuguese strength lay its successful navy and a willingness to use force and violence to
achieve economic ends. By 1515, the Portuguese controlled Colombo (Sri Lanka), Malacca, and
Hormuz, and quickly claimed in 1515, quickly claiming all the important points of the global
spice trade.
The Dutch East India Company
The Portuguese empire declined in the second half of the seventeenth century. In its place rose
the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie; or VOC).
The
company was founded by the Dutch in 1602 to protect not only protect their trade but to increase
their profits, but also their spice trade.54 Given broad authority by the Dutch government The
VOC was a monopoly that stretched from the Cape of Good Hope to the waters to the Straits of
Magellan. The VOC had the power to make treaties with the Indian princes, to build forts, and
maintain an army. As the Dutch strengthened their position in East India, the VOC replaced the
Portuguese as the leader in the spice trade.
The East India Company
In 1600, at the end of her reign, Queen Elizabeth chartered the East India Company (EIC) as a
joint stock company. The joint stock company was an early economic form of the modern
corporation. For such a risky, perhaps even foolhardy endeavor, the joint stock company
invested capital in ventures that might not be quickly repaid, if ever. Elizabeth I’s charter gave
the company a monopoly on English trade in the Indies that lasted fifteen years. The backing of
the Crown gave the venture both legal and diplomatic security.
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View of Masulipatam in 1676. As Vijayanagara declined, the coastal city of Masulipatam became the
Coromandel Coast’s most important port city.
The first two expeditions of the EIC were to Sumatra (Indonesia). In 1603, three short years
after its founding, the EIC was able to ship one million pounds of pepper back to Great Britain
from the area. In 1608, on its third expedition, the EIC instead went to Surat, located in modern
Gujarat. Drawn by the wealth and access the port offered, the English representative arrived
with 25,000 pieces of gold and a letter for Mughal Emperor Jahangir from King James, Elizabeth
I of England’s successor. England offered little to tempt Jahangir since the Portuguese had
already established official relations, but he was not short of pepper, wool, or gold; the
representatives of the company were dismissed. A second English envoy to Jahangir’s court in
1612 was also ignored. Tensions between the trading countries increased and resulted in military
actions. In 1612, the English defeated the Portuguese at the Battle of Swali off the port of Surat.
The victory of the English opened the door to the Mughal court.
AREAS OF TRADE ALONG THE COAST
Gujarat
Surat, “The Blessed Port,” was the Mughal port in Gujarat and controlled by the Mughal Empire.
The trading life of Surat was built on the production of textiles, indigo, and other goods which
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City of Surat. From a Dutch engraving in John
Ogilby’s 1673 volume Asia.
British Library.
Gujarat is located on India’s eastern coast. Besides
cotton textiles, commodities that moved through
Gujarat in the early modern period included teak and
bamboo, spices, silver, carnelian, and camels.
were purchased by a wide variety of Indian and non-Indian merchants and shipped to the western
Indian ocean on primarily Muslim-owned ships. These textiles were bartered with the Dutch and
Portuguese for spices like nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon.
In 1613 Thomas Roe won permission for the EIC to build a factory (a place to store goods
before shipment) at Surat.55 Using Surat as a foothold, the English could control the Persian Gulf
and the Arabian Sea as Portuguese power declined. Textiles produced in the Gujarati region
were in demand in Europe and Southeast Asia. Besides cotton textiles, commodities that moved
through Gujarat in the early modern period included teak and bamboo, spices, silver, carnelian,
and camels.56
The Coromandel Coast
Southern Indian kingdoms encouraged trade on
the western coast by implementing low taxes on
imports. In the southern kingdoms the primary
currency was gold while in north Indian trading
routes the primary currency was silver.57
Bullion was traded for south India’s fine and
highly valued textiles. Distinctive textiles of this
region included fine, delicate muslin and chintz,
a woven cotton either hand- or block-printed
with intricate designs.58 In a single year in the
seventeenth century, the Spice Islands
(Indonesia) imported 400,000 pieces of
Coromandel textiles.59
As Vijayanagara declined, new kingdoms arose
alongside it. In this period, the Portuguese,
Danes, Dutch, and English all had settlements in
Indian kingdoms along the Coromandel Coast.60
Most of this trade was in Indian hands in the
first part of the seventeenth century. Realizing
the rich resource base of calico textiles, saltpeter
The Coromandel Coast was known for is fine,
delicate cloth with intricate designs.
(map source: sea-seek.com)
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Mughal Bengal was known for its incredibly thin and light muslin as well as its silk.
map source: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
(potassium nitrate, required for gunpowder until 1889), and indigo available from the east coast
of India as well as the west, the EIC bought property from a local ruler in 1640.
Bengal
Mughal Bengal was known for its incredibly thin and light muslin as well as its silk. Weavers in
Bengal were centered at the great cities of Dhaka and Murshidabad. As the global trade in
textiles grew in the early modern period, they enjoyed steady demand and rising prices.61 Half a
century later, the East India Company was importing 2.8 million pieces of textiles from India. 62
From here we shall turn to the rise of the East India Company in Bengal in the eighteenth
century, studying how an early textile trading concern on the coasts developed into a large
territorial and bureaucratic empire.
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Section II Summary

The Indus Valley Civilization was the earliest formal society to develop in South Asia.It is
one of the three major early urban river-valley cultures, along with Mesopotamia and ancient
Egypt. Although our knowledge of these civilizations is somewhat limited, excavations of
two of its leading cities, Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, uncovered evidence of an advanced
society. It is generally believed that many aspects of their religious practices evolved into
later religious systems such as Hinduism and Buddhism. Surprisingly, no structures that can
be identified as temples or other obvious places of worship have been discovered to date.

During the decline of the Indus Valley Civilization, a nomadic, warlike people from Central
Asia settled into northern India known as the Aryans. Although the Aryans did not build
great cities, the Aryans established the language of Sanskrit. India’s caste system was
developed by the Aryans. Dividing its population into distinct social groups, the Indians
were governed by strict rules in almost every aspect of life.

In 322, BCE, Chandragupta Maurya, believed to be in the Kshatriya (warrior/prince) caste,
conquered the Aryan kingdoms and united the lands of northern and central India under his
rule establishing the Mauryan Empire.

After the death of Asoka in 232 BCE, the Mauryan Empire declined and finally collapsed
when the last of the Mauryan kings was assassinated in 185 BCE. Chandra Gupta, brought
India under his control. He revived many of the governmental principles of the Mauryan
rulers and he and his successors expanded the empire’s territories. The empire prospered
greatly during dynastic rule of Gupta kings from the 4th to 6th centuries CE.

Vijayanagara (1346–1565) was the largest empire in south India. It relied on cavalry warfare
and its efficient and centralized administrative system to collect land revenues. It was linked
into international and many domestic trade circuits and shared key features with the Mughal
political system.

The Mughal Empire lasted from 1526 until 1857. The empire was founded by Babur (r.
1526–30). Akbar (r. 1556–1605) greatly expanded the empire and created an atmosphere of
religious tolerance. The Mughal Empire used the mansabdari system to ensure efficient
collection of revenue and to gain the soldiers and horses it needed for expansion. The Mughal
Empire stretched furthest under Aurangzeb, but quickly became overextended.

In seventeenth- and eighteenth-century India, the Marathas represented a major threat to the
Mughals due to their guerilla tactics and strong base in the Maharashtrian countryside. Led
by Shivaji (r. 1630–80), the Marathas were a persistent thorn in the Mughal side.

The third largest Indian religion is Sikhism, founded in the Punjab by Guru Nanak in the late
fifteenth century. The religion drew together many faith traditions in its holy text the Adi
Granth. On several occasions, Sikhs were persecuted by the Mughal state not due to the zeal
of Mughal religious policy, but rather because of the political threat to Mughal power the
quickly growing community represented.
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SECTION III:
THE BRITISH IN INDIA, 1707–1857
The Shift from Trade to Rule, 1707–57
British Trade in India
The East India Company was a joint stock company financed by English merchants. Queen
Elizabeth’s charter of 1600 gave the Company monopoly privileges for any trade with India.
This monopoly would last until 1813. In the seventeenth century, the EIC imported India’s
textiles.63 The Dutch dominance of the spice trade had prompted the English turn to the textile
trade. In the early seventeenth century that either Holland or England would dominate all the
India trade and its vast inland territory was not yet known; rather England, Holland, Portugal,
and France sent opportunistic traders to take their share of the great Indian Ocean trade in luxury
commodities. From then until the mid-eighteenth century, English political and territorial rule in
India developed from a long series of very small steps and decisions. In the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, European countries had not planned to take over or control India’s
government and people.
The English diplomat Thomas Roe obtained permission to build a factory (a depot to store
goods before shipment) at Surat (in modern Gujarat) from the Mughal Empire in 1616. For a
period of about fifty years, from 1617 until the 1660s, the EIC resided in India as a guest of the
Mughal emperor. Its trade volume funded soldiers, and its increasing demand for textiles gave
weavers across India employment. However, for the Mughal Empire, the EIC was not an
economic or political threat.
Over the course of the seventeenth century, the EIC continued to trade in India. In 1640, it
purchased Madras from an Indian ruler; six decades later, the city had grown to around 100,000
people, drawn by the steadily increasing demand for textiles in Europe and Southeast Asia.64
Madras was an open port, from which Indian ships as well as English could trade, which no
doubt contributed to the rapid growth of the city. The British also obtained the city of Bombay
from the Portuguese in 1668, as part of Princess Catherine’s dowry when she married King
Charles. Maratha attacks prompted the EIC to fortify their factory at Surat; many merchants and
craftspeople left Surat for Bombay.65 Bombay’s seven sandbars provided a rather improbable
base from which would grow one of the world’s most populous and dense cities, the cultural and
financial capital of India.
In Bengal, the Mughals had expelled the Portuguese from their position at Hugli, a port city lying
north of Calcutta on the Hugli River. The EIC and Dutch East India Company were still allowed
to trade there. However, the Dutch spice trade at first far outstripped the EIC’s trade.66 By the
end of the seventeenth century, EIC officials resented what they perceived as Mughal officials’
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interference in their trade. In 1686, ten armed
ships came from England and attempted to
blockade the ports at Surat. The Mughal state
responded by blockading Bombay (now Mumbai),
and the EIC had to concede and pay a large
payment to the Mughal emperor in 1690.67
By 1700, the EIC had reached a peaceful
existence with the Mughal Empire: it was selfgoverning in Madras and at an uneasy and
expensive peace in Calcutta and Bombay. Over
these several decades, the Bengal textile trade
grew briskly, providing about half of the textiles
the EIC exported in 1710. The Company shifted
the heart of its textile trade from Surat, whose
lands had supplied most of its textiles, to Calcutta
in Bengal.68
From one of Aurangzeb’s successors to the
Mughal throne, Farrukhsiyar (r. 1713–19) in
1717, the EIC obtained freedom from duties on its
Portrait of Emperor Farrukhsiyar on horseback
exports from Calcutta for a relatively small flat
with attendants. Farrukhsiyar granted the EIC
yearly fee. This gave the EIC an advantage over
freedom from duties on its exports from Calcutta,
the Dutch Company; the VOC was still required
the right to settle inland in Bengal, favorable
to pay customs duties on a per item basis. With
terms for customs at Surat and Madras, and the
this concession, the EIC gained the crucial
right to mint its own coins at Bombay.
economic incentive to wholeheartedly develop
trade throughout India. The EIC then could produce as many pieces of cloth they wanted; they
would pay no more in customs. The Company also obtained the right to settle inland in Bengal.
Additionally, the EIC was given favorable terms for customs at Surat and Madras, and the right
to mint its own coins at Bombay—a sign of weakening Mughal authority.69
British-French Rivalries
The French trading company, the Compagnie des Indes Orientales (CIO), founded in 1664,
secured the territory of Pondicherry in 1674. Then, over the next several decades, it acquired
additional outposts near Calcutta and on the Coromandel Coast, and Malabar.70 The EIC and the
CIO operated in similar fashion, but the CIO was primarily controlled by the French crown
rather than men with only commercial interests, as was the EIC.71
When the French entered the Indian stage at the turn of the eighteenth century, no one power
controlled South India. A European war came to Indian shores when the War of Austrian
Succession (1744–8) drew the French and English in India onto opposing sides. For the French,
the high point was the taking of Madras. By 1748, the British sent enough naval power to retake
Madras, though they could not succeed in taking French Pondicherry. When the war concluded
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in Europe, the English granted the French
Cape Breton Island in exchange for the
return of Madras.
British-French tensions in South India again
flared with the French-Indian or Seven
Years’ War. Between 1756 and 1761, the
French lost their remaining possessions to
the British at a steady rate.
Summary: Indian Regions on the Eve of
the Battle of Plassey
As the power of the Mughal Empire was
collapsing, India, once again, began to
divide into small rival states. During this
period of turmoil, both the French and the
English took economic advantage through
agreements and alliances with local rulers.
In some cases, the countries claimed Indian
territory.
India consisted of several zones. On many
parts of the map, political boundaries were
by no means clear. In the case of Bengal,
minimal authority rested with the Mughal
Empire in Delhi, except for a yearly tribute to the Emperor in Delhi. Instead, the Nawabs
exercised all the power, but their power was not absolute. The EIC continued to move ever
deeper into the Indian economy by strengthened its holdings and minting its own coins.
Death of the Nawab Anwaruddin Muhammad
Khan in a battle against the French in 1749
(by Paul Philipoteaux).
In western India, because the Marathas were a steady threat to English interests, cities such as
Bombay, grew due to merchants and traders seeking safer markets. By the eighteenth century,
there were several regional powers in South India and the Deccan. The French and English
displays of military might increased their influence among the rulers in the South Indian courts.
In the Mughal heartland of North India, the Rajput (Hindu) kingdoms continued to enjoy relative
independence and stability. Finally, to the east lay Awadh, a tempting halfway point between the
English capital at Calcutta and the Mughal capital at Delhi. Ruled by another Nawab known for
his commitment to the well-being of his subjects, Awadh’s wealth attracted the elite’s classes
because of it vibrant culture.
THE BATTLE OF PLASSEY (1757)
Siraj-ud-Daula
The British defeat of the French after the Seven Years’ War (1754–1763) made clear British
military superiority. The British believed their victory would grant them more favorable trade
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terms.
Siraj-ud-Daula, the Nawab in
Bengal, resented the British presence in the
region. Siraj accused the EIC of taking land
without permission and causing an
economic crisis by taking advantage of the
privileges given to them by the Mughal
rulers. Siraj also charged the EIC with
protecting some his officers even though
they had broken the law.
Siraj was not interested in continuing to
make more favorable terms to the EIC but
in protecting his kingdom’s interests. In
June 1756, he attacked English Calcutta
particularly because it was so well fortified.
He wanted to make a point about any
challenges to his sovereignty, which he
would and could not accept.72
Siraj’s June 1756 attack on Calcutta resulted
in the imprisoning of the English residents
of Fort St. William. Forty such prisoners, in
Siraj’s soldiers’ care, suffocated in an
Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-ud-Daula.
underground prison in what later infamously
became known as the “Black Hole of Calcutta.” This incident, because of the charged
atmosphere, provided additional “evidence for the British of Indian cruelty and barbarism.”73 In
the wake of this disaster, Robert Clive (1725–74), a man who “had no doubts and no fears,”
arrived in Bengal with ten ships’ filled with soldiers from Madras. Because of the British forces,
Siraj decided to return Calcutta to the English in January 1757. Hostilities ended for a brief
period of time.
In the peace that followed, Siraj restored the Company’s privileges. However, Clive seized the
opportunity to dethrone Siraj. Backed by powerful Indian financiers who opposed Siraj, a plan
was set in place. The EIC would be granted increased trading privileges and other financial
rewards estimated at £1,250,000.74 In return, the Indian financier, Mir Jafar, would be the new
Nawabat Murshidabad.75
The deal was finalized in June 1757. Clive put his ships and troops to work. Just over two weeks
later, the British troops met Siraj-ud-Daula at the inland town of Plassey in the famous Battle of
Plassey. The Nawab’s troops, already bought off by the financiers, mostly turned coat and fled
the battlefield. With Siraj caught and executed, Mir Jafar, claimed the throne while the EIC won
the right of diwani; the rights to collect taxes from the lands that surrounded the area.
This battle, thought to be nominal at the time, turned out to be one of the most important
conflicts in India’s history. It was motivated by the business ambitions of the EIC: to guarantee
and increase trade profits, not to rule. The EIC simply wanted to return to its commercial
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Lord Clive meeting with Mir Jafar after the Battle of Plassey, (Francis Hayman, c. 1762). This battle turned out
to be one of the most important in India’s history.
privileges or slightly improve them.76 Along with the privileges the EIC had long held, the
agreement allowed the EIC to mint coins. The Nawab and the EIC would remain independent
allies with diplomatic relations with each other, and the EIC would use its troops to protect the
Nawab if he needed it.77 The Nawab’s affairs repeatedly drew Clive into Bengali politics because
Clive desired to protect the EIC’s interest in the vast trade.
Battle of Buxar
The EIC restored Mir Jafar to the throne, but it was clear that he was a mere puppet of the EIC.
From now on, the court of Bengal would retain only nominal independence. In the 1765 Treaty
of Allahabad, the Mughal Empire gave the EIC the right to the “diwani” of Bengal, Bihar, and
Orissa—in other words, the right to collect revenue and govern the entire former territory of the
Bengal Nawabs.78 As Clive put it, “We must indeed become the Nabobs ourselves.”79 The cost
of this vast territory and revenue was an annual tribute of 2,600,000 rupees to the Mughal
Emperor in Delhi. Clive flipped the terms of the revenue agreement. Previously, the Nawabs had
collected the revenue and assigned the EIC its assigned share. Now, Clive insisted that the EIC
would collect the revenue and out of it issue a stipend to the Nawabs. Of course, the amount
allocated to the Nawab would be determined by the Company.80
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Company or Government?
The right to collect revenue greatly
increased the profits and the prestige of the
EIC. Additionally, governing the entire
former territory of the Bengal Nawabs, the
EIC became, in name at least, a deputy of
the Mughal Emperor.81 At the same time,
the British hold on India was still limited
and heavily contested. A large military
was required to guarantee the privileges,
territory, and revenue the Company held in
the face of very real threats from other
Indian states. Troop payments were the
Company’s greatest expense. By 1782, the
Company army consisted of 115,000 men,
90 percent of whom were Indian.82 Called
sepoys, based on the Persian word siphai,
these troops were used to subdue
rebellions in Bengal’s neighboring
territories. It was through regular and
generous pay that the loyalties of such
soldiers were ensured.
Reluctant to re-employ the former military
elites of the Nawabs, as their loyalties
were suspect, the EIC hired Hindu peasant
groups.83 The EIC was also suspicious of
even its European officers as they had mutinied in 1766 and again in 1795–6.84
Painting of a Mughal sepoy, c.1850. The
loyalty of sepoys was ensured through
regular and generous pay.
The Company army respected caste and religious preferences by allowing soldiers to follow their
own caste’s dietary-norms with separate cooks and kitchens as well as by attending Hindu
religious festivals.85 Regular generous payments and guaranteed pensions were required to
ensure the loyalty of diverse military men in late eighteenth-century India. As the Indian army
grew rapidly, the EIC drew on its strength to expand its territorial rule in India.
The Land Revenue System
Though the EIC had little interest in intervention in Indian social traditions, the effort to gain
revenue from Indian land drew the EIC into Indian society.86 The approach the EIC adopted in
Bengal was called “the Permanent Settlement.” The moving force behind the Permanent
Settlement was Lord Cornwallis who came to India fresh on the heels of his surrender at
Yorktown (1781) in the Revolutionary War.
The rate of land taxation was set at a permanent, fixed rate. In so doing, the EIC hoped to
encourage enterprising landowners to gain the most revenue from their lands by introducing
improvements and innovations.
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Since his taxation rate was permanent, the
zamindar (landowner) would gain an incentive to
maximize his productions so that he could keep
the remainder of his increasing profits. The EIC
reasoned that a well-managed estate would
increase the landowner’s profits. Overseeing the
peasant
workers
was
the
zamindar’s
responsibility, not the colonial government’s. If
a zamindar failed to meet his revenue burden
under the Permanent Settlement, his estate could
be confiscated and auctioned.
Portrait of General Cornwallis, who was the
moving force behind the Permanent Settlement,
which lasted right up to Indian independence in
1947.
After the new system was set in place, forty-one
percent of estates in Bengal changed hands in the
first fifteen years due to forced land sales.87
Many of the landholding elite, however, left to
Calcutta, leaving their rural estates to the care of
others. The profits allowed them to live very
comfortably in Calcutta.88
Wide-spread
corruption occurred. The peasants not only were
wronged by their landlords, the land revenue
systems led to a famine in 1770 due to low
production. One-quarter of the population of
Bengal died. In 1783, another famine followed.89
Cornwallis decided to go back to the old Mughal system. He granted legal ownership of their
land to the zamindars. In return, they had to pay the government ninety per cent of the rent which
they collected from the farmers. These arrangements were to last forever, hence the title
"permanent settlement."
In Madras and Bombay provinces during the 1820s, a different revenue system took hold,
spurred on by the failures of the Permanent Settlement. The ryotwari system created a direct
relationship between the Company state and individual peasants, rather than a relationship
mediated by zamindars. This system increased the need for new officials. The officials, often
wealthy village landowners, determined revenue rights and rates.
Ideologies of Rule
Orientalism
The British East India Company governed a great deal of India. The colonial state attempted to
learn more about Indian society as it sought to administer Indian law. Sir William Jones (1746–
94) founded the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1784. Jones was a learned man who worked closely
with Indian scholars. Through his work, he discovered that Sanskrit, Greek, Persian, and Latin
all shared common roots. This discovery contributed to a historical vision in which ancient
Hindu India shared a common ancient glory with Greece and Rome.
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In part Jones sought to understand Hindu
law himself and to record its code so that
the Company need not trust Hindu and
Muslim legal advisors.
The English
believed they, through superior British
laws, would return to India its greatness.
The attitude was both one of deep respect
for India’s past and patronizing pity for
what had been lost. Jones’s ideology can be
described as Orientalistism, in that it
sought to capture and preserve India as it
was at its height. Jones and other
likeminded
Orientalists
sought
to
understand and preserve Indian culture.
Utilitarianism
James Mill (1773–1836), father of John
Stuart Mill, famously never came to India,
but he and his son worked for the Company
all their lives. Mill was a Utilitarian
follower of Jeremy Bentham who had far
less respect for Indian achievements than
Thomas Babington Macaulay advocated for
educating Indians in English. Macaulay thought
did Jones. Utilitarianism believed that the
that Indians could only engage in effective
purpose of government was the greatest
governance through a wholesale rejection
happiness of the greatest number. To Mill,
of Indian norms, practices,
Indian languages and law were not a
and languages.
sophisticated system fallen on hard times,
as they were for Jones, but rather a stagnant, superstitious, and irregular system that deserved to
be fully replaced. Mill explained these views in his 1818 History of British India.
Another Utilitarian, Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–59) advocated for educating Indians in
English. He promoted the idea of Anglicism. Macaulay thought that Indians could only
participate in effective governance through a rejecting Indian norms, practices, and languages. At
first the radical Anglicist proposals of men like Mill and Macaulay were not accepted, but, by
the mid-nineteenth century, many of Macaulay’s codes and measures were finally adopted. Many
remain in effect in India today, with adaptations.
Christian Missionaries
While the colonial effort is often thought to be driven by religious zeal, in fact the Company
expressly forbade missionaries from entering its territories. They believed the missionaries
would cause unrest in the Hindu and Muslim populations thereby hurting their trade and profits.
The first American missionary to come to India around 1812 was promptly imprisoned when he
landed at Madras.90 The famous Baptist missionary William Carey (1761–1834) worked not
from English Calcutta but the Danish settlement of Serampore nearby. Though missionaries
sought to make conversions, the numbers were small. However, missionary influence extended
beyond conversions. Missionary schools educated many students, in this area, the colonial state
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The Last Effort and Fall of Tipu Sultan by Henry Singleton, c. 1800. After Tipu Sultan died fighting off
the English at his capital, the British restored former rulers and created a treaty in which their military
protection was the reward for de facto control of the formerly great state and heavy tribute.
usually fell short. Moreover, Christian critiques of Hinduism prompted spirited debates,
defenses, and self-reflection by a new class of Hindus residing in the colonial cities. By 1813, the
colonial state was secure in its rule and relaxed its ban on missionaries.
COLONIAL EXPANSION IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
By the time the third Governor-General Wellesley (r. 1798–1805) arrived in Bengal, the EIC
acted as a state, administering its executive and judicial structures. Moreover, the military,
revenue streams, and trade had drastically expanded. Wellesley’s Governor Generalship
launched the next phase of colonial expansion.
The Next Phase of Colonial Expansion
Putting down rebellions by local and regional rulers, the British expanded their influence from
the coastal regions to the central corridor of India. By 1818, the EIC controlled all but a few
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completely independent states in India; these
were surrounded by EIC directly- or indirectlycontrolled territory.
Governor-General Dalhousie arrived in India
in 1848 at age thirty-nine as a “convinced
westernizer.”91 His administration was marked
by further expansion. Dalhousie had two
priorities: first he wanted to combine Britain’s
holdings in India both legally and territorially.
Dalhousie also wanted to dramatically expand
communication and transport infrastructure in
India.
By taking advantage of new
technologies, such as the railroad and the
telegraph, the Company’s rule would be better
secured and their expenses could be reduced.
INFRASTRUCTURE AND ECONOMY
A New Export
With the dramatic territorial expansion, the
Painting of a Maratha court, c.1820. Maratha power
Indian rural economy changed drastically. In
was of a more diffuse nature than
eastern India, opium took hold as a staple crop.
Tipu Sultan’s and therefore less
Opium was used by the Company to pay for
simple to dismember.
Chinese tea in the place of silver or gold
bullion. By the 1830s, opium provided fifteen percent of the Company’s total revenue.92 The
EIC declared itself the monopolistic holder of the rights to cultivate opium and then smuggled it
into China for great profits. Great opium depots were built in eastern India, and famous fortunes
were made in the China-India trade. As the value of tea on the English domestic market grew,
the Indian revenue and opium base became ever more important to Britain as a crucial guarantor
of tea. One addictive substance was traded for another.
Along with textiles, another important cash crop in the nineteenth century was indigo. Indigo
was used to dye clothing a rich blue and was in great demand in Europe. European planters
provided cash advances to peasants to grow indigo. These peasants became heavily indebted for
a crop that they could not eat. This led to the “Blue Mutiny” in 1859–60 in Bengal.
In India, weavers may never have been emperors or priests, but historically they could build up
great wealth by virtue of their skill and creativity. Yet over the course of the nineteenth century,
the position of weavers steadily declined as the Industrial Revolution took hold in England.
Manufactured textiles could not match the beauty or delicacy of hand-woven Indian textiles, but
their large volume simply swamped what remained of India’s traditionally vibrant and
sophisticated textile industry. Other important commodities in this period included jute, sugar,
rice, grains, and timber.
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The Railway System
The Indian railways are an enduring legacy of
colonial rule. Today Indian Railways runs on
100,000 kilometers of tracks, and with 1.3
million employees. It is one of the largest
employers in the world.93 Often the railways
are seen as a positive outcome of British
colonial rule.
While the railways have
certainly made positive contributions to Indian
life, it should be also understood that they were
originally built for two purposes: first, to move
raw materials to ports and manufacturing
centers and thereby increasing revenue; and,
second, to quickly move troops and material in
the event of any uprising against British rule in
India.
Portrait of Governor-General Dalhousie. Dalhousie
wanted to consolidate Britain’s holdings in India
legally and territorially and wanted to dramatically
expand communication and transport infrastructure
in India to better secure and reduce the expense of
the Company’s rule.
To raise capital for this expensive undertaking,
the colonial state turned to private investors.
Backed by the Crown, all investors were
guaranteed at least a five percent return on their
investment, no matter what happened to the
project or its profits. Therefore, all the profits
from the railway were sent back into Britain.
Moreover, the design and layout of the railway
served British commercial interests.
The Ganges Canal
Dalhousie also pushed forward irrigation of
agrarian land, most famously with the Ganges
Canal alongside the Ganges River. There
Dalhousie laid five hundred miles of canal. This improved livelihoods in the short term, but such
efforts had long-term negative environmental consequences, causing the salinization of the soil
over the decades.94
Other Improvements
Dalhousie also completed the telegraph in India. In fact, the very first deep-sea telegraph cable
was laid at Calcutta and crossed the Hooghly River in 1850. This showed that India was not just
a recipient of European innovations, but a crucial site for experimentation.95
Dalhousie
instituted a government postal service with a very cheap postage, which allowed increasing
numbers of politically aware Indian individuals and associations to be in touch with each other
and share their struggles. Steam power also contributed to a reduction in the amount of time it
took to travel or communicate between India and England, beginning in the 1840s.96
Colonial apologists argue these advancements brought needed development to the Indian
countryside and integrated it into global networks of commerce. Colonial critics argue that
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Photograph (1860) of the head works of the Ganges Canal in Haridwar, by Samuel Bourne. The canal
improved livelihoods in the short term, but had long-term negative environmental consequences, causing
the salinization of the soil over decades.
infrastructure projects were designed around British political and economic interests rather than
the interests of the majority of Indian peasants, tradesmen, small-scale capitalists, and
professionals. It is difficult to know what would have happened to the Indian economy in the
absence of British colonialism. But it is very clear that India’s economy did not develop along
the lines it likely would have if the land revenues and trade profits were invested in India rather
than being extracted for the EIC’s expenses and profit in England.
INDIAN SOCIETY, 1957-1857: DIVERSE RESPONSES TO COLONIAL RULE
Reform, Reaction, and Creativity
In the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century, Indians of a variety of classes and
regions responded to the EIC state with creativity and vigor. Nowhere was this vibrancy more
visible than in the EIC capital at Calcutta. We have already noted that in the late eighteenth
century colonial officers sought to better understand Indian social life, so they could administer
Indian society along Indian lines. This led to an intense period of language study and translations
among a small group of scholars like Sir William Jones, who worked closely with Indian
scholars at the Asiatic Society of Bengal.
Working together, some Indian elites and colonial officers founded the Hindu College in 1818; it
quickly began to educate Indians in English.97 The educational institutions provided a path for
those seeking employment with the colonial state.
As with Hindu College in Calcutta, a group of Indian elites and colonial administrators founded
the Delhi College in 1825. This college aimed to educate “respectable people so that they might
find suitable work” in colonial rather than traditional sectors of the economy.98 The College
embodied the ways in which English and Indian forms of knowledge had come to coexist, as it
had both an English and an Oriental branch. Urdu, a vernacular language that had developed
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In the early nineteenth century, debates about women’s position focused on the Hindu practice of sati, the ritual
burning of a widow upon her husband’s funeral pyre.
under the Mughals as a blend of Persian script and vocabulary with Hindi grammar, received
pride of place at Delhi College.
Gender Issues in Colonial India
We have already discussed some opposing ideologies relating to Indian society, religions, and
histories. The Anglicist strand engaged in critique of India, while the Orientalist strand sought to
preserve Indian religions and customs. Indian responses to colonial rule also varied.
In the early nineteenth century, debates about women’s position in Indian society focused on the
Hindu practice of sati, the ritual burning of a widow upon her husband’s funeral pyre. Historians
have shown that in the Romantic eighteenth century, the wife’s devotion to her husband even
unto death was valorized rather than critiqued. By the 1820s, however, sati came to symbolize
Indian men’s barbarity and lack of self-restraint, and the colonial state banned the practice in
1828.99 Though a rare occurrence, many reform-minded members of the educated Bengali
upper-class in Calcutta criticized the practice and urged the colonial state to ban it.
The Press
Such debates took place not just in face-to-face meetings, but also in the growing English and
“native” press. Along with the postage that allowed wide and relatively speedy mailing of
pamphlets, newspapers proved a crucial outlet for public interest. Newspaper culture is so firmly
implanted in India today that it is difficult to find a literate Indian who does not read at least one
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newspaper daily, often more and in multiple languages. Indian involvement in the press began
early. The first Indian-owned English newspaper was printed in 1777. The Bombay Samachar,
founded in 1822, is Asia’s longest-running newspaper.100 Such long-distance communications
helped forge bonds between Indians in distant parts of the British Empire, and over the course of
the nineteenth century, the press and the post office would facilitate the development of national
bonds and action.
The Company state had done much in one century. It brought almost all of India under its
control; it extracted great profits; and it handily controlled the Indian Ocean trade and markets
from Europe to China. However, the above description also makes clear that this was a closely
run and expensive enterprise; it held the advantage but never by much or for long, whether chief
rivals were other European powers or the powerful post-Mughal Indian states. They slowly, but
surely, provoked discontent across India. Indian society was at a breaking point, and though
reasons for protests varied, the feeling was no longer temporary or confined to only one region.
Section III Summary

The East India Company was a joint stock company financed by English merchants. In the
seventeenth and eighteenth century, it was heavily involved in the Indian Ocean textile trade. It
got its start at Surat and slowly acquired other territories in India such as at Madras, Bombay,
and Calcutta.

The EIC did not hold ambitions of territorial conquest but rather was focused on commercial
profit. Its rivalries with other European trading companies drew it into local Indian politics.
Through conflict, such as the Battle of Plassey. The EIC took political control of Bengal.

The EIC built a large military to maintain its dominance over Indian and European rivals. Trade
flourished, and the Company’s monopoly on the India trade ended in 1813.

The Permanent Settlement introduced by Lord Cornwallis sought to create a class of zamindar
landlords who would collect revenue from the peasants on their estates and turn over a revenue
tax to the colonial state at a rate fixed in perpetuity. The Settlement created a new class of
landlords, much turnover in land markets, and contributed to peasant impoverishment.

While Orientalist scholar-administrators like William Jones sought to preserve Indian society,
Anglicist officials like James Mill and Thomas Babington Macaulay sought to refashion Indian
society along English lines.

After taking political control of Bengal and defeating the French in south India, the Company
military also took control of many other Indian kingdoms over the period from 1799–1856,

The 1840s and 50s were also marked by major infrastructure projects, such as the railways, the
Ganges Canal, and the telegraph.

Indian responses to colonial rule were varied. Some accepted the colonial critique of Indian
society.
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SECTION IV:
FROM HIGH COLONIALISM TO INDEPENDENCE
1857–1947
1857: MUTINY OR WAR OF INDEPENDENCE?
The Causes
The crucial turning point in the relationship between India and Britain came in 1857. The storied
events of the “Mutiny” or “First War of Independence” created major changes in the structure of
British rule: the Company lost its political hold on India, and all its power was formally
transferred to the English Crown. The near-success of the 1857 Indian Rebellion, as well as the
often-brutal British retaliations for it, spurred Indian thinking against colonial rule. Indian
nationalists would later claim the rebellion as the first Indian war of Independence. Even if the
movement had not been a truly national movement but rather a collection of local objections that
came together, the post-Mutiny settlement sowed the seeds for future Indian nationalism.
By 1857, the East India Company controlled approximately 1.6 million square miles with its
military force of 238,000, the largest all-volunteer army in the world. The army was divided into
three separate forces, one in each major province, or presidency. Of the 238,000 troops, only
38,000 were European. Many British troops had been withdrawn from India to fight wars in
Persia or Crimea. In particular, in northern India, where the Bengal Army held power, there were
very few European troops, most being positioned in the Punjab (in northwestern India)
instead.101 The Bengal Army, with 151,000 troops was the largest.
The Indians who served in the EIC armies were called sepoys, which simply means soldier. The
name comes from the Persian word, sipahi. Thus, colonial historians called the events of 1857–8
the Sepoy Mutiny. For the EIC, it was far cheaper to rely on Indian sepoys than European
soldiers were. Moreover, Indian sepoys were already accustomed to the environment and terrain
and thus proved hardier than European troops.
By the mid-nineteenth century, many within the Bengal Army were dissatisfied. Sepoys had
initially been paid well, but the EIC failed to adequately increase their payments to keep up with
inflation, and their relative wealth declined. In addition, for high-caste groups who were used to
commanding authority in their societies, it was irritating that they could not be promoted. Rapid
expansion by a foreign power in their native land also added to the sepoys particular grievance.
Traditionally, as more land was added to EIC’s control, sepoys were paid a bonus for serving
“abroad” in these lands. Now that these territories were part of India proper and under the EIC,
they lost the bonus.102
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A steel engraving depicting sepoys attacking the Redan Battery at Lucknow, July 30, 1857.
In addition, after 1813 the Company began to allow missionaries into India. Though missionaries
did not often succeed in their attempts to convert Indians, the missionaries’ harsh criticism of
Hinduism contributed to the general feeling that the British were in India to completely change
Indian society.103
The most well-known cause for the Mutiny was the introduction of a new form of gun cartridge.
However, it was not the single cause for the mutiny but should be viewed against all the
resentments that were growing among the sepoys toward the Company. From the sepoys’
perspective, the Company showed a lack of respect for their Indian army by reducing their pay,
expanding its territory ruthlessly, and increasingly being critical of Indian society.
Narrative of Events
In 1857, a new type of rifle cartridge was introduced. The cartridges were greased in order to
keep the gunpowder dry. To be used, the end of the cartridge had to bitten off. A rumor
circulated that the cartridges were greased with cow and pig fat. It offended both Muslim and
Hindu sepoys alike: pork was forbidden to Muslims and the cow was sacred to Hindus. Eightyfive soldiers stationed at an army post near Delhi refused to bite a new cartridge greased with the
fat. Their British superiors humiliated and arrested them. In reaction to these insults, along with
the other reasons for discontent previously mentioned, other Indian soldiers mutinied. In the
wake of their rampage, sepoys massacred fifty English men, women and children, including their
military superiors.
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A depiction of the execution of mutineers following the Rebellion of 1857. The Rebellion intensified British
racism, and rebels were summarily executed in gruesome fashion.
In what was a terrifying summer, rebel control spread across northern and central India. Not all
Indian soldiers mutinied, but those who did were joined in their effort by others in Indian society
with complaints: dislocated landlords; peasants, some merchants; and the former princes who
had lost everything because of the Company’s expansion into India.
Within a year, the rebellion was suppressed by Indian troops loyal to the British and by fresh
troops from Britain. Approximately 15,000 died as a result of the uprising. Not surprisingly, the
British revised their approach to military policy. Parliament in London appointed a special
commission to recommend changes. The Peel Commission Report recommended that the ratio of
European to Indian soldiers must be increased from 1:6 to 1:2. Moreover, the army would from
now on never again rely on any one social group for its base; it must recruit from as many social
groups as possible. In the end, the army did not completely follow this and instead handpicked
certain groups deemed to be physically and temperamentally suited to military life. At the top of
this list were those groups that had remained loyal during the Mutiny: Punjabis, Pathans, and
Nepali Gurkhas. By 1875, a full half of Indian troops were Punjabi.104
The Mutiny also changed British thinking about India: it intensified British racism. The
explosion of the British popular press in the mid-nineteenth century coincided with the
Rebellion. All national papers featured coverage of the murders of Britons in the Rebellion.
Much of this coverage was sensationalistic.
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Post-Mutiny Governance
The Mutiny prompted major changes in the
governance of India. Parliament passed the
Government of India Act of 1858. This
transferred all authority previously entrusted in
the East India Company to the crown and
Indian became a colony of the British Empire.
Alongside the Act came Queen Victoria’s
Proclamation of 1858. The Proclamation
responded to many presumed causes of the
revolt. It guaranteed the approximately five
hundred Indian princes their title. The
Proclamation also declared that the Queen,
now the Empress of British India, and her
representatives in India would not interfere
with Indian religious beliefs or religion; they
would respect the customs of India; and they
would promote the social advancement of
Indians.
The people of India were now Queen
Victoria’s subjects and India became the
“Jewel in the Crown” of the British Empire.
After the Rebellion, India was made to pay £50
million to cover the cost of the Rebellion. The
costs became known as the “India debt.” The
British government ruled directly and assumed
the responsibility for the welfare of the Indian
populations. Supervised by Parliament, a British official known as a viceroy carried out the
wishes and laws of Parliament. The viceroy was assisted by workers in a small British civil
service.
Photographic portrait of Queen Victoria. Queen
Victoria’s Proclamation of 1858 guaranteed Indian
princes their titles and declared that the Queen,
now the Empress of British India, and her
representatives would not interfere with Indian
beliefs and customs and would promote the social
advancement of Indians.
Not all aspects of colonial rule were bad. The British government brought order and stability to
the subcontinent after years of civil wars. Railroads and the telegraph were introduced shortly
after they appeared in Britain bringing improvements in transportation and communication. With
new modern technology, Indians received better medical care and sanitation improved within the
cities. Although a new school system was set up, it was only available to India’s elite class.
Indians attending British schools were taught Western culture and language in order to be trained
for jobs in the British government as a soldier, worker, or administrator.
However, in the reorganization of Indian cities, physical distinctions between colonizer and
colonized were strengthened, reflecting an increased British fear of both Indian people and the
environment in the wake of the Rebellion. Thus a common feature of many cities was a strict
division between the “white” and “black” towns.
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1858–1900:
Colonialism
High
Noon
of
The 1860s and 1870s
The major changes to the government and
political economy in the “aftermath of the
revolt”105 provided fertile ground for the
growth of Indian nationalism. It was in
the post-Mutiny context that the modern
Indian nation took shape. The colonial
government worked to reach an
agreement with Indian elites, as
demonstrated by the protection of the
Indian princes’ titles, and it sought to
make new allies to strengthen its rule. At
the same time, the failure of the revolt
brought home to Indians of all classes the
reality and violence of the colonial state.
Across India, these developments
prompted debates among Indians, and
between Indians and British, as new
communications technologies create a
vibrant public forum. It was from these
debates that the outlines of the Indian
nation were created.106
Dadabhai Naoroji, the first Indian elected to the
British Parliament, for a constituency in London in
1888, dedicated himself to advancing the development of
India.
The Founding of the Indian National
Congress, 1885
In the late nineteenth century, Indian
political and economic thinkers began to
advance the drain of wealth theory. This theory held that were it not for colonialism, Indian
surpluses would have been invested in India, rather than Britain or its older holdings. Simply put,
the colonial state did not represent Indian interests. The Indian nationalists who advanced this
theory did not call for a complete rejection of colonialism or expulsion of the British; rather, they
called for reforms. They argued that the colonial state should revise its economic policies to
nurture infant Indian industries that might compete with the imported items from Britain.
Such arguments were advanced in Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, and, increasingly by Indian
residents in London, like Dadabhai Naoroji (1825–1917). In 1888, Naoroji was the first Indian
elected to the British Parliament a voters in London. Naoroji dedicated himself to advancing the
development of India: his 1901 book Poverty and Un-British Rule in India exemplified the drain
of wealth theory.107 New groups and associations concerned with topics, such as education,
sanitation, public health, economic policy, and social development, formed across India. In 1885,
the leaders of the associations met in Bombay and founded the Indian National Congress
(INC)108
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Though it became the premier Indian political party
and a forum for Indian democratic goals, the
Congress, as it is often called, did not start out with
any clear democratic basis. Rather it was a selfselected group of Indian elites, primarily from the
cities of Madras, Calcutta, and Bombay. Most of them
had traveled to London to study for the Indian Civil
Service (ICS) examination or to study law. They
came back to India’s city centers and formed a
professional class. Additionally, English education
and Western thought brought on the desire freedom
and democracy. The Congress was not a radical
group that promoted rebellion but relied on petitions
to address issues to the British colonial government.
The Congress appointed itself representative of a
larger Indian public to the colonial state.
The Congress argued that the British government
should increase the powers of the legislative councils
and allow more Indians to participate. The Congress
Bal Gangadhar Tilak advanced the idea of
called for the Indianization of the Indian Civil
Indian national pride, particularly Hindu
pride, to oppose colonial rule.
Service. As it stood, only those Indians who could
make the long journey to London and sit for the
competitive examination could compete for this service. They believed that if the service were
Indianized, Indians could also compete to join the service, and it would increasingly represent
Indian interests. When such Indian officers retired, their pension payments too would remain in
India. They also argued that the British land revenue laws hurt the population by impoverishing
the Indian population and making the land vulnerable to famine. For India to succeed, they
believed, India should also directly benefit from Britain’s economic policies.
Though it was not an exclusive organization, the Congress was a largely Hindu organization.
Opponents thought Congress demands for elected councils would lead to Hindu domination, and
because the rapid Indianization of the ICS (Indian Civil Service), Muslims feared they would
eventually be out-numbered by Hindus. It must be emphasized that though the terms “Hindu”
and “Muslim” seem religious, but here they represent political identities that had been
cultivated by the colonial state as well.
The Congress’s vision of constitutional reform was not the only idea available in Indian cities.
Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1856–1920) exemplified a far more radical line and drew on religious
motifs and sensibilities as a way to draw in mass support. Tilak’s famous motto was “Swaraj is
my birthright and I will have it!” Swaraj simply means self (swa)-rule (raj). Tilak took his
radical argument to the streets through a series of religious festivals and processions and the
founding of a Marathi language newspaper. Together, the public display of people power and the
written word formed a stringent challenge to the colonial state. In 1893, Tilak created the
Ganapati Festival, in celebration of the popular Hindu god Ganesh. It involved several days of
processions, food, and a ceremonial launching of small shrines to Ganesh into the Indian Ocean
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A map depicting the 1905 partition of Bengal. This vivisection of Bengal, wherein Hindus and Muslims
had historically co-existed peacefully, hit the nerves of the educated Bengali middle-class, who launched a
swadeshi campaign from 1905–08 to oppose the partition.
in Bombay. Two years later, Tilak created another similar festival in honor of the great Maratha
warrior Shivaji, casting Shivaji as a symbol of a Hindu who defeated the Mughal Empire, which
Tilak portrayed as a Muslim empire. Tilak also urged people to consume only swadeshi goods,
those goods produced in India. Tilak advanced the idea of Indian national pride, particularly
Hindu pride, to oppose colonial rule.
INDIAN NATIONALISM AND THE RISE OF GANDHI
The Partition of Bengal, 1905–1911
Lord Curzon arrived to take up the Viceroyship in 1899. Curzon wanted to reorganize India’s
bureaucracy and roll back some of the concessions granted to Indians after the Rebellion in areas
of education and the local government. When Curzon decided to divide the entire state in the
Partition of Bengal in 1905, resistance took on a far more militant form. He created a new state
in East Bengal, with a Muslim majority population. In 1905, Curzon created a new state in East
Bengal, with a Muslim majority population. The educated Bengali middle-class resented this
division of their homeland. In Bengal, Hindus and Muslims had historically co-existed
peacefully. To oppose the Partition, they participated in the swadeshi movement. Opposition
groups reacted by petitioning the colonial state and appealing to the press; some advocated the
use of a harsh boycott of British goods. Finally, some small groups famously also engaged in
revolutionary terrorism, such as the assassination of British officials in the service of the cause.
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Centered in Calcutta, the movement was very
successful in its first few years: there was
approximately a twenty-five percent decrease
in the quantity of British goods imported.
Educated professionals, some working-class
laborers from factories in Calcutta and
Bombay, and students—especially the
students—provided mass support to the
movement. Together they burned imported
goods, marched in the streets, and toured the
countryside, urging poorer peasants to give
up cheaper imported cloth for handmade
goods produced in India. In response to the
opposition, Curzon was replaced and new
reforms were instituted in 1909. In 1911, the
Partition of 1905 was undone and the capital
of India was moved to Delhi. The Partition
of Bengal was a significant milestone in the
development of a mass swadeshi nationalism.
World War I and India
Gandhi in 1918. Gandhi thought that those engaged in
political struggles should follow a careful program of
self-reform or management in order to develop the
force of non-violence.
World War I pressed Indian society further: it
drew over a million Indians into Britain’s
battles across the world. It was during the
war that Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948)
returned to India from South Africa and wove
together the movement that would ultimately
expel the British.
World War I was a war fought for selfdetermination; and it was this idea of self-determination that spurred Indian nationalism,
resulting in crucial political reforms.109 When London declared war, Indians, as part of the
extensive British Empire, were drawn into the war around the world, in France, in East Africa
against the Germans, and in the Middle East against the Ottomans. India not only furnished
troops for Britain but India also contributed £150 million to the war effort. Indian nationalists
worked together to ensure that they would be granted self-determination for their sacrifices.
England could not fight without India, and thus it had to negotiate with and make concessions to
its Indian subjects.
A new generation of Indian nationalists, trained in English political thought and law, now called
upon the colonial state to make good on its promise to its Indian subjects. The nationalists
merely asked for the same privileges their counterparts in other British territories like Canada
and Australia had.
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The 1916 meeting of the Indian National
Congress and the Muslim League
exemplified this new spirit. The Congress,
now about thirty-one years old, had
weathered storms and splits between its
moderates and extremists. The newer Muslim
League consisted of elite Muslims, many of
them lawyers. In petitioning for change, the
Muslim
league
only
considered
Constitutional methods and pressure tactics,
not mass politics or violent extremism. In
their view, the Indian Muslim community
required
enlightened
and
moderate
leadership.
At this meeting, the future
founder of Pakistan, the charismatic
Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948)
became the new, young leader of the Muslim
League.
This whole series of events was to be the last
Constitutional parry between the colonial
state and its largely elite and middle-class
interlocutors in the Congress and the League.
From 1917 onward, colonial repression,
difficult economic conditions, and political
difficulty pushed Constitutional methods of
opposition to the side. When the war ended in 1919, the Rowlatt Acts of 1919 allowed the
colonial state to maintain its wartime powers of detention without trial into peacetime.110
The future founder of Pakistan, the charismatic
and cosmopolitan Muhammad Ali Jinnah, came
to the fore as a new young leader of the Muslim
League at the 1916 meeting of the
Indian National Congress and the
Muslim League in Lucknow.
Enter Gandhi
Mohandas K. Gandhi returned to India from a successful political and legal career among the
Indian community in South Africa. To understand Gandhi’s complex philosophy, perhaps most
helpfully explained in his 1909 publication Hind Swaraj, we must understand two key terms. The
first is satyagraha, or truth-struggle; the second is ahimsa, or non-violence. In enjoining his
followers to satyagraha, Gandhi thought that those engaged in political struggles should follow a
careful program of self-reform or management in order to develop the force of non-violence. The
satyagrahi would first carefully describe his political demand and state it publicly, giving his
opponent a chance to agree or negotiate. Only when negotiations failed would the true
satyagrahi require action. The goal was not to win an outright victory but to win the opponent
over to the truth of the cause. In colonial India, this meant that Gandhi set out to convince the
colonial state that it had pursued a wrong course with the repression of Indians. If the colonial
state would only reverse course, Indians and Britons could work together for their mutual
development.
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Non-Cooperation and the Khilafat Movement
When Gandhi returned to India, he was a relative unknown. Because he successfully negotiated a
compromise the mill workers and the owners during the “Blue Mutiny” in 1859–60, he became
known on a national level. Gandhi and two prominent Muslim brothers, Mohammad and
Shaukat Ali, led an alliance of organizations in the Khilafat and non-cooperation movements.
The Khilafat movement sought to preserve the Ottoman Empire in the wake of World War I.
They wanted the Ottoman Emperor to remain the Caliph (or Khilaf) of Islam. Gandhi drew on
his own network of organizations to lend support to this movement, and together Gandhi and the
Ali brothers, along with many others, used the Khilafat issue to draw new groups of Indians into
anti-colonial campaigns which drew more Hindus and Muslims alike into the movement. The
movement was further charged by the massacre at Jallianwala Bagh in the Sikh holy city of
Amritsar. In 1919 wherein a British general ordered open fire on peacefully protesting civilians,
killing over three hundred and injuring over a thousand.
Gandhi easily won the presidency of the Congress in 1920 and introduced his unique brand of
politics to it. The Congress went from a very limited organization to a mass organization. Gandhi
famously reduced the cost membership so that almost anyone could afford to join. He
reorganized the structure of the Congress: a series of committees would link the village to the
District, the District to the province, and the province to the national level. Gandhi pushed
forward a very successful boycott of British goods and services in the years between 1920 and
1922. For example, many students quit their British-backed educational institutions to spread the
Congress message among the peasants. Peasants responded in kind, for the Congress offered
relief from their most pressing local grievance of high revenue demands that squeezed them dry.
The non-cooperation and Khilafat movements provided the forum for Indians of all kinds to
express their discontent.
Just as the movement seemed to be at the height of its success, in 1922, a protest in the small
town of Chauri Chaura, in Uttar Pradesh, turned violent and killed seventeen police officers who
were Indians working for the colonial state. Gandhi felt his message of non-violent resistance
had failed and called off the movement. He retreated for a period of spiritual contemplation,
arguing that if Indians could not control themselves in their efforts to obtain swaraj (self-rule),
then the movement must be called off. He believed that until they could develop unity and
discipline to do so, how could they claim they would rule themselves better than the British?
Gandhi was never ready to compromise or accommodate.
However, in the decade between 1914 and 1924, India had been permanently changed. Gandhi’s
uncompromising attitude, his simple method of living and communicating, and his willingness to
forsake his elite background to become one of the Indian masses provided a powerful symbol of
how what the British saw as India’s weakness—its poverty; its spiritualism; and its military
emasculation—might prove a strength.
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MASS NATIONALISM
Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar, a Dalit (“untouchable”)
from Maharashtra and one of the most highly
educated Indians of his day, called for the founding
of Dalit villages that would have the best
infrastructure to help Dalits gain modern educations
and livelihoods, and he favored weighted political
representation for Dalits.
Interwar Political Debates
In the absence of a national parliament
controlled by Indians, Congress became the de
facto Indian political arena, its big-tent policy
accommodating all comers. Some, though,
remained cautiously outside the Congress
altogether for good reason. Chief among these
was Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar (1891–1956).
Dr. Ambedkar was a Dalit (“untouchable”)
from Maharashtra. Because of his incredible
intellectual ability, and financing from an
Indian prince, Dr. Ambedkar was able to study
in both London and New York. He earned a
Ph.D. in Economics from both Columbia
University and the London School of
Economics, and he also a lawyer in London.
Though one of the most highly educated
Indians of his day, when he returned to India,
caste discrimination prevented him from
establishing what surely would have been a
very successful legal practice. Thus, Ambedkar
turned to politics.
Dr. Ambedkar criticized Gandhi’s emphasis on social harmony and respect for simple, Indian
village life. Ambedkar believed Gandhi’s philosophy would result in the Dalits’ continued
oppression by the upper-castes. Ambedkar promoted a program that would create Dalit villages
that would have the best structure to help this disadvantaged group gain modern educations and
livelihoods.
As the debate grew, the colonial government appointed the Simon Commission in 1927 to
determine what future reforms were needed. Indians were angered that the commission consisted
of only white men and felt their ideas, once again, would go unheard. The Congress, unable to
represent their own interests, made their own recommendations. The great Congress moderate
and lawyer from Allahabad, Motilal Nehru (1861–1931), headed up a commission of Indian
nationalists. Their recommendations, known as the 1928 Nehru Report, made much greater
demands for self-representation.111
Civil Disobedience, 1930–34
These events drew Gandhi out of his retirement. Gandhi sent an eleven-point list of grievances
to the Viceroy: one called for the repeal of the salt tax. The tax on the most basic of natural
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resources was something that could draw even
the poorest Indians into the movement. The tax
was a burden on the poor and salt could just as
easily be obtained by boiling sea water.
When the Viceroy declined to correct any of
these grievances, Gandhi launched his famous
Salt March along the 241-mile road from his
center at Ahmedabad, Gujarat, to the small
seaside town at Dandi, near Surat. Gandhi would
defy the colonial state and make his own salt
from the Indian Ocean. The march was an
extraordinary event. It was based on a clear-cut
moral issue. Gandhi effectively used salt and
Indian-spun cloth as symbols to inspire devotion.
Gandhi (left) with Sarojini Naidu (right, with
garland), one of India’s early female
nationalist leaders, during the
Salt March in 1930.
As Sarojini Naidu (1879–1949), one of India’s
early female nationalist leaders and by all
accounts one of the greatest orators of her
generation, marched alongside Gandhi, women
in the thousands began to leave their homes and enter the world of mass street protests.
Gandhi informed the colonial government of his plans three weeks in advance, which only
further showed the moral weakness of the state’s position. Should it now arrest Gandhi in
advance or allow him to begin his march and then arrest him? Near the completion of the march,
the colonial government arrested and imprisoned Gandhi. This only fueled the civil
disobedience movement for the next year. But, in 1931, when incidents of violence occurred,
Gandhi, again, put on the brakes and called it off.
Gandhi then came to an agreement with the Viceroy, Lord Irwin. They agreed that India would
be a federation, that Indian responsibility would increase, and that safeguards for political
minorities would be put in place. This was the first time the colonial state had treated with a
leader of the Indian National Congress as an equal, and it marked an important turning point.
A series of Round Table Talks were held in London at which Indian leaders from a variety of
groups could hash out the new political settlement. At the second of these, Dr. Ambedkar won
the point to have a separate voting group body of voters for Indian untouchables; the Muslim
population had been previously granted this right. Gandhi was livid, for he saw Indian Dalits as
an important part of the Hindu community. Granting them separate voting bodies in which to
vote would divide Hindus, just when India needed unity most. Gandhi had always included the
Dalits within his program.
In response, Gandhi turned to his famous fast-unto-death, claiming that he could not forebear the
division of India in this way. And so Ambedkar was forced to yield to Gandhi’s demands.
Gandhi did make one concession: certain legislative districts would be reserved so that only
untouchables could run in them. Voters could vote for whomever they chose, but all candidates
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would be Dalits in these reserved districts. Ambedkar argued this was not a sufficient means to
guarantee Dalit interests. Ambedkar’s hand was forced by his desire to avoid being the one
responsible for Gandhi’s death.
The 1935 Government of India Act and the 1937 Elections
After these prolonged negotiations, the new settlement was formalized in the Government of
India Act of 1935. All government departments (at the provincial level) would now be in the
hands of Indian ministers. However, at any moment the colonial state could withdraw powers
from Indian representatives if it was deemed necessary.
Despite these shortcomings, the Congress and other Indian political parties decided to participate
in the elections in an attempt to make the new settlement work. The elections were held in 1937;
thirty-five million Indians now had the right to vote, mainly voters in the middle-class. Out of
the eleven provinces, Congress won and formed governments in eight. In the others, local parties
won.
WORLD WAR II IN INDIA
The Declaration of War and the Two-Nation Theory
The political settlement lasted only two years. When in 1939, London declared war on Nazi
Germany. Indians, as part of the British Empire were, once again, committed to go to war. The
elected Indian government was not consulted Britain’s decision. As a result, the Congress
resigned all its seats in protest. Jinnah, the leader of the Muslim League, sensed an opportunity
and took it. In 1940, his Lahore Resolution argued that Indian Muslims were a nation unto
themselves and made a vague demand for independent Muslim states around the Muslim
majority-states of Punjab and Bengal. Though vague, the language of independent states proved
both provocative and enduring. Jinnah never sought to expel Hindus from such states; rather he
supported minority rights within the areas. At this time, Jinnah did not promote an independent
nation-state or use the term of Pakistan. His two-nation theory argued that two nations, Hindu
and Muslim, resided within India and must be treated equally even though Hindus outnumbered
Muslims.112
August 1942: Turning Point
In the face of growing Indian discontent, London again was forced to make allowances to Indian
nationalism in order to retain the support of India for the war. Sir Stafford Cripps came to India
and offered full dominion status to India after the war. Yet this was an uncertain future promise
from an untrustworthy partner, so the Congress did not accept the offer, instead choosing to
intensify its efforts to gain full independence. Thus the third major civil disobedience movement
of Gandhi was born: the Quit India movement. Even social groups who had shied away from
Gandhian street activism now poured into the streets, including a very large number of women.
The colonial state met all the protests and support harshly. The entire leadership of the Congress
was arrested and imprisoned. The Muslim League now had a chance to express its loyalty to the
colonial government. In the post-war years, the colonial government rewarded this loyalty by
giving the Muslim League a greater voice than it might otherwise have had otherwise.113
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During the Quit India movement, the third major civil disobedience movement initiated by Gandhi, even social
groups who had shied away from Gandhian street activism poured
into the streets, including a very large number of women.
Indian Summer: The 1943–44 Famine in Bengal
Eastern India was hard hit by the war; as refugees streamed into Calcutta from Burma,
Americans soldiers came to eastern India to help secure the front. In World War I, India had
paid its own war expenses. In World War II, Indian politicians refused to do so, forcing the
British government to bear the expenses of fighting. As is well known, Britain suffered greatly
during the war, and there was no way it could bear the expenses it had undertaken, including
those of the 2.5 million Indian soldiers in its army. It was agreed that the Government of India
would cover the expenses, and Britain would repay the debt after the war. By the end of the war,
London owed Delhi £1.3 billion rupees. Delhi, in turn printed rupees in India that sparked off a
round of massive inflation.
Additionally, at least 3.5 million people in eastern India died as a result of famine. The famine
was not caused by the lack of food production, rather its mal-distribution. Food supplies and
distribution were centered in the cities and then sent to the army. This created a food shortage
which, along with inflated prices, created a food shortage. Peasants living in the countryside had
limited access to food supplies and died of starvation.
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Section IV Summary

The Rebellion of 1857 prompted major changes in colonial governance in India, including the
shift from Company to Crown rule.

The Rebellion had many causes but represented a new level of intensity in Indian resistance to
colonial rule. Diverse groups participated. Though not a full-fledged national movement, the
Rebellion posed an effective challenge to British rule.

The colonial state strengthened its hold over Indian society and became increasingly racist. At
the same time, it worked to find ways to accommodate different sectors of Indian society. It
promised to respect Indian religious norms.

Over the second half of the nineteenth century, the colonial state haltingly granted Indians the
right to represent themselves politically, at first in very limited measure on municipal councils
beginning in 1882.

The Indian National Congress was founded as an elite organization in 1885. It used
Constitutional means and saw itself as representing Indian public opinion to the colonial state.

The Partition of Bengal in 1905 drew many more Indians into more radical forms of protest. It
was around the turn of the twentieth century that Indian nationalists began to advance the idea of
boycotting foreign goods in favor of swadeshi goods. The Partition of Bengal was reversed, and
Indians were advanced greater scope for self-representation. These reforms also created separate
electorates for Muslims.

The first truly mass nationalist movement occurred beginning in 1919 when the Khilafat
movement and Gandhi’s non-cooperation movement worked together to resist colonial rule. At
this time, all parties were willing to work together. The movement gained strength as the colonial
state brutally repressed it, such as at the famous Jallianwala Bagh massacre.

Gandhi came to the fore during these movements and by 1920 was able to win the presidency of
the Congress. He introduced many reforms so that the Congress became a mass rather than an
elite organization.

Gandhi’s second large movement, the civil disobedience movement of 1930–4 led to the 1935
Government of India Act, which gave Indian elected officials unprecedented powers. The
Congress won handily in the resultant elections but resigned its ministries in 1939 when England
unilaterally declared war, drawing India into World War Two.

Jinnah’s two-nation theory held that Muslims were an essential part of the Indian nation and
should be treated on par with Hindus despite their numerical minority. However, until the very
end, Jinnah never called for an entirely separate nation-state. The Muslim Leagues’ loyalty
during the war ensured that it would have a place at the bargaining table after the war.
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SECTION V:
“TRYST WITH DESTINY:”
INDEPENDENT INDIA
THE INDEPENDENCE SETTLEMENT
The Partition Plan
After World War II, Britain was in difficult financial circumstances and incredible debt,
including to its own government in India. It relied heavily on American aid and imposed
peacetime food rationing on its populace.114 Its Indian subjects had not cooperated loyally but
rather had been a persistent thorn in the empire’s side. Moreover, the tide was turning against
colonial rule. Having just fought for democracy and self-determination, it was difficult for
Britain to deny this to India, especially when its grasp on the colony was slipping.
The negotiations started at the Simla Conference in June 1945. The Viceroy, Lord Wavell, met
with Muslim League and the Indian National Congress to negotiate the Independence settlement.
The Muslim League’s invitation was in part a reward for its loyalty during World War II. It was
there on equal terms with the Congress. Representing the Congress was Jawaharlal Nehru
(1889–1964). Having spent most of his life in England rather than India, Nehru, by virtue of his
careful study of Indian conditions and stunning charisma, became one of the new lights of the
Congress party. Staunchly socialist and secular in his outlook, Nehru was more open to
modernist, socialist building and social engineering projects than was Gandhi, who favored a
utopian vision of the flourishing of simple Indian village life.115
The Simla Conference failed because Jinnah and Nehru could not come to an agreement about its
terms. Under Jinnah’s two-nation theory, the Muslim League was the appropriate representative
of Muslim national interests in India. Nehru was open to this, and both Nehru and Jinnah agreed
that the negotiating committee should be divided equally between Hindus and Muslims. But
Jinnah argued that all the Muslims on the committee should be there as representatives of the
Muslim League and not the Congress. On this issue the talks ended.
Next the British decided to hold an election in 1945; the government that was elected would be
the interim government to which the British would transfer power. As in 1937, the Congress did
extraordinarily well as did the Muslim League. Whereas in 1937 the Muslim League only won
4.4 percent of the Muslim vote, it now won all of the Muslim seats in the central legislature and
75 percent of those in the provincial legislatures. Jinnah’s bargaining moves at the Simla
Conference had drawn in new supporters; so did the fear that Muslims would be oppressed by a
Hindu majority as Independence became closer.116
Since neither party gained a decisive defeat or victory, all were forced back to the negotiating
table. The 1946 Cabinet Mission developed a breakthrough plan that could be a workable
compromise. The provinces were divided into three groups (A, B, and C groups). Group A
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Representatives at the Simla Conference in 1945. The Simla Conference failed because Jinnah and Nehru could
not come to an agreement about its terms.
included the Hindu majority-states. Group B included the northwestern Muslim majority states
of Punjab, Sind, Baluchistan, and the Northwestern Frontier Provinces. Group C was the eastern
state of Bengal, another Muslim-majority province. India would have a three-tiered government
made up at the first level of individual states; at the mid-level of these A, B, and C groupings;
and at the center, a national government. Each group of states would have an equal say at the
national level. This plan gave Muslims more power over national politics. Important powers
such as taxation and law and order were concentrated at the group level. Socialist Nehru could
not stomach this. He felt only a strong central power in India could knit the nation together in
sufficient strength to keep foreign nations out of India. Nehru believed India required large
public works projects like dams to fuel the industrial development to provide Indian selfsufficiency. This time it was the Congress that dominated the negotiations.117
Jinnah felt backed into a corner and sought to display the strength of the Muslim League with the
Direct Action Day in November 1946. Meant to be a mass protest against Congress domination,
it spun out of control and resulted in religious violence against Hindus in Bengal. Hindus
retaliated with acts of violence against Muslims in neighboring Bihar. As religious violence
spread, Gandhi toured Bengal and Bihar in a futile effort to stem the brutality.118
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Trains carry refugees from Pakistan to India after Partition in 1947.
This violence also hastened the British timeline for departure. India was spinning out of control,
and the British wanted no part in restoring order when their own resources were stretched so thin
at home. In February 1947, Prime Minister Attlee announced Britain would withdraw from India
by June 1948. He sent Lord Louis Mountbatten (1900–79) to India to conclude the final
negotiations. When Mountbatten arrived in March 1947, he advanced the timeline by almost a
year, advancing the date for British withdrawal to August 1947. This gave him only six months
to work something out between the League and the Congress.119
Mountbatten and his wife Edwina struck up a famous friendship with Nehru but grew to dislike
Jinnah.120 To Jinnah, Mountbatten offered either an undivided India without any guarantee of
Muslim power at the center, or a sovereign independent nation-state of Pakistan comprised of the
western and eastern Muslim-majority wings of India, Bengal and Punjab. Now, his hand forced
by the loss of any chance at the power for which he and his party had worked so hard, Jinnah
accepted Mountbatten’s fateful offer. Pakistan would be divided into two geographically and
culturally separate regions called East Pakistan (Bengal) and West Pakistan (Punjab, Sind,
Baluchistan, and the Northwest Frontier Provinces).
Though difficult for a nationalist like Nehru to accept, he saw the Pakistan plan as the painful
compromise necessary to bring colonial rule to a close. The Hindu right within the Congress
Party also strongly demanded Partition, seeking a Hindu nation as a counterweight to the
proposed Muslim nation of Pakistan.121 Gandhi, by now more of a spiritual guide to the
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movement than a day-to-day leader, opposed the plan wholeheartedly. Partition represented the
failure of the Indian nation to come to an acceptable compromise between the peoples of India.
The Trauma of Partition, 1947–55
The post-war conditions were difficult, the heat oppressive, and everyone was anxious.
Moreover, nobody knew exactly where the boundaries of the new country would lie. When
Mountbatten announced Partition and Independence in February 1947, there was no simple way
to determine where the lines between India and Pakistan would be drawn. In this uncertainty,
large numbers of Hindus in what would likely become Pakistan moved eastward to India.
Likewise, large numbers of Muslims moved westward to what would become Pakistan. Neither
group wanted to be caught on the “wrong” side of the border when it was finally determined.121
In the chaos, approximately fifteen million people left their homes to areas where they would
feel safe. Many moved to lands where they had little cultural connection.123
As it turns out, the border was not finally defined until six weeks after Partition, drawn by Sir
Cyril Radcliffe in consultation with representatives of the Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh
communities. Radcliffe was chosen because he had never been to India and was therefore
considered impartial. The Radcliffe Boundary Commission toured India and accepted arguments
from many people, but ultimately some of its decisions were subjective. The process was
immortalized in a famous poem by W. H. Auden called “Partition.”124
Almost as soon as the decision was made to divide India, violence broke out; especially in
Bengal (eastern India) and in Punjab (northwestern India). Law and order suffered a complete
breakdown in this period; calls from British officers in the region for reinforcements were
ignored by Delhi and London; and individual and group violence resulted in retaliations on all
sides. The largest peacetime migration of humans until that time, between six and twelve million
Indians, crossed the borders during what will be later called the Indian Diaspora.
In these ways the victory of Independence was marred by Partition. In both the new India and the
new Pakistan, though, Independence managed to hold out great hope of self-sufficiency, of
development, and of a flourishing of Indian culture on its own terms. This was made most clear
in Nehru’s magical oratory on the night of August 15, 1947. His “Tryst with Destiny” speech
was one of the greatest speeches of the twentieth century, and it painted an optimistic vision of
what Indians committed to their own development could do.125
The Princely States
Not all of the land in India was ruled directly by the British. Forty-five percent of India’s land
was governed by 562 semi-independent princely states. All the princely states were loyal to the
British government and were against the idea of a divided nation for fear that they would be
swallowed up within India or Pakistan.126 For the most part, the princes realized that the days of
aristocratic elitism were over. Although it was originally agreed that the Nawab’s would become
fully independent, Mountbatten refused and told the princes to choice which nation they would
be a part of: India or Pakistan. In return, the princes were given large payments for their lands
and were given certain privileges. A few princes, though, proved more difficult to integrate.
The events, especially in Kashmir, had lasting consequences for the subcontinent.127
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Roots of the Kashmir Conflict
A Muslim-majority state, Kashmir, neighbored the new Pakistan. Kashmir was ruled by a line of
Hindu kings. The Hindu Prince Hari Singh announced he was leaning toward joining Pakistan;
opposed to socialism, the prince sensed that he would not find a space in the new India, and
additionally it made more sense for his Muslim subjects to join Pakistan. He came close to
joining Pakistan, much to Nehru’s dismay. Nehru hoped to incorporate Kashmir as the one
Muslim-majority state in the new India, proof positive of India’s commitment to secularism.
However, when the Pakistani military began to make their way toward his state, the prince
changed his mind and asked India for military reinforcements. India refused its support unless
Hari Singh joined India. He signed the Instrument of Accession on October 26, 1947.
However, the agreement came with the stipulation that the people of Kashmir would need to
approve it.128
The Indian troops’ entered Kashmir to help the prince on October 27, 1947. This marked the
beginning of the first India-Pakistan war. Fighting soon escalated. By January 1948, the United
Nations was involved, but a ceasefire was not reached until January 1949. Both sides agreed to a
ceasefire until the people could vote on whether they wanted to remain independent, join
Pakistan or join India. To date, a vote has never taken place. The state remains divided, most of
it falling into Indian Kashmir and some of its northwestern area coming under Pakistani control.
This is not an official international boundary because neither side recognizes the right of the
other.
JAWAHARLAL NEHRU’S INDIA
“We the People of India:” Drafting the Indian Constitution
The five years between the end of the war in 1945 and the ratification of the Indian Constitution
in January, 1950 were heady ones in which the post-Independence settlement took shape. We
now turn to the monumental achievement of India’s Constitution, which symbolized the swaraj
that Indians had for so long petitioned. Besides Partition and the recent religious tensions,
Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister, and his government faced many other challenges.
One was the persistent underdevelopment of India: most Indians lacked access to modern
education and technologies. India was also extraordinarily diverse, and many splits in society
would have to be overcome to bind the nation together.
The new and progressive Constitution retained many aspects of the British colonial state.
Strongly committed to civil liberties and equality, the Constitution preserved a strong central
government that Nehru thought was necessary to ensure Indian unity. The Constitution also
adopted measures for Dalits and women; untouchability was banned. The Constitution adopted a
British model of parliamentary democracy, with elections every five years. For the first time in
1952, Indians would elect their own independent government on the basis of a universal adult
franchise. Indian voter turnout has remained consistently high, much higher than most Western
democracies with voluntary voting.
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Crowds gather to watch the funeral procession of Mahatma Gandhi in 1948. Gandhi was assassinated by
Nathuram Godse, a right-wing Hindu nationalist who was angered by Gandhi’s attempts to accommodate Muslim
demands within India.
The process of drafting the Constitution, however, was marred by the assassination of the great
Mahatma Gandhi. On January 30, 1948, Nathuram Godse, a right-wing Hindu nationalist, killed
the beloved Indian leader. Angered by Gandhi’s tolerance of Muslims, Godse shot Gandhi three
times as he was walking from his evening prayers from Birla House in New Delhi. He and his
co-conspirator were found guilty and executed in November, 1949.129
Language, Religion, and Caste in Independent India
LANGUAGE. The euphoria of independence, a growing Indian economy, and the increasingly
important role of India on the world stage, however, could not mask all divisions in Indian
society. The most important of these in the first decade was not religion but language. There are
fourteen major linguistic groupings in India: what was to be the language of governance? It was
agreed that English would be the national language for a period of fifteen years, but ultimately
Hindi would become India’s official language of governance. This provision was written in the
Constitution. However, after the agreement expired, it was renewed, so that English has all along
remained the language of governance. To many north Indian Hindi speakers, this may seem an
unwanted relic of colonial rule.
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RELIGION. Though the 1950 Indian Constitution
extended a strong commitment to the rights of
cultural minorities, it did not specifically define
any protections for Muslims. Thus the old
practice
of
separate
Muslim
political
representation was abolished. Yet India also
developed a secular policy that assured respect
for each Indian religion. Rather it sought to
equally involve each of India’s religions, granting
each faith the right to practice freely and
establish public institutions like schools, colleges,
and associations in order to preserve its
community and heritage. Thus the state could
help fund religious schools without any qualms,
and the public calendar is checkered with
holidays for each of India’s major religions.130
CASTE. Special concessions were extended to
untouchables/Dalits as well as oppressed tribal
groups. The Constitution guaranteed a legal
obligation to equality and anti-discrimination. It
also created special reserved (elected) seats in its
legislature for oppressed castes and tribes.
Jawaharlal Nehru’s reign as Prime Minster from
1947 until his death in 1964.
Nehru’s Death and Legacy
The first elections in independent India had been
held in 1952, and the Congress party won a resounding victory as well as in 1957 and again in
1962. These three victories secured Nehru’s reign as Prime Minster from 1947 until his death in
1964. Nehru oversaw the development of the Constitution and significant reforms to economic
policy.
Nehru and the Congress party effectively created an enduring democracy in India. Many
Western political scientists had felt democracy would not flourish in an Indian environment
because it was marred by religious zeal and poverty. Yet democracy and a strong sense of
national unity developed and flourished in India. Each transfer of power was peaceful and
reflective of the votes of Indians.
In Nehru’s final years, his successes were tempered by India’s humiliating loss to China in the
Sino-Indian War in 1962. Tensions began to mount between China and India as China annexed
Tibet. In 1959, Nehru extended refuge to the spiritual and political leader of Tibetan Buddhism,
the Dalai Lama. There also remained disputed borders between India and the Tibetan region.
Chinese advances across two places on what India’s perceived as its northeastern border. The
conflict was short-lived but resulted in India’s defeat. Two years later, Nehru, who some
claimed was visibly weakened by this defeat, was dead, and a new era of politics in India was on
the rise.131
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Photograph of Indira Gandhi, daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, who became the
third prime minister of India.
Conclusion
Following Jawaharlal Nehru’s death, the leaders of Congress elected his daughter, Indira Gandhi,
as India’s new prime minister. Although she was not related to Mohandas Gandhi, she did share
his and her father’s concern about the welfare of the poor in India and became known simply as
“Mrs. Gandhi.” Under her administration, the poor received low-cost housing, banks were
nationalized, loans were provided to the peasants, and landless poor were given land. However,
other economic and social programs she promoted failed and increased the number of peasants
living in slum dwellings in India’s largest cities.
The Birth of Bangladesh
At the beginning of her reign, Mrs. Gandhi faced difficult international challenges. At home she
had nationalized several key industries as part of her aggressive populist agenda. Moreover, in
1971 she allied with the Soviet Union, forsaking her father’s nonalignment, in part due to her
distrust of the United States, which had developed close ties with Pakistan. And, she had
controversially cut off the special stipends for former Indian princes and their descendants and
abolished the fundamental right to hold property, in an effort to finance her populist agenda. In
this context of rapid change, Mrs. Gandhi won a significant war against Pakistan and in so doing
ensured the birth of an independent Bangladesh.
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Pakistan was divided into two geographically and culturally separate regions called East Pakistan and West
Pakistan.
Recall that West Pakistan (Punjab, Sind, Baluchistan, and the Northwest Frontier Provinces) and
East Pakistan (Bengal) were separated by thousands of miles of Indian territory. In the west the
dominant languages were Punjabi and Urdu; in the east only Bengali. Since the capital was in the
west, Bengali Pakistanis were in many ways disenfranchised, cut off from access to government
jobs and elite institutions and networks. West Pakistan only worsened this tension through its
persistent underfunding of development in Bengal in favor of the western heartland. When after
two decades of such treatment Bengali voters elected leaders to a majority that could form its
own government in the 1971 elections, West Pakistan brutally suppressed all signs of resistance
in its eastern wing and killed approximately 1.5 million Bengali civilians, an atrocious event that
rivaled the Partition for its horror. As refugees flooded from East Bengal into the Indian state of
West Bengal, Mrs. Gandhi faced a refugee crisis of massive proportions. Motivated by antiPakistani nationalism as well as humanitarianism, Mrs. Gandhi invaded East Bengal and helped
free it from Pakistan for India’s decisive victory in the third India-Pakistan war. From then on,
Bangladesh would remain independent and retain positive ties with India.
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In 1984, tensions in the Punjab region increased. Sikh militants who lived in the area demanded
independence from India. Mrs. Gandhi responded by sending military troops. While the Sikh
rebels sought refuge in their Golden Temple (their most revered shrine), Indian soldiers entered
the shrine and killed over four-hundred Sikh rebels. In retaliation, two of Mrs. Gandhi’s Sikh
body guards assassinated her in her garden that same year.
Indira Gandhi’s son, Rajiv, was elected by an overwhelming majority to lead the government
after her death. Unlike his grandfather and mother, Rajiv Gandhi’s policies encouraged foreign
investment and free enterprise. On May 21, 1991, he, too, was assassinated.
Because of the efforts of the Nehru family and successive prime minister’s India has improved
economically. Thousands of new factories, roads, dams, canals, power plants, and schools were
built. High-tech industries, especially computer-related information technology and software
development, grew in India. During this period, civil rights for women also expanded.132
The guide has provided only a brief introduction to the many successes and challenges facing
contemporary India. India has maintained lofty goals since its Independence. It has aimed to
ensure its own economic self-sufficiency. It has aimed to ensure not just the formal but the
fundamental equality of a variety of oppressed groups including women, scheduled castes,
scheduled tribes, and others. It has maintained a largely peaceful foreign policy. It has a stellar
record of guaranteeing civil liberties and democratic governance. And, perhaps most noteworthy,
despite the many naysayers and problems it has faced, it has retained its ideological commitment
to sustainable and equitable development for all of its citizens.
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Glossary
Adibasi/Adivasi – Literally meaning “original inhabitant,” today this is the term used to refer to
India’s tribal populations, many of which are legally considered Scheduled Tribes entitled to
special treatment and reservations from the state.
Ahimsa – This is a term meaning non-violence. It is a fundamental tenet of many religions
including Jainism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Mohandas K. Gandhi drew on this concept as he
developed his non-violent form of Indian nationalism focused on satyagraha (truth force) and
self-cultivation.
Aligarh Movement – This movement was founded by Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan (1817–99), a
Muslim from a genteel Delhi service family. In 1875 Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan established the
Mohammadan Anglo-Oriental College at Aligarh. Sir Sayyid sought to prove Muslims’ loyalty
to the British Raj in the wake of the Mutiny. His Aligarh curriculum combined advanced Islamic
and Western learning because he hoped to create a class of Muslims who could work with the
colonial state and uplift their co-religionists.
Ambedkar, Dr. Bhim Rao (1891–1956) – Ambedkar was the most important leader of India’s
untouchables. A brilliant lawyer and economist, Ambedkar surmounted many difficulties to
obtain an education in India, England, and the United States. He led both Dalits and workers in
movements to obtain social and political rights. Ambedkar never had a close or easy relationship
with the Indian National Congress. Ambedkar is also justly revered for his important role in
drafting and enacting the Indian Constitution.
Anglicism – This term refers to an approach to British rule in India that sought to reform Indian
society along English lines. The Anglicist approach critiqued Hindu and Muslim religious beliefs
and other aspects of Indian culture, particularly the treatment of women. An exemplar of this was
Thomas Babington Macaulay’s Minute on Indian Education from 1835 which criticized Indian
literature. Macaulay and other Anglicists and sought to create Indians who were essentially
Englishmen in all regards. While the Orientalist approach sought to preserve Indian cultures, the
Anglicist approach went after wholesale reform.
The Babri Masjid affair – This refers to the destruction of the Babri Masjid, located in
Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh. Some Hindu activists claim that this is the site of the birthplace of Lord
Ram and that Babur willfully built the mosque as a sign of Islamic domination. Mainstream
historians in India dispute this claim. Nevertheless, in 1992 the Masjid was dismantled piece by
piece under a Bharatiya Janata Party government in Uttar Pradesh. In the aftermath of the
destruction, there were riots across north India and in Bombay in which approximately a
thousand Muslims were killed. In 2010 the state’s High Court decided that one-third of the site
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would be granted to devotees of Lord Ram to build a temple to Lord Ram, one-third to a Muslim
organization, and one-third to a second Hindu religious organization. The entire controversy
shows how the mixture of religion and politics can take a violent turn, especially when the state,
as it did in this matter, fails to act to protect secular values and religious minorities.
Bangladesh – Bangladesh is the third largest South Asian country, with a population of about
166 million. It is situated to India’s east. From 1947–71, it was a part of Pakistan. In 1971 it won
its independence from Pakistan. The largely deltaic country’s capital is located at Dhaka. Over
the past three decades, Bangladesh’s textile manufacturing industry has expanded dramatically,
and it forms an important part of Bangladesh’s economy today, providing millions of jobs to
women in particular.
The Battle of Buxar – This battle took place in 1765 between the East India Company and the
then-Bengali Nawab Mir Kasim. Mir Kasim sought to restore Indian control of Bengal and in so
doing provoked the EIC. Mir Kasim lost his struggle, and his predecessor, Mir Jafar, was
restored to the throne by the EIC. Importantly, the 1765 Treaty of Allahabad gave the EIC the
right to collect revenue or “diwani” in eastern India. This was a crucial step in the Company’s
shift from trade to government.
The Battle of Plassey – This battle took place in 1757 between the Nawab of Bengal Siraj-udDaula on the one side and an alliance of the East India Company, the great financier Jagat Seth,
and Mir Jafar on the other side. The alliance easily bested young Siraj-ud-Daula, and Mir Jafar
took the throne with the backing and control of the EIC. This settlement is often said to mark the
formal beginning of Britain’s shift from trade to government in India.
Bharatiya Janata Party – This party is the current dominant partner in India’s governing
coalition, the National Democratic Alliance. The BJP’s national electoral success is a product of
the political fragmentation in 1990s India. It held power from 1998 until 2004 and again won
with 281 seats of 545 seats in the Lok Sabha after ten years of Congress dominance. The party is
ideologically committed to Hindutva, the idea of India as a Hindu nation, though its “big tent”
approach provides space for many different strands of thought. Currently the BJP claims to work
for more efficient and less corrupt governance as well as populist economic policies within the
context of India’s neoliberal economy.
Bhonsle, Shivaji (r. 1630–80) – Bhonsle was a Maratha chieftain who drastically expanded
Maratha territory in western India. He did so using cavalry and his knowledge of and base in the
countryside of Maharashtra. Shivaji was a persistent thorn in the side of the Mughal Empire
especially during the reign of Aurangzeb. In fact, Aurangzeb shifted his capital to Aurangabad in
the Deccan in a failed attempt to more effectively subdue Shivaji and south Indian sultanates.
Bhutan – Bhutan is a tiny kingdom to India’s east, with a population of 734,000. It is a Buddhist
kingdom rated as one of the happiest countries on earth. In 2005 it changed from an absolute to a
constitutional monarchy. Its capital is located at Thimpu.
Buddhism – Buddhism has very few followers today (0.8 percent of the Indian population) in
the land of its birth. It developed as a “renouncer” religion in the sixth century BCE as a critique
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of the Hindu doctrines of karma and rebirth and caste. It was founded by Gautama Buddha
(approximately 563 BCE to 483 BCE), a prince of the eastern Indian Shakya tribe who renounced
his position to pursue a life of spiritual pursuit, famously meditating under a pipal tree until he
attained enlightenment. The Buddha realized that the middle path of renouncing desire would
provide permanent escape from the cycle of rebirth.
Caste – This term is used in reference to the hierarchical division of Indian society based on
religious-occupational categories. Caste can refer to varna or jati.
Civil Disobedience Movement (1930–34) and the Salt March – These represent the second of
Gandhi’s successful pan-Indian movements for greater Indian autonomy. Gandhi sent an elevenpoint list of grievances to the Viceroy. When the Viceroy refused his demands, including
refusing to repeal a tax on salt, Gandhi launched a several hundred-mile march to the sea. Based
on a clear-cut moral issue Gandhi effectively used salt and Indian-spun cloth as symbols to
inspire devotion to the national cause. The major outcome of these political movements was to
inspire a new round of negotiations about the shape of political reforms in India, eventually
resulting in the 1935 Government of India Act.
Colonialism – Colonialism is the rule of one group of people by another without complete
permission and on unequal, often exploitative, terms. Colonial powers had diverse motivations,
but they were usually at first primarily economic. By the twentieth century, nationalist
movements around the world successfully challenged colonial governments with demands for
self-rule.
Dalai Lama – The Dalai Lama is the spiritual and political leader of Tibetan Buddhism. When
he was expelled from Tibet by the Chinese in 1959, Jawaharlal Nehru offered refuge to him and
his followers. This led to the creation of two major Tibetan communities in India, in the north at
Dharamshala and McLeodganj in Himachal Pradesh and in the south at Bylakuppe in Karnataka.
Nehru’s decision to grant refuge to the Dalai Lama was one of the catalysts for the war between
India and China in 1962.
Dalit – Literally meaning “oppressed,” this term has been reclaimed by the community of India’s
lowest castes as an empowering term of identity and community that marks their claims for
equality on Indian state and society.
The Deccan Plateau – The Deccan Plateau was formed in prehistoric times when the Indian
tectonic plate ran into Asia, forming the Himalayan Mountains and pushing up this plateau. The
plateau is mainly made of granite and is not well suited for agriculture. The divide between north
and south India is reflected not only in geography, but in the linguistic and cultural differences
created by this natural barrier.
Diwani – The right of diwani referred to the right to collect revenue from a particular territory.
The East India Company gained this right over much of eastern India after the defeat of Mir
Kasim and his allies the Nawab of Awadh and the Mughal Emperor (Shah Alam) at the Battle of
Buxar. The Company pensioned off the former rulers of Bengal and took control of revenue
collection, marking a shift from trade to rule.
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Doab – This term refers to the land between the Ganges River to east and the Yamuna River to
the West. The name means “two [do] rivers”
The doctrine of lapse – According to this doctrine, if an Indian ruler failed to produce a male
heir, then his line could be said to have lapsed, and the Company state could take direct control.
This developed under Dalhousie’s viceroyalty from 1848–56. Prior to this doctrine most Indian
rulers would adopt a male son to continue their line if they failed to bear one biologically; this
doctrine disallowed such adoptions and thus allowed many princely states such as Satara, Jhansi,
and Nagpur to come under direct Company control. It was a symbol of declining Indian and
advancing Company sovereignty, and it contributed to the discontent that fueled the Mutiny in
1857–8.
The Emergency – The Emergency was a period of the suspension of democratic governance in
India between 1975 and 1977. Besides this two-year period, India’s record of Constitutional
government has been sterling. During this two-year period Mrs. Gandhi suspended civil liberties,
banned opposition political parties, censored the press, violated Constitutional conventions in the
appointment Justices, rounded up and imprisoned thousands of perceived members of the
opposition. Mrs. Gandhi justified this as necessary to preserve stability so that she could pursue
her garibi hatao or “abolish poverty” campaign.
Factory – This was a depot to store goods before they were shipped from ports like Surat and
Madras in the early days of European trade in India.
Firangi Mahal – A college of Muslim learning at Lucknow—literally “foreigner’s palace”—the
Sunni religious scholars of Firangi Mahal were patronized by Lucknow’s Shia rulers. The
Firangi Mahal developed a curriculum for Muslim students firmly embedded in Islam so that
proper Islamic learning might spread in a manner appropriate to India’s changing political
circumstances. The curriculum combined language, rational sciences, logic, and theology in a
systematic and replicable form.
Gandhi, Indira (1917–84) – Indira Gandhi was the Prime Minister of India from 1966 to 1977
and from 1979 to 1984. After Jawaharlal Nehru’s death, Mrs. Gandhi was able to successfully
take up her father’s mantle and preserve Congress control of Indian politics. Though very
popular and with widespread support, Mrs. Gandhi’s Prime Ministerships were also marred by
failures of integration of dissident and separatist movements. The single greatest black mark on
Mrs. Gandhi’s record was the Emergency of 1975 to 1977 during which democratic guarantees
and civil liberties were suspended. However, shortly after the end of the Emergency in 1977
Mrs. Gandhi was re-elected by the Indian populace.
Gandhi, Mohandas K. (1868–1948) – Gandhi was the most important leader of Indian
nationalism. Gandhi was educated in England, began his political and legal career in South
Africa, and, upon his return to India in 1915, put his revolutionary philosophy of nonviolent selfcultivation into effect. Gandhi successfully built a mass base for Indian nationalism, relying on
accessible symbols with emotional resonance for many Indians, such as the spinning wheel and
Hindu religious mythology. For example, Gandhi encouraged Indians to spin their own cloth,
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khadi, rather than relying on manufactured cloth that would only strengthen the colonial
economic relationship between India and England. Assassinated by a Hindu extremist just after
Indian independence in 1948, Gandhi’s sophisticated and complex political philosophy continues
to animate many aspects of Indian life as well as other political struggles around the world.
Gandhi, Rajiv – Rajiv Gandhi was the Prime Minister of India from 1984 until 1989. Rajiv was
the son of Mrs. Gandhi and the grandson of Jawaharlal Nehru. He took up the reins of power
when his mother was assassinated in 1984. Rajiv began the process of liberalizing the Indian
economy. However, he also relied on religious rhetoric and symbolism to ensure his party’s
electoral success, as in the controversy over Muslim women’s rights to divorce. Rajiv was
assassinated in 1991 as he campaigned for the Congress. He was assassinated by a suicide
bombing carried out by a female member of the Tamil Tiger separatist movement.
The ghats – The ghats are the hilly granite mountains that divide the Deccan plateau from the
south Indian coastal regions to their east and west. These ghats created natural divides that
tended to produce smaller, more fragmented polities along India’s Coromandel and Malabar
coasts, such as the Zamorin of Calicut.
The 1935 Government of India Act – This act was a response to the demands of the Civil
Disobedience movement. It overhauled the government of India. It ended the system of dyarchy
enacted in 1919 in which provincial powers were divided between Indian and British control.
The major concessions of the 1935 Act were that all government departments at the provincial
level would be held by elected members of the legislative councils; franchise was expanded; and
India’s various provinces as well as the princes would come together in a federal system.
Green Revolution – The Green Revolution was a series of agrarian improvements designed to
improve Indian agricultural outputs. These were attempted across India and were especially
effective in northern India, a wheat-growing region considered the breadbasket of India. Key
aspects of the Green Revolution included high-yield seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, and irrigation.
While the Green Revolution did not substantially benefit rice outputs, it did benefit wheat
growing, especially in India’s breadbasket in Punjab, Haryana, and western Uttar Pradesh.
Guru Nanak (1469–1539) – Guru Nanak was the first of ten living Sikh gurus. Grounded in the
tradition of religious reform and mysticism in the Punjab, Guru Nanak devoted himself to a
formless god, emphasized congregation and community, and composed a series of poems on the
virtues of his god that formed the kernel of the Adi Granth, the original text that is the holy
scripture of Sikhism and is considered a living Guru of the faith.
Hawala or hundi – These terms refer to the system of money transfer through networks of credit
and trust. In informal language, we might even call hundis “IOUs,” but they carry far more trust
and guarantee than an informal IOU. The hundis were such effective financial instruments that
the British colonial government, rather than trying to abolish these alternative-banking
institutions, instead simply adopted and formalized them. Such networks facilitated long-distance
trade in the early modern period, and they continue to do so, for example, providing a means for
migrant laborers in the Middle East to send remittances to family in South Asia. However, today,
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hawala is often used to transfer ill-gotten money for nefarious purposes, since it is outside the
purview of state regulation.
Hazare, Anna – Hazare is the leader of an anti-corruption movement in India. Hazare has
engaged in peaceful protest, civil disobedience, and high-profile fasts to pressure India’s
government to root out corruption. The Aam Admi Party is a political party founded in 2012
that sprang from Anna’s movement. The Aam Admi Party has had some electoral success,
winning control of Delhi, the capital, as well as a few seats in India’s Parliament in the 2014
elections.
Himalayan Mountains – The Himalayan Mountain range is the highest in the world, containing
most of the world’s highest peaks, including Mt. Everest at 23,600 feet. Spread out over India,
Nepal, Bhutan, China, and Pakistan, the Himalayas provide the altitude necessary for the Indus,
Ganges, and Brahmaputra river systems to build into the mightiest in the world in the north
Indian plains. The Himalayas have also been of great strategic and military importance over the
centuries, forming a natural boundary between India and the Tibetan Plateau. Additionally, the
Himalayas block the monsoon rains from departing the subcontinent, thereby ensuring that the
rainfall necessary for India’s agrarian success falls over the subcontinent.
Hinduism – Hinduism is India’s largest religion, with Hindus constituting about 80.5 percent of
the Indian population. It is an ancient religion with many branches of sacred knowledge,
practice, and belief. It is pantheistic, and today it is most often practiced via worship of these
deities in temples. Hinduism also has a base of religious texts that facilitate the individual’s
exploration of religion and ethics, such as the Vedas and the two great epics the Mahabharata
and the Ramayana. Hinduism is a flexible and adaptive religion—local faith traditions blend
with the great pan-Indian Hindu traditions.
Hindu Mahasabha – This is an important Hindu nationalist organization. Founded in 1915, the
Mahasabha promoted cow protection, Sanskritized Hindi, and other aspects Hindu religious
identities to ally Indian national identity with Hinduism. The ideology of this movement is called
Hindutva. Another important Hindutva organization is the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
(RSS), established in 1925 to train militant Hindu volunteers who provide much of the
manpower for the Hindutva movement. It was RSS member Nathuram Godse who assassinated
Gandhi in 1948, for which the organization was banned for one year. The Sangh Pariwar refers
to the larger “family,” or pariwar, of Hindu right organizations.
India – India is the largest South Asian country, with a population of about 1.2 billion. It is the
worlds’ largest democracy. It is situated on a peninsula that extends from the Eurasian continent;
this peninsula is bounded by the Himalayas, the Karaokoram, and Hindu Kush mountain ranges
to the north, and the Indian Ocean to the south, east, and west. India obtained its independence
from Britain in 1947. Its capital is New Delhi.
The Indian National Army – The Indian National Army was the army of Indian prisoners of
wars and other Indians in Southeast Asia founded by Subash Chandra Bose (1897–1945) in
1942. The Army sought to wrest India from British control as the Japanese advanced toward it.
The Army included an important women’s brigade called the Rani of Jhansi brigade. Though the
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army was important symbolically, it did not succeed militarily. Bose’s eschewal of Gandhian
nonviolence shows the diversity of the Indian nationalist movement.
Indian National Congress (INC) – The INC was the premier organization of Indian
Independence founded in 1885 in Bombay. The Congress remains an important political party in
India today. It has maintained an official policy of commitment to secularism and democracy.
For the first two and half decades of its life, the Congress was a moderate, Constitutionalist
association of Indian elites. In 1920, Mohandas K. Gandhi won the presidency of the Congress
by lowering the membership fee to a nominal figure, using effective symbolism to draw in the
illiterate and reforming the Congress organization. After the advent of Gandhi, the Congress
became a mass nationalist organization.
The Indian Rebellion – Lasting over thirteen months from May 1857 until June 1858, this
conflict began with a rebellion of Indian soldiers but spread to other sections of society in north
India. After the British subdued the rebellion, they enacted major changes to their approach in
India. Most importantly, with the Government of India Act of 1858, sovereignty was officially
transferred from the East India Company to the British crown. The Rebellion also led to an
intensification in British racism toward Indians.
The Indo-Gangetic Plain – This is the rich agrarian plain lying between the Ganges to the east
and the Indus River system to the west. Watered by the major rivers of the Indus river system in
the Punjab, the Yamuna, the Ganges river system, and the Brahmaputra, this vast plain is the
source of much of India’s agrarian wealth. For this reason, historically and today, it is the site of
India’s capital at Delhi.
Islam – Islam is the second largest religion in the Indian subcontinent, comprising 13.4 percent
of the Indian population. Founded in 632 by the Prophet Muhammad, Islam spread around the
world rapidly due to its simple message of equality and its ability to accommodate a wide variety
of cultures into a global community. This monotheistic, scriptural religion emphasizes five
religious obligations: reciting and committing to the creed (shahhadah), daily prayers (salat),
almsgiving (zakat), fasting in the holy month of Ramadan, and taking hajj or pilgrimage to
Mecca.
Jainism – Jainism is a renouncer religion, like Buddhism, founded by Mahavira Jain. Today
Jains comprise only 0.4 percent of the Indian population. Jainism developed as a critique of
Hinduism and proffers a different idea of karma: any action whatsoever results in matter
weighting the soul. Jainism therefore encourages non-action and ascetism as the path to
liberation (or mokhsa) from the cycle of birth and rebirth the most extreme form taking selfstarvation.
Jati – This term refers to the thousands of highly specific caste-occupational categories that are
often local and highly occupational specific. Jati is primarily relevant in determining appropriate
marriage partners, mobilizing credit and capital, and gaining and using political power.
Jizya – This refers to a religious tax on non-Muslims in Muslim polities. Dhimmis, members of
the two other Abrahamic religions, Judaism and Christianity, were exempted from paying this
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tax. From the very earliest days of Islam in India, during Arab rule in Sindh, India’s Hindus were
classed as dhimmis and were therefore usually exempted from paying the jizya. This term
occupies an important place in Indian history because it shows how India’s Muslim rulers
adapted their rule to a largely Hindu population. The history of the practice has been
controversial in recent debates about Hindu nationalist and secular interpretations of Indian
history. It was not a persistent feature of Muslim rule in India; for example, Akbar
controversially suspended the jizya on his Hindu subjects as part of his policy of sulh-i-kul. The
jizya was re-introduced by Aurangzeb in 1679.
Joint stock company – This was a business arrangement designed to facilitate high-risk, longdistance luxury trade. Private investors could work together to facilitate long-distance luxury
trade and distribute risk with the backing of their government. A precursor to the modern
corporation, this was the form the East India Company took under Queen Elizabeth in 1600. Its
major advantage was the distribution of risk through the concept of limited liability. Moreover,
the backing of the Crown gave the venture diplomatic security.
Karma – This means “moral causation.” In other words, our deeds in this life determine our
position in the next. It is an important doctrine of Hinduism.
Kashmir – Kashmir is a disputed state in India’s north on the border with Pakistan. The
kingdom originally came under British suzerainty in 1845 when after the First Anglo-Sikh war
the Dogra king Maharaja Gulab Singh was awarded control of the valley of Kashmir in return for
his loyalty to the British. Just over a century later, at Independence, the Hindu ruler of the
Muslim majority kingdom at first agreed to join Pakistan but then switched Kashmir’s accession
to India. Since then both countries have claimed the territory, going to war over it in 1947–9,
1965, and 1999.
Khalistan – This refers to the autonomous state demanded by some Sikh politicians in the
Punjab in the 1970s and 1980s. Their demands grew out of a sense that the Punjab was being
underdeveloped in comparison to other states, and that, following the two nation theory, the
Sikhs were a nation unto themselves. The movement coalesced under the leadership of Sant
Jarnail Singh Bhindrawale who was at first encouraged by Mrs. Gandhi. However,
Bhindrawale’s movement took a radical and violent turn, and when the separatists under
Bhindrawale’s leadership holed up in Sikhism’s holiest site, the Golden Temple at Amritsar,
Mrs. Gandhi launched Operation Blue Star, a devastating attack on the temple that succeeded in
ousting Bhindrawale and his followers at great cost. In the resultant anger among Sikhs, Mrs.
Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards in 1984. This was followed by retaliatory
attacks on Sikhs in north India, especially in the capital.
Khilafat and non-cooperation movements – These movements of 1919 were two post-World
War I political movements that used mass political methods to demand increased Indian control
of the British government. They worked together to foment civil disobedience, with the hopes of
drawing Indian Muslims into mass nationalist politics. Gandhi’s non-cooperation movement
called on Indians to boycott British goods and institutions. Shaukat and Mohammmad Ali led the
Khilafat Movement, which sought to preserve the Ottoman Empire as the Caliph of Islam.
Together the brothers, Gandhi, and other nationalist leaders toured India to draw diverse groups
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into Indian nationalism. The Khilafat movement fizzled out when Turkey abolished the Caliph
itself in 1924. Gandhi called off the non-cooperation movement in 1922 when protestors killed
twenty-two police officers at Chauri Chaura.
Liberalization – This refers to the process by which India’s socialist economy was opened up to
market competition and foreign investment beginning in the late 1980s under Rajiv Gandhi and
taking off beginning in 1991 under then-Finance Minister Manmohan Singh. Liberalizing India’s
economy created a large new middle-class and opened India to foreign ideas and products.
However, neither India’s earlier socialist-leaning mixed economy nor its capitalist liberalized
economy have succeeded in lifting millions out of poverty.
Lok Sabha – The “people’s house,” this term refers to the lower house of India’s Parliament. An
elected body of 545 seats, this is the primary site of national governance in India. The head of the
elected government is known as the Prime Minister, while the Constitutionally appointed
ceremonial head of government is called the President. While the Congress dominated national
electoral politics for several decades after Independence, since 1989 most governments have
been made up of coalitions of parties rather than a single party. The members of India’s upper
house, the Rajya Sabha, are indirectly elected.
Lucknow Pact (1916) – This was a pact between the Muslim League and the Congress. Each
party agreed to a common platform with which they could approach the colonial state,
demanding Indian majorities on all Indian political bodies, an increased franchise, and the
continued guarantee of separate electorates to Muslims. This was an example of the way in
which both religio-political identities and democratic aspirations were accommodated by Indian
nationalism.
The Maldives – The Maldives is a tiny island nation located to India’s southwest with a
population of 394,000. Its capital is located at Malé. It came under British control in 1887 and
attained its independence in 1965. The population of the country is 100 percent Muslim. The
country is made up of 1192 islands across twenty-six atolls, but only about one-tenth of the
islands are populated. It is the lowest country in the world, which led former President Mohamed
Nasheed to advocate for drastic measures to reduce climate change and rising sea levels that are
negatively impacting the country.
Mandal Commission – This commission was appointed after the Emergency to examine India’s
system of political reservations and ameliorative measures for lower castes. Named after
Chaiperson B.P. Mandal, the Commission recommended a drastic increase in the number of seats
for scheduled castes. When V.P. Singh and his Janta Dal government took power in 1989, it
pushed to implement these recommendations in part to shore up the party’s base among lowerand middle-caste groups. This led to vigorous protests by high-caste groups who viewed these
increases as an unmeritocratic attack that would threaten their own access to education and
power. The Supreme Court then set the limit on seat reservations for any educational institution
or government job at 50 percent. It was over this matter that the Bharatiya Janata Party broke
away from the Janata Dal coalition, causing the fall of the VP Singh’s government and
occasioning Mrs. Gandhi’s return to the Prime Ministership.
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Manmohan Singh (b. 1932) – Singh was the Prime Minister of India at the head of a Congressled United Progressive Alliance coalition government. Prior to his Prime Ministership from 2004
to 2014, Singh served as the Finance Minister from 1991 until 1996 and spearheaded the
liberalization of India’s economy.
Mansabdari system – This was the Mughal administrative system that allowed the Mughal
Empire to effectively mobilize the military and revenue. The system created a shared, highly
effective Mughal political culture. It was a ranking system in which each rankholder was
required to supply a certain number of men and horses to the Mughal military service. The
mansab holder was also required to collect revenue from the territory assigned to him. Since the
positions were transferrable, the system helped prevent the development of local power bases
that might threaten Mughal authority.
Military fiscalism – This phrase describes a mode of governance developed by many modern
Eurasian states to use credit from major bankers and financiers as well as administrative reforms
to increase revenue to facilitate military expansion. In turn, military expansion created new
sources of revenue for the state in a circular fashion. Military success relied upon
professionalized armies of infantry soldiers. A crucial feature of military fiscalism was the
payment of a professional, standing army in cash. In Indian history we find that many Mughal
successor states such as the Nawabates of Bengal and Awadh employed military fiscalism in
order to expand their territories in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Mixed Economy – This describes India’s economic system after Independence. India’s economy
was neither entirely an open capitalist economy nor a totally closed socialist economy. In the
opinions of many nationalists, India needed to modernize and further industrialize in order to
attain self-sufficiency and avoid political and economic fragmentation. Socialist policies were
important to ensure the welfare and basic subsistence of most of India’s large population. The
Indian economy liberalized in 1991 and since then has retained some socialist elements while
opening itself to foreign investment and partnerships in a variety of industries.
Modernity – This term denotes the complex relationships between the state and individuals that
developed from the sixteenth century onward. A loose constellation of characteristics of
modernity might emphasize individualism, rationality, and economic development along
industrial and capitalist lines. Though long characterized as an entirely European phenomenon
exported to European colonies in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, over the past three decades
historians of colonial societies such as India have argued that there are multiple forms of
modernity that cannot be reduced to the European experience.
Modi, Narendra (b. 1950) – Modi is the current Prime Minister of India. Famously the son of a
tea seller, Modi is the head of the Bharatiya Janata Party government and its governing coalition,
the National Democratic Alliance. Prior to becoming Prime Minister in 2014, he was the Chief
Minister of Gujarat state, which he claimed to have molded into the Indian state with the highest
rate of economic growth. He also controversially was in power during widespread and targeted
assaults on Muslims in the state in 2002.
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Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms of 1917/Government of India Act of 1919 – These were a
series of reforms to colonial governance designed to shore up Indian nationalist support during
World War I in the face of developing nationalist resistance to colonial rule especially, with the
advent of M.K. Gandhi in India. With these reforms, the British Raj came very close to
promising dominion status to India. The most crucial development was the idea of dyarchy
wherein some provincial powers could be held entirely in the hands of elected Indian political
leaders. However, the most important powers were retained in British hands and the colonial
government, limiting the degree of self-government exercised by Indians.
Morley-Minto reforms – Enacted in 1909, these were limited reforms to the colonial
government in response to the nationalist outcry over the Partition of Bengal and Muslim
demands for greater self-representation. The reforms created Indian majorities in the provincial
legislatures. However, the legislatures held very limited powers. Significantly, the Morley-Minto
reforms also created separate electorates for Muslims.
Mughal Empire – An important early modern Indian empire centered in the north Indian
heartland of Delhi and Agra, the Empire was founded by Babur in 1526 from a lineage of Central
Asian tribal princes descended from both Genghis Khan and Timurlane. Like other early modern
empires, the Mughal Empire refined existing administrative structures to effectively mobilize
resources and men from across the subcontinent. The Mughal Empire holds an important place in
Indian nationalist thought because it was the largest and closest to a pan-Indian empire in the
period before British rule. The persistence of Mughal sovereignty over such a long period is
noteworthy; rather than claiming outright domination, the early colonial state retained the official
symbolism of Mughal sovereignty. This ended only with the transfer of nominal Mughal
sovereignty under East India Company authority to direct British Crown rule in 1858.
The Muslim League – The premier organization of Muslim nationalism, the Muslim League
was founded in 1906 at Dhaka to encourage the colonial state to extend separate electorates to
the Muslim community and to advance the education of the Muslim community. Its primary base
at first consisted of elite Muslim landlords. During the first few decades of its life, the League
was only one of a variety of parties within which Muslims participated. During the 1940s,
Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the League lobbied for the two-nation theory and claimed to be the
sole representative of Muslim political identity in India. After a complex series of negotiations,
Partition was decided upon, and the Muslim League became the founding party of Pakistan and
Jinnah Pakistan’s Quaid-e-Azam, founder of the nation.
Naoroji, Dadabhai (1825–1917) – Naoroji was the first Indian elected to the British Parliament.
A Parsi from Bombay, he dedicated himself to advancing Indian development, maintaining
political careers in both India and England. His 1901 book Poverty and Un-British Rule in India
exemplified the drain of wealth theory: if it were not for colonialism, Indian surpluses would
have been invested in India rather than Britain.
Narayan, Jayaprakash (1902–79) – Narayan was an Indian political leader in the Gandhian
mold. Fiery and idealistic, as a young man Narayan studied at the University of Wisconsin at
Madison. “J.P.,” as he was often referred to, was originally from Bihar and had his strongest base
there. Having spent decades working among the poor and landless in the state, spearheading a
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movement that called for land donations to the poor, JP began to advocate total revolution
among his base in Bihar. His revolution would have, like Gandhi’s, retained the village as the
basic unit of Indian democracy, but JP advocated a less gradual line than Gandhi had, determined
to wrest power from rural elites and hand it off to his landless and poor followers. His movement
also criticized corruption and inaction in the government. In the mid-1970s, JP, working with
future Prime Minister Morarji Desai in Gujarat, came close to bringing down Mrs. Gandhi’s
government, and they were the first dissidents to be incarcerated once she instituted the
Emergency.
Nation-state – The nation-state is today the basic unit of world governance. The nation is
imagined to be a collection of individuals residing in a more or less contiguous territory, with
shared bonds of culture, homeland, language, history, and ethnic and religious identity, usually
defined in opposition to an external “other.” A state exists to govern the nation.
Nehru, Jawaharlal (1889–1964) – Nehru was the first Prime Minister of Independent India.
Nehru was also an important leader of the Indian nationalist movement. His father, Motilal
Nehru, was of the same generation of Gandhi and a very important nationalist leader in his own
right. Upon Nehru’s return to India from his education in England, he became a disciple of
Gandhian nationalism though he eventually differed from Gandhi on the importance of the
village in Indian life and the best means to develop India. Nehru was a committed socialist who
successfully ensured the independence of the Indian economy.
Nepal – A country to India’s north situated in the Himalayas with a population of 31 million,
Nepal was not formally colonized by the British but remained in its Hindu kings’ hands until
2008. As part of a settlement in the civil war with a widespread Maoist movement in the country,
the monarchy was abolished in 2007. In 2013, elections to the Constituent Assembly were held
and in 2014 a government under the Nepali Congress was formed.
Orientalism – This term refers to a school of thought that sought to “recover” and preserve the
ancient past of nonwestern cultures, in our case in India. One of the most famous Orientalists
was Sir William Jones, who founded the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1784 and, through his
linguistic research with Indian scholars, discovered the Indo-European language family. The
Orientalist impulse shaped the EIC’s decision to administer Hindu and Muslim law to Indians.
The Orientalist desire to preserve Indian society also undergirded the many linguistic and
translation projects undertaken by colonial officials working with Indian experts and informants.
Thus Orientalism was both a mode of governance and an ideological project.
Pakistan – Pakistan is the second largest South Asian country, with a population of about 196
million. Founded as a secular republic, in 1973 Islam was declared the official religion of
Pakistan. The capital is Islamabad. Pakistan won its independence from Great Britain in 1947.
Until 1971, the country was divided into five provinces, East Bengal to the east of India and
Punjab, Sind, Baluchistan, and the Northwest Frontier Region to India’s west. In 1971 East
Bengal declared its independence, becoming Bangladesh.
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Paramountcy – This term refers to the theory that ultimately the East India Company state was
the paramount power in India. Working from this principle, the EIC justified taking further
control of Indian princely states beginning under Dalhousie’s viceroyalty from 1848–56.
Partition – This term refers to the process by which British India was divided into two
independent nation-states, India and Pakistan, in 1947. This was the culmination of the idea that
Hindus and Muslims each constituted their own nations within India. It is important to note that
after Independence each nation retained a commitment to secularism and inclusion of its
religious minorities on equal terms.
The 1905 Partition of Bengal – This refers to the decision by the colonial government to
partition the eastern Indian province of Bengal under the Viceroyalty of Lord Curzon (1899–
1905). The new eastern state had a Muslim majority population and was an attempt by the
colonial state to shore up the support of Muslim landholding elites and provide new venues for
their socioeconomic advancement with the colonial state. However, the vivisection of a
historically united homeland, along with other Bengali discontents with colonial policies, led to
the development of a vigorous protest movement. Eventually the Partition was reversed in 1911,
but the idea of the division of India’s intermingled population along religious lines foreshadowed
India and Pakistan’s eventual independence settlement and Partition in 1947.
Patel, Sardar Vallabhbhai (1875–1950) – Patel was an Indian nationalist leader from Gujarat
responsible for the integration of the princely states into independent India and Pakistan. This
was a very successful process with a smooth transfer of power from indirect rule to sovereign
Indian or Pakistani rule. It was in this process that India and Pakistan’s dispute over Kashmir
began. In the colonial period, the princely states constituted about a third of Indian territory.
While this territory nominally remained in the hands of Indian princes, British authority was
paramount. The states could serve as laboratories for different forms of governance and social
reform efforts.
Permanent Settlement – This was a system whereby the EIC state set the rate of land revenue
taxation at a fixed rate in perpetuity. By doing so, it hoped to encourage enterprising landowners
to introduce improvements and efficiencies to agriculture, so that they could extract the most
revenue from their lands. The moving force behind this major reform was Lord Cornwallis
(Governor-General, 1785–93). The system hoped to create a class of large landholding
zamindars, or landlords that could act as intermediaries between the colonial state and the
individual peasant. The system sought to guarantee land revenue collection on the cheap. It
changed eastern India’s social structure creating a new class of absentee landlords and failing to
empower small cultivators and peasants on these landlords’ estates.
Permit Raj – This phrase refers to the Indian economic system in the period between
Independence and liberalization in 1991. Also called license raj, it refers to the complex and
labyrinthine system of permits required to do business India. The system created delays and
provided manifold opportunities for corrupt practices as businessmen could use cash to grease
the wheels of the bureaucracy. As Indian economic growth waned in the 1980s, this system came
under criticism, leading to attempts to reform India’s laws and practices to make it more
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business-friendly. Though there have been many reforms, many critics still decry what they see
as over-regulation in the Indian economy.
Plebiscite – In general, this term refers to a democratic vote about a political decision. In the
context of Indian history, it usually refers to the guarantee made by Nehru and India to the
Maharaja of Kashmir in 1947 that the state’s people would be allowed to vote directly about
whether their state should join India or Pakistan. However, the plebiscite has not been held, with
the parties unable to agree on the terms of the plebiscite.
Private trade – This was the trade by East India Company officials in their private capacities.
Though the EIC held a monopoly on trade between India and England, Company employees
could trade in textiles, opium, teas, and other commodities in other parts of the Indian Ocean
networks. The profits redounded to them individually rather than to the Company as a corporate
body. The private trade comprised a substantial part of British trade in India but came under
criticism in London.
Punjab – Punjab refers to the region around the five rivers of the Indus River system, the
Chenab, the Jhelum, the Ravi, the Beas, and the Sutlej. Historically cosmopolitan, the region was
the birthplace of Sikhism beginning in the fifteenth century. At Independence in 1947, the region
was divided between India and Pakistan.
Queen Victoria’s Proclamation of 1858 – This proclamation declared that the British
Government in India would respect its subjects’ religious beliefs and customs. This declaration
sought to ameliorate what many British saw as the causes of the Rebellion, the colonial state’s
overzealous intervention in Indian social reform, such as its efforts to ban sati and widow
remarriage. It guaranteed the princes their titles and declared that the colonial government would
not interfere with Indian religious beliefs or customs.
The Quit India Movement 1942 – The Quit India movement of 1942 was Gandhi’s third major
national civil disobedience movement. This movement pulled in new social groups who had not
heretofore participated in Gandhian or other forms of street politics. The entire Congress
leadership was imprisoned, and therefore the movement was far more fragmented and often more
violent than earlier civil disobedience movements, including attacks on government property.
Along with the rise of the Indian National Army in Singapore and British defeats in on the
eastern front, the Quit India movement made clear how tenuous British control over the
subcontinent was. The British would have to either withdraw or allow substantial autonomy to
India if the Allies won World War Two.
Raj – This word simply means rule. In modern Indian history, it often refers to the period of
British colonial rule.
Rowlatt Acts of 1919 – The Rowlatt Acts allowed the colonial state to maintain its wartime
powers of detention without trial into peacetime after the end of WWI. This was an example of
the way in which the colonial state granted Indians democratic reforms and simultaneously
repressed Indian civil liberties when its power was threatened. Alongside the opening of
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indiscriminate fire on peacefully protesting Indians at the garden known as Jallianwalla Bagh in
Amritsar in 1919, the Rowlatt Acts gave fuel to Gandhi’s civil disobedience movement.
Roy, Rammohun (1772–1833) – Roy exemplified the Bengali Renaissance, an efflorescence of
cultural exploration, publication, and debate centered in Calcutta. A cosmopolitan and brilliant
multilingual intellectual, Rammohun Roy was in touch with political developments around the
world. Roy sought to create a renewed, unified identity for Hinduism that drew on the structures
of scriptural religions like Christianity and Islam but did not adopt those religions. The
outgrowth of this effort was Roy’s enduring religious group, the Brahmo Samaj, founded 1828;
many other Hindu religious groups began to adopt similar modern organizational and theological
structures as well.
Ryot/ryotwari system – This was a land revenue system developed in the Madras and Bombay
Presidencies. Based in the Romantic notion of a noble smallholding peasant-farmer who would
benefit from independence from a landlord, the system allowed the Company state rather than
the zamindar (landlord) to collect revenues directly from the peasants, or ryots. Learning from
the difficulties of the Permanent Settlement in eastern India, the system sought to empower the
small farmer rather than large landlords (zamindars). This system developed during the 1820s. It
occasioned a major expansion of the Company state through the creation of many positions of
Company employment devoted to recording revenue rights and collecting the revenue.
Satyagraha – This word literally translated means “truth force.” Gandhi used this concept to
encourage Indians to cultivate their own qualities of nonviolence, peace, and service in peaceful
resistance to colonial rule. Gandhi’s idea was that Indians could not legitimately take up selfgovernance from the British if they could not show their own total spiritual readiness for
enlightened rule. For Gandhi, the struggle for swaraj, or self-rule, was as much an internal
struggle as a struggle against an external power.
Scheduled castes and tribes – This refers to those castes and tribes listed in “schedules” of the
Constitution. Scheduled castes and scheduled tribes are entitled to reservations in state employ
and education and other ameliorative measures.
Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act of 1989 – This piece of
legislation tried to create special measures to address violent caste- and tribe-based crimes
against Dalits and other marginalized groups. The legislation enacted stiffer penalties for such
crimes against SCs and STs by listing a wide range of abuses that would come within the ambit
of the Act. Akin to hate crimes legislation in the United States, it created special courts for the
fast-track trial of such incidents. However, the need for this kind of targeted legislation also
indicated how India’s Constitutional guarantees of equality had failed to achieve equality or the
elimination of caste in practice.
Separate electorates – These limited the franchise for elected positions to a particular
community (religious or caste) only to vote for its representatives. Thus colonial policy tied
democratic practices to religious and other social identities.
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Sepoy – A sepoy was a solder in the EIC army. The term comes from the Persian word for
soldier, sipahi. Some referred to the 1857 Mutiny as the Sepoy Mutiny since the rebellion began
among regiments of the EIC Army. The Army was greatest expense of the colonial government.
The Shah Bano affair – This refers to a major political firestorm set off by a Supreme Court
decision in 1985 that criticized Islam’s position on women’s rights in a case of a divorce between
a Muslim husband and wife. Specifically, the decision criticized a procedure known as triple
talak and the husband’s unilateral rights of divorce in many Indian Muslim communities. The
charged rhetoric and oversimplified criticism of Muslim law by a Hindu bench of Justices caused
an outcry among Muslim religious groups, who felt as if their historic right to separate personal
laws was being attacked. In response Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi enacted the Muslim
Women’s Protections of Rights on Divorce Act in 1986, which stated that Muslim women
could not avail of India’s secular criminal procedure code for maintenance. This was considered
a sop to Muslim religious conservatives designed to ensure the Congress Party’s support among
them. The entire affair was an example of the ways in which Nehruvian secularism gave way to
the politicization of religion in the 1980s.
Shiv Sena – This is a Hindu right party centered in Maharashtra, founded by Bal Thackeray. The
party draws on the legacy of the great Maharashtrian hero Shivaji Bhonsle and is ideologically
committed to Maharashtra for Maharashtrians. It also operates an extensive network of
neighborhood centers (or shakhas) that provide services and assistance to local residents, often
where the state has failed.
Sikhism – Sikhism is India’s third largest religion (1.9 percent of the Indian population).
Sikhism is a world religion with 20 million followers. It was founded by Guru Nanak in the
Punjab. The religion reveres the religious text the Adi Granth as a living guru. The Adi Granth is
a religious text comprised of over three thousand compositions from great men and women of all
faiths, especially those of the ten gurus of Sikhism. Like all religions, Sikhism is internally
diverse but today the majority of Sikhs retain the Five Ks as identity markers: kesh (long, uncut
hair); kahngha (a comb); kara (a steel bangle); kacchera (a special undergarment); and kirpan (a
small dagger).
Sri Lanka – Sri Lanka is an island nation of 22 million, located just to India’s south. Also
colonized by the British, Sri Lanka attained independence in 1948. Historically cosmopolitan and
diverse, a brutal struggle for a separate state by the Tamil separatist group the Tamil Tigers was
finally suppressed by 2009, after three decades of civil war. Sri Lanka’s capital is located at
Colombo, officially called Sri Jayawardenepura Kotta.
Subsidiary alliance – This refers to treaties between the East India Company and Indian kings.
Through such subsidiary alliances, the East India Company brought much of so-called “princely
India” under its indirect rule. The EIC army would protect the state in exchange for an annual
fee, and the placement of a British Resident at the King’s court. Though the ruler retained
sovereignty in name, he was required to disband his army, a potent symbol of the new order
introduced by the Company.
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Sulh-i-kul – This term refers to the policy of universal toleration adopted by Akbar. The concept
reinforced Akbar’s ideology of kingship in which he was the Perfect Man and as such was
deeply invested in the welfare of all of his subjects and spiritually enlightened rule.
Swadeshi – This word simply means those items produced in one’s own country: self + country
= swa + desh. In the context of Indian history, it refers to the nationalist impulse to boycott
British goods in favor of those produced from within India. While Gandhi is perhaps the most
famous proponent of this tactic, the swadeshi movement in Bengal used it in opposition to the
1905 Partition of Bengal.
Two-nation theory – This theory held that most of India’s population could be divided up into
blocs of Hindu and Muslim populations and that these religious communities each constituted
their own nation. Until the final independence settlement in 1947, it was not clear that each
nation would have its own state in the form of a partitioned India and Pakistan. For example,
recall that in 1946 the Cabinet Mission Plan had put forward an idea of one state in which the
various nations were “grouped” at a level between the province and the center. The 1940 Lahore
Resolution of the Muslim League, as well, called for independent states with autonomy where
Muslims were in the majority. However, the meaning of Pakistan was still vague and undefined
at this point. It was not until the very final days of British rule in the subcontinent that the Lahore
Resolution came to fruition in the form of a divided India and Pakistan.
Utilitarianism – This political philosophy sought to maximize the greatest good for the greatest
number. The leader of this movement was Jeremy Bentham. To Utilitarians interested in India
like James Mill and Thomas Babington Macaulay, Indian traditions, laws, and religions stood in
the way of a more rational and efficient governance.
Varna – This term refers to the five broad categories of religious-occupational caste groupings
that are pan-Indian and general in character. These five groups are Brahmins (priests); Ksatriyas
(warriors); Vaishyas (traders and farmers); Shudras (laborers); and Dalits (formerly called
“untouchables”). These categories, as opposed to jati categories, are primarily relevant in
religious literature and ritual.
Vijayanagara – This was an important early modern Indian kingdom centered in the Deccan
Plateau, reaching its height from the mid-fourteenth until the mid-sixteenth centuries.
Vijayanagara was characterized by an impressive land revenue collection system centered
around the elite Nayaka warriors who helped bring vast territory under Vijayanagara’s
suzerainty. Vijayanagara developed a highly sophisticated military based on its cavalry, and
horses were an important currency of military might.
Vote bank – This term refers to a religious or community grouping that can be effectively
counted on to support a particular party or politician. The term often suggests that people vote
with caste, religious, or local interests rather than along their individual conscience.
Young Bengal – This reformist group was founded by Henry Derozio in Calcutta in the early
1830s and was associated with Hindu College. The group encouraged the adoption of English
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cultural mores, such as the eating of beef; conversion to Christianity; and critique of Indian
society. Young Bengal exemplified a reformist response to the colonial critique of India.
Zoroastrianism or the Parsi religion – This is a very small monotheistic religion whose
adherents originally fled to India from Iran. It is an ancient religion with its roots in the second
millennium BCE. After their migration from Iran, Zoroastrians quickly became an important
merchant-trading community on India’s western coast. Called Parsis in India, many members of
the community accommodated the changes to Indian economy and society early on that were
prompted by British colonial rule, with some Parsis profiting greatly from their early adaptation.
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TIMELINE OF EVENTS
Before Common Era
c.3000–c.1750 BCE
c.1500–c.1200 BCE
c.900–c.800 BCE
c.600–500 BCE
c.326 BCE
c.322–c. 200 BCE
Common Era
c.320–550CE
c.600–1000
610
712
997–1030
1206–1526
1336–c. 1565
1440–1518
1469–1539
1498
1526
1526–30
1530–56
1538–45
1565
1556–1605
1600
1602
1605–28
1628–58
The Indus Valley Civilization
Aryan culture in northern India; rise of the Vedas and Vedic
Hinduism
Period of the Mahabharata and Ramayana
Development of renouncer religions such as Jainism and Hinduism
Alexander the Great’s invasion of northwestern India
Mauryan Empire, centered in eastern India in modern-day Bihar
but with pan-Indian reach
The Guptas, a large empire centered in north India
Late classical civilization: development of a large empire under
Harsha, a king based near Delhi; and the development of many
other regional polities in western, southern, and eastern India
Founding of Islam
Arab conquest of Sind
Raids of Mahmud of Ghazni
The Delhi Sultanate
The Vijayanagara Kingdom; decline marked by Battle of Talikota
in 1565
Life of Kabir, bhakti saint
Life of Guru Nanak, founder of Sikhism
Arrival of Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese explorer, at
Calicut
The First Battle of Panipat and foundation of the Mughal Empire
Reign of Babur
Reign of Humayun
Reign of Sher Shah Suri while Humayun was in exile
Battle of Talikota: Defeat of Vijayanagara, the great Deccan
kingdom, by an alliance of the other Deccan Sultanates of
Ahmadnagar, Bijapur, and Golkonda
Reign of Akbar
East India Company established by the English
Dutch East India Company established
Reign of Jahangir
Reign of Shah Jahan
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1658–1707
1679–80
1675–1708
1730s–40s
1739
1754–63
1757
1760–99
1761
1764
1765
1770
1772–85
1790–1839
1793
1798–1805
1799
1813
1818
1818
1828
1828–35
1835
1842
1845–6
1846
1848–49
1853
1856
1848–56
1855–56
1857
1858
1872
1875
Reign of Aurangzeb
Reign of Shivaji
Reign of tenth Sikh Guru, Guru Gobind Singh
Period of regional successor states such as Bengal, Awadh,
Hyderabad, Maratha Confederacy
Nadir Shah’s invasion of India and sack of Delhi that highlighted
decline of Mughal authority and strength
Seven Years’ War leads to conflicts between France and Britain in
south India
Battle of Plassey, beginning of British conquest of Bengal
Sultanate of Msyore under Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan
Third Battle of Panipat, loss of Marathas to Afghan ruler Ahmad
Shah Durrani, marking decline of Maratha power in north India
Battle of Buxar
East India Company’s acquisition of the Diwani of Bengal with the
Treaty of Allahabad
Great Bengal Famine
Governor-Generalship of Warren Hastings
Reign of Ranjit Singh in Punjab
Permanent Settlement
Governor-Generalship of Wellesley
Fall of Mysore
End of Company’s monopoly of trade
Defeat of the Marathas by the British
Founding of Hindu (Presidency) College of Calcutta
Founding of Brahmo Samaj by Ram Mohan Roy
Governor-Generalship of Bentinck and abolition of sati
Macaulay’s “Minute on Education” criticizes Indian literature and
culture
British conquest of Sind
First Anglo-Afghan War, part of the Great Game competition
between Britain and Russia over Afghanistan; Britain won a
pyrrhic victory, suffering thousands of casualties
Treaty of Lahore granting Muslim-majority valley of Kashmir to
the Dogra line of Hindu Kings based in Jammu
Second Sikh War and conquest of Punjab
Beginning of Railway construction
Annexation of Awadh (Oudh)
Governor-Generalship of Dalhousie
The Santhal Hool (Uprising)
The Great Mutiny and Revolt
Deposition and deportation to Burma of the last Mughal emperor,
Bahadur Shah Zafar
The first all-India census
Foundation of Anglo-Muhammadan Oriental College at Aligarh by
Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan
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1877
1878–80
1882
1885
1885
1893
1899–1905
1905
1905–08
1906
1907
1909
1911
1913
1915
1916
1919
1919
1919–22
1929
1930–4
1932
1935
1937
1940
1939
1942
1943
1943
1945
1946
Queen Victoria declared the Empress of India/Imperial
Assemblage at Delhi
The Second Anglo-Afghan War
Viceroy Ripon begins self-government in municipalities
The Third Anglo-Burma War; conquest of Burma
Foundation of the Indian National Congress
World Parliament of Religions; Swami Vivekananda travels to
Chicago and publicizes Hinduism
Viceroyalty of Curzon
Partition of Bengal
The Swadeshi Movement
Foundation of the All-India Muslim League
Founding of Tata Iron and Steel Company, which was one of the
first Indian-owned large industries and grew to be one of
independent India’s most important companies
Morley-Minto reforms: separate electorates granted to Muslims
Revocation of the partition of Bengal; shift of the capital from
Calcutta to Delhi
Rabindranath Tagore wins Nobel Prize for Literature
Gandhi’s return from South Africa
Lucknow Pact between the Congress and the Muslim League states
that the parties will work together to increase Indian self-rule
Montagu-Chelmsford (“Montford”) reforms
Rowlatt Acts; Jallianwala Bagh massacre at Amritsar
Khilafat/Non-Cooperation movement—joint effort of Gandhi and
Shaukat and Mohammad Ali; Gandhi calls off non-cooperation
after the killing of police officers by protestors at Chauri Chaura.
Congress passes Purna Swaraj resolution calling for complete
Independence
Gandhi’s Civil Disobedience Movement; Gandhi’s Salt March to
the sea in Gujarat
The Communal Award and the Poona Pact between Gandhi and
Ambedkar
Government of India Act
Provincial elections
Lahore Resolution of Muslim League
World War II and resignation of Congress ministries
Quit India movement led by Gandhi
Fall of Singapore in February 1942
The Great Bengal famine
Subash Chandra Bose (“Netaji”) founds Indian National Army in
Singapore
World War II ends in September
Cabinet Mission proposes a three-tiered, grouped Independence
settlement to solve the problem of Hindu and Muslim
representation in independent India
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1947
1947–64
1947–9
1948
January 26, 1950
1955
1962
1964–66
1965
1966
1966–77
1971
1975–77
1977–88
1977–1979
1979
1984
1984–89
1989
1991
1992
1998
1998
1999
2002
2004–14
2008
2010
2012
2014–present
Independence and Partition
Prime Ministership of Jawaharlal Nehru
First India-Pakistan War over Kashmir
Assassination of Gandhi in New Delhi
Republic Day: India’s new Constitution takes effect
Pakistan Constitution takes effect
India-China War
Prime Ministership of Lal Bahadur Shastri with an Indian National
Congress government
India-Pakistan War
Death of Lal Bahadur Shastri
Prime Ministership of Indira Gandhi
Independence of Bangladesh
Emergency
Dictatorship of Zia-ul-Haq in Pakistan
Janata Party coalition government
Mrs. Gandhi re-elected to the Prime Ministership
Crisis in Punjab and Mrs. Gandhi’s attack on separatists holed up
at the Golden Temple at Amritsar; Assassination of Mrs. Gandhi
by her Sikh bodyguards
Prime Ministership of Rahul Gandhi
Start of insurgency in Kashmir
Economic liberalization in India under Finance Minister
Manmohan Singh and Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao
Demolition of Babri Masjid at Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh
Prime Ministership of Atul Behari Vajpayee at the head of the
Bharatiya Janata Party and the National Democratic Alliance
Nuclear tests by both Pakistan and India
Kargil War in the highest reaches of Kashmir breaks out over
cross-border raids across the “Line of Control,” the de facto border
Riots in Gujarat against Muslims as retaliation for the death of
Hindu religious activists in a fire on a train at Godhra; the riots
cause the death of approximately a thousand Muslims and take
place with the complicity of the Gujarat government
Prime Ministership of Manmohan Singh at the head of the Indian
National Congress and the United Progressive Alliance
Major attack against five-star hotels and a Jewish community
center in Bombay carried out by Pakistan-supported terrorists
A major corruption scandal in which the government was cheated
out of at least $10 billion in revenue through the corrupt auctioning
off of 2G telecom spectrum; top ministers are implicated in the
scandal, the largest scam in India’s history
Founding of the Aam Admi Party, a party allied to anti-corruption
campaigner Anna Hazare
Prime Ministership of Narendra Modi at the head of the Bharatiya
Janata Party and a National Democratic Alliance government
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Notes
1. Catherine B. Asher and Cynthia Talbot, India before Europe (Cambridge:
CambridgeUniversity Press, 2006).
2. Government of India, “Census Provisional Population Totals 2011,” accessed August 18,
2014, http://censusindia.gov.in/2011census/censusinfodashboard/index.html. http://
censusindia.gov.in/%28S%28m3emi255ab0lka55l5vln155%29%29/Census_And_You/
religion.aspx
3. CIA, “The World Factbook,” accessed August 18, 2014, https://www.cia.gov/
library/publications/the-world-factbook/.
4. Thomas R. Trautmann, India: Brief History of a Civilization (New York and Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2011), 11.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid., 11–12.
7. Ibid., 11.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid., 9–15.
10. Craig J. Calhoun, Dictionary of the Social Sciences, Social Sciences (Oxford, Press,
2002), 2
11. Trautmann, India: Brief History of a Civilization, 7.
12. Sumit Sarkar, Modern India, 1885-1947 (New Delhi: Macmillan, 1983).
13. Government of India, Census of India: Religion (2001 Census Data) (New Delhi,
November 1, 2014),
http://censusindia.gov.in/%28S%28m3emi255ab0lka55l5vln155%29%29/Census_And_You/
religion.aspx.Ibid.
14. Government of India, Census of India: Religion (2001 Census Data).
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15. Trautmann, India: Brief History of aCivilization, 52–3.
16. Government of India, Census of India:Religion (2001 Census Data).
17. Asher and Talbot, India before Europe, 78.
18. Mehrdad Shokoohy, Muslim Architecture of South India: The Sultanate of Ma’bar and
the Traditions of Maritime Settlers on the Malabar and Coromandel Coasts (Tamil Nadu,
Kerala and Goa) (New York: Routledge, 2013), 3.75–77.
19. Ibid., 3.75–77.
20. Richard Maxwell Eaton, The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204-1760
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996).
21. Trautmann, India: Brief History of a Civilization, 168.
22. Government of India, Census of India: Religion (2001 Census Data).
23. Moreover, in common speech jati can sometimes take on shades beyond caste:
religion, occupation, even gender. See Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger, In Amma’s Healing
Room: Gender and Vernacular Islam in SouthIndia (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 2006).
24. For detailed information on the Indus Valley Civilization, see Sir Mortimer Wheeler,
The Indus Civilization: Supplementary Volume to the Cambridge History of India, 3rd ed.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968).
25. Schomp, Virginia. Ancient India. (New York: Franklin Watts Publishing, 2005). p.6
26. Ibid., p.8
27. Ibid., p.13
28. Srinivasaan, Radhika and Jermyn, Leslie. Cultures of the World: India. (Tarrytown,
NY: Marshal Cavendish Corporation, 2002). p.17
29. Ushistory.org. “The Gupta Period of India." Ancient Civilizations Online Textbook.
Independence Hall Association, 2015. http://www.ushistory.org/civ/8e.asp Web. 02 July
2015.
30. Ibid.
31. Srinivasaan, Radhika and Jermyn, Leslie. Cultures of the World: India. p.18
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32. Ibid.
33. Ibid., p.19
34. Catherine B. Asher and Cynthia Talbot, India before Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2006).
35. "Vihayanagara Kingdom." History of India. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 July 2015.
<http://kanakaraju.hpage.com/history-of-kshatriyas_52565456.html)>.
36. Asher and Talbot, India before Europe, 120.
37. "Sher Shah of Sur". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2015. Web. 02 July 2015.
<http://www.britannica.com/biography/Sher-Shah-of-Sur>.
38. Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India (New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2004), 279.
39. Asher and Talbot, India before Europe, 124
40. Ibid., 127. Citing Jos Gossmans, MughaWarfare: Indian Frontiers and High Roads to
Empire, 1500-1700 (London and New York: Routledge, 2002), p. 120.
41. Asher and Talbot, India before Europe, 124
42. Ibid., 130.
43. Srinivasaan, Radhika and Jermyn, Leslie. Cultures of the World: India. p.18
44. "Sher Shah of Sur". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia
Britannica
Inc.,
2015.
Web.
02
July
2015.
<http://www.britannica.com/biography/Sher-Shah-of-Sur>.
45. Ibid.
46. Asher and Talbot, India before Europe. 230
47. Asher and Talbot, India before Europe, 230. The full text of Aurangzeb’s ruling on the
matter is available at the Manas website entry on “jizya:” Vinay Lal, “Aurangzeb’s
Fatwa on Jizya [Jizyah, or Poll Tax], trans. Anver Emon, Manas: History and Politics,
November 1, 2014, https://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/History/Mughals/Aurnag_
fatwa.html.
48. Asher and Talbot, India before Europe, 232-3.
49. Srinivasaan, Radhika and Jermyn, Leslie. Cultures of the World: India. p.23
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50. Gurinder Singh Mann, “Sikhism,” in The Columbia Companion of Eastern Religions,
ed. Robert A.F. Thurman (New York: Columbia, 2007), 1.
51. Ibid., 6-7
52. Ibid., 12
53. Spielvogel, Jackson. World History The Human Odyssey. (Agoura Hills, CA: J. West
Publishing Company, 1999.)
54. “The Dutch East India Company. Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Online.
Encyclopedia Britannica Inc.., 2015. Web. 02 July 2015.
http://www.britannica.com/topic/Dutch-East-India-Company).
55. Asher and Talbot, India before Europe, 161–3.
56. Ibid., 90
57. Ibid., 180
58. Ibid., 173
59. Ibid., 172-3
60. Ibid., 181
61. Metcalf and Metcalf, A Concise History of Modern India, 48–9.
62. Asher and Talbot, India before Europe, 257.
63. Metcalf and Metcalf, A Concise History of Modern India, 44–45.
64. Asher and Talbot, India before Europe, 259.
65. Ibid., 260
66. Ibid.
67. Ibid., 261-3
68. Ibid., 268
69. Spear, The Oxford History of Modern India,1740-1947, 21.
70. Spear, The Oxford History of Modern India,1740-1947, 12-13.
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71. Ibid., 13
72. Marshall, Bengal: The British Bridgehead, 76-7
73. Metcalf and Metcalf, A Concise History of Modern India, 52.
74. Marshall, Bengal: The British Bridgehead, 77.
75. Ibid., 78.
76. Ibid., 77–78.
77. Ibid., 80–1.
78. Metcalf and Metcalf, A Concise History of Modern India, 53.Ibid., 67.
79. Metcalf and Metcalf, A Concise History of Modern India, 53.Ibid., 67.
80. Quoted in Marshall, Bengal: The British Bridgehead, 89.
81. Asher and Talbot, India before Europe, 125
82. Ibid., 288.
83. Asher and Talbot, India before Europe, 118–119.
84. Bose and Jalal, Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy, 53.
85. Ibid.
86. Marshall, Bengal: The British Bridgehead, 125–6.
87. Ibid., 125.
88. Metcalf and Metcalf, A Concise History of Modern India, 78–9.
89. Bose and Jalal, Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy, 49–50.
90. Trautmann, India: Brief History of a Civilization, 176
91. Spear, The Oxford History of Modern India, 1740-1947, 210.
92. Metcalf and Metcalf, A Concise History of Modern India, 75–76.
98
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93. Ministry of Railways, Government of India, “About Indian Railways”e
sehttp://www.indianrailways.gov.in/railwayboard/view_section.jsp?lang=0&id=0,1.
94. Ibid., 97-98
95. Ibid., 99
96. Ibid.
97. Bose and Jalal, Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy, 64.
98. Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860-1900, 72.
99. Ibid., 82
100. “Mumbai Samachar”, see website at http://www.bombaysamachar.com/.
101. Spear, The Oxford History of Modern India, 1740-1947, 222.
102. Ibid., 222–3; Metcalf and Metcalf, A Concise History of Modern India, 101–4.
103. Trautmann, India: Brief History of a Civilization, 177, 180.
104. Metcalf and Metcalf, A Concise History of Modern India, 105–6.
105. Metcalf, The Aftermath of Revolt, 1.
106. Metcalf and Metcalf, A Concise History of Modern India, 114–5.
107. Naoroji, Poverty and Un-British Rule in India.
108. Metcalf and Metcalf, A Concise History of Modern India, 135–6.
109. Metcalf and Metcalf, A Concise History of Modern India, 160.
110. Ibid., 168
111. Ibid., 190-1
112. Ibid., 207-8
113. Ibid., 205-7
114. Ibid., 212
115. Ibid., 212-13
99
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116. Ibid., 214-5
117. Ibid., 216
118. Ibid., 216–7; Bose and Jalal, Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy,
150–1.
119. Metcalf and Metcalf, A Concise History of Modern India, 219–222; Bose and Jalal,
Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy, 150–2.
120. Independence of India and Pakistan. (Chicago: Worldbook, Inc.. 2011.) p.38
121. Bose and Jalal, Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy, 150, 155.
122. Metcalf and Metcalf, A Concise History of Modern India, 221–222; Bose and Jalal,
Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy, 154–6.
123. Independence of India and Pakistan. Worldbook. p.42
124. Bose and Jalal, Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy, 154–6.
125. Nehru, “Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964): Speech On the Granting of Indian
Independence, August 14, 1947; Nehru, Tryst With Destiny.
126. Independence of India and Pakistan. Worldbook. p.44
127. Metcalf and Metcalf, A Concise History of Modern India, 223–7.
128. Ibid.
129. Independence of India and Pakistan. Worldbook. p.42
130. Metcalf and Metcalf, A Concise History of Modern India,233.
131. Ibid.247
132. Nardo, Don. India, Enchantment of the World. (New York: Scholastic, Inc. 2012.)
58-9
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