Welcome to India
Background
India has one of the oldest civilizations in the world. It dates back at least 5,000 years. The first people in India settled along the Indus River Valley, where they developed impressive planned cities that even had extensive plumbing systems. The Mauryan Empire united and ruled India starting in 333 B.C. Around 400 A.D. India experienced a golden age with the arrival of the Gupta Empire. During this time, Indians wrote great poetry and drama, proved that the earth was round, invented modern numbers, and calculated pi. Indians traded cloth, spices, and luxury items along the Silk Road with China and Europe. Both Hinduism and Buddhism began in India. Over the years India was conquered by a series of foreign rulers, including the Mughals, who established a vast empire which brought Islam to India. Because India has many natural resources, Britain colonized it in 1858 and remained in power until 1947. In fact, India was so valuable that the British referred to it as the “jewel in the crown” of the British Empire. Under British rule Indians were exploited and deprived of their rights. Mohandas Gandhi, one of the greatest nationalist leaders that the world has ever known, led the Indian people in a peaceful movement for self-determination. Gandhi showed the world that nonviolent civil disobedience could be used to achieve independence, and he provided inspiration for many others who came after him, like Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela. Unfortunately, the establishment of India as an independent country in 1947 brought violence in the form of the assassination of Gandhi by a Hindu extremist and conflict between Muslims and Hindus. Eventually, this conflict led to the establishment of Pakistan and Bangladesh as independent countries in their own right.
India Today
Today India is a modern nation which has made a lot of progress but also faces a lot of challenges. India is the world’s second most populous country, with almost 1.2 billion people. As you can imagine, this has put a great strain on the country’s resources. The Indian government has tried many methods to encourage people to limit population growth. India has also significantly increased its food production with the Green Revolution, which introduced new ways of farming. Indian agriculture has traditionally been dependent on the seasonal monsoon rains, which can sometimes lead to natural disasters like flooding. India has also experienced devastating earthquakes, such as the 1993 quake that killed 30,000 people. India has occasional conflicts with Pakistan, its neighbor to the northwest. These two countries each claim the border land of Kashmir, which has been the site of many skirmishes. Since both India and Pakistan are nuclear powers, the rest of the world closely monitors the situation. Because India is so diverse, it has increasingly become the target of terrorist attacks directed against civilians in large cities. India is the world’s largest and most diverse democracy. There are more than 2,000 ethnic groups in India, and they all can participate in the democratic process. In recent years, India has benefited from globalization, as countries like the U.S. have outsourced jobs to Indian workers.
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