India is often described as a continent, not a country, comprising a large variety of different peoples, customs and languages.

The social structure that exists in India today can be traced back many thousands of years and great and complex empires existed here before anything comparable could be found in Europe. As an entity however, India is a comparatively new invention put together by the British. For example, few people in the Tamil-speaking South speak Hindi, the national language and even the mightiest of the ancient empires did not encompass all of modern India.

India's first major civilisation flourished from as early as 2500 BC with evidence of the beginnings of Harappan culture and urban sites along the Indus River in what is now Pakistan. The Indus Valley cities were ruled by religions rather than kings and were famous for their highly developed engineering. It is still a mystery as to why such a sophisticated civilisation collapsed so quickly in the face of the Aryan invasions.

In around 1500 BC the Aryans entered India from the north. They gradually spread across India from the Punjab and Sind, along the Ganges towards Bengal. The Punjab and Sind became part of the Persian empire under Darius (521-486 BC).

In 326 BC Alexander the Great's army reached India. His troops however refused to march further than the Beas River and Alexander turned back without extending his power into India.

THE RELIGIONS OF INDIA

The Indian subcontinent saw the rise of two of the world's most significant religions, Buddhism and Hinduism. Hinduism is one of the world's oldest religions, originating in northern India roughly 4,000 years ago. Although superficially Hinduism would appear to believe in many gods, it has a concept of the supreme spirit, Brahman, above the many divine manifestations. Belief in reincarnation and darma (destiny) are central to Hinduism, and the oldest scriptures are the Vedas, written around 1500-1200 BC. These tell of the victory of Brahma over Indra, the god of thunder and battle, and probably refers to the revival of Brahmanism (the predecessor of Hinduism) following the Aryan invasions. There are currently over 805 million Hindus worldwide.

Buddhism originated in India about 500 BC. The religion derives from the teachings of Buddah, who is regarded as one of a series of such enlightened beings. There are no gods and the chief doctrine is that of karma, whereby good or evil deeds meet an appropriate reward or punishment either in this life or (through reincarnation) the next life. There are currently over 247.5 million Buddhists worldwide.

Two other major religions, Jainism and Sikhism also originated in India. Jainism is contemporary with Buddhism but never really had a following outside India. Sikhism is a much more recent development. There are currently about 14 million Sikhs, living mainly in the Punjab. The religion was founded by Nanak (1469-1539), a Hindu by birth who travelled widely to Hindu and Muslim centres in search of spiritual truth. His doctrine, set out in the Adi-Granth, sought a fusion between Brahmanism and Islam on the grounds that both were monotheistic (the belief in only one God), although his own ideas leaned rather towards pantheism, the belief that god is in everything. Fundamentally Sikhs believe in a single God who is the immortal creator of the universe and who has never been incarnate in any form. They also believe in the equality of all human beings and are strongly opposed to the caste system.

See The Rise of Islam & the Muslim Invasions for Islam

THE MAURYAN EMPIRE

Throughout its history the Indian subcontinent has seen the rise and fall of many dynasties. In the sixth century BC an Indian kingdom had started to develop in the north of India. It expanded into the vacuum created by Alexander the Great's departure when Chandragupta Maurya's empire came to power in 321 BC. Its capital was the present day Patna, and the Mauryan Empire eventually spread throughout Northern India. In 262 BC the emperor Ashoka was converted to Buddhism. Under Ashoka the Auryan Empire controlled more of the subcontinent than any power prior to the British. Following his death however in 232 BC the empire disintegrated and finally collapsed in 184 BC.

THE GUPTAS

After the fall of the Mauryas India saw the rise and fall of a number of empires. The next great empire however was that of the Gupta, which was founded in 319 AD by Chandragupta II. The Gupta period continued until 606 AD. Under their rule of northern India the arts, including poetry and literature, flourished. Towards the end of the period Buddhism and Jainism began to decline and Hinduism experienced a revival in popularity. With the decline of the Guptas, which was precipitated by the invasion of the White Huns, north India broke up into separate Hindu kingdoms and was not really unified again until the coming of the Muslims.

SOUTHERN INDIA

Throughout India's history a continuing phenomenon has been that events in the north have often been completely disconnected from events in the south. For example, while Buddhism and to a lesser extent Jainism were the dominant religions of the north, Hinduism continued to flourish in the south. Christianity also experienced some success in the south. In 52 AD St Thomas the Apostle is said to have arrived at Kerala and there still exists a strong Christian influence in that region.

Great empires rose in the south entirely independently from those of the north. These included the Cholas, Pandyas, Cheras, Chalukyas and Pallavas. Similarly the Muslim invasions failed to significantly influence events in the south.

THE RISE OF ISLAM & THE MUSLIM INVASIONS

In the first half of the seventh century the world saw the rise of a new major monotheistic religion, Islam. In 622 AD Mohammed, the founder and prophet of Islam, fled from Mecca and in 630 AD marched back in to begin Islam's period of rapid expansion. At the beginning of the eighth century the Muslims reached India and established themselves for a while in Sind (now in Pakistan).

It was not until the end of the twelfth century however that Islam established itself on the Indian sub-continent on a more permanent basis. In 1192 Mohammed of Ghori broke into India. After his death in 1206 his general, Qutb-ub-din, became the first of the sultans of Delhi. In 1398 Timur made a devastating raid into India from Samarkand; from this point on the power of this Muslim kingdom steadily declined, until it was finally supplanted by another mighty Muslim power, the Moghuls.

THE MOGHULS

Under Moghul rule India experienced a golden age. Art, architecture and literature flourished and their magnificent courts astounded early European visitors. Their passion for architecture can be seen today in such magnificent buildings as the Taj Mahal.

The six principal Moghul rulers were:

1527-1530   Babur 
1530-1556   Hamayun 
1556-1605   Akbar
1605-1627   Jehangir
1627-1658   Shah Jahan 
1658-1707   Aurangzeb

Akbar was probably the greatest Moghul emperor. He realised that the Hindu population was too great to be subjugated and therefore integrated them into his empire. Although Aurangzeb extended the empire's boundaries further than any of his predecessors, he laid the foundations of the Moghul's downfall by failing to follow Akbar's ground rules. Rather than incorporating the Hindus into his empire, Aurangzeb penalised them. Such policies lost Aurangzeb the trust of many of his subjects and led to revolts on all sides. Aurangzeb was the last great Moghul emperor and with his death the empire went into decline. Although the last Moghul emperor was not deposed until 1858 when the British Parliament took direct control of British India, his successors ruled in name only.

Task:

Try to find a map of India under the Moghuls and a map of India under the British. Look at the boundaries of their power. How do they compare?

THE MARATHAS

Moghul power was not simply supplanted by a greater power; they fell for a variety of different reasons and their power base passed to a number of other rulers. Not least of these were the Marathas.

During the 17th and 18th centuries the Hindu Marathas formed a powerful military confederation in rivalry with the Moghul emperors. The first Marathi kingdom was established in 1674 by Sivaji and during the first half of the 18th century, with the decline of Moghul power, Maratha authority was extended into central and northern India. Politically the Maratha was a loose confederacy, comprising powerful, independent families. They eventually fell however to India's final great imperial power, the British.

THE BRITISH IN INDIA

The British made their first permanent inroad into India in 1612, when they established a trading post at Surat in Gujarat.

In 1600 Queen Elizabeth I had granted a charter to a London trading company giving them a monopoly on British trade between England and the Far East. For the next 250 years British power in India was exercised not by the government but by the East India Company, which developed from this charter. During the 18th century the company became, in effect, the ruler of a large part of India. A form of dual control by the company and a committee responsible to parliament was introduced by Prime Minister Pitt's India Act of 1784. After the Indian Mutiny of 1857 the crown took complete control of the government of British India and the India Act of 1858 abolished the company.

The British were not the only European presence in India. In 1498 the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama had arrived on the coast of Kerala. In 1510 the Portuguese captured Goa, which they controlled until as late as 1961, 14 years after the British had left. The Dutch also had trading posts in India and in 1672 the French established themselves at Pondicherry, an enclave which they too controlled until after the British left in 1947. Anglo-French enmity naturally spread to India and characteristically the British and the French would play local rulers off against each other.

India was in a great state of flux with the decline of the Moghul empire and the ensuing power vacuum. The Marathas were the only real Indian power to step into the gap; they failed to become a formidable power however as they consisted of a group of local kingdoms who were inconsistent in their cooperation with each other. Throughout the 18th century the British managed to slowly consolidate their power throughout India and by the early 19th century India was effectively under British control.

One of the reasons why the British were so successful is that they followed the rules laid down by the Moghul emperor Akbar. They saw India principally as a place to make money and therefore the population were left to follow their own religious beliefs. Furthermore they had an extremely efficient army and successfully followed the policy of divide and rule. Under the British, India remained a network of different states, many nominally independent but in reality under strong British influence.

In 1857 the British suffered their first serious setback in India with the Indian Mutiny. The uprising was confined to the north and central India. In 1858 the mutiny was suppressed, but reforms took place. As a direct result the East India Company was dissolved and India became a viceroyalty under the British crown. The rest of the 19th century saw the height of British power in India. With the turn of the 20th century however, opposition to British rule began to take a new direction. The 'Congress' which had been established to give India a degree of self-rule now began to push for the real thing. The First World War (1914-1918) shelved the British plans for a path towards Independence. After the war however the struggle was on in earnest and its leader was Mahatma Gandhi.

TOWARDS INDEPENDENCE

Gandhi and the Congress Party were the leading lights in India's move towards Independence. Although many did not agree with Gandhi's policy of non-cooperation and non-violence towards the British, he nevertheless remained at the forefront of the movement. It was not until after the Second World War (1939-1945) however that the final death blow was dealt to British rule in India. By then independence was inevitable as the war had finally ended colonialism and the myth of European superiority. Britain no longer had the power or the resources to maintain a large empire. A major problem had arisen however in that the large Muslim minority realised that an independent India would also mean a Hindu-dominated India.

The Muslim League, led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah began to call for an independent Pakistan to be carved out of India. Elections within India revealed that the country was split on purely religious grounds with Jinnah speaking for the majority of the Muslim population and Jawaharlal Nehru, the leader of the Congress Party, commanding the Hindus.

In an attempt to make the two sides see reason and to curtail the escalating violence, the British took the decision to replace the current viceroy, Lord Wavell, by Lord Louis Mountbatten.

Mountbatten made a last ditch attempt for a united India as what he perceived to be the more sensible proposition. The parties however remained adamant and the decision was reluctantly made to divide the country. Only Gandhi remained firmly against the decision; however, although he remained the father of the Congress Party his political influence was slipping.

The date for Independence was set for August 1947. India was to be divided into two separate independent countries, India and Pakistan. However, slicing the country in two proved a near impossible task as although some areas were clearly either Hindu or Muslim, many had a mixed population. The two greatest areas of Muslim concentration were situated on opposite sides of the country and Pakistan was therefore to have an eastern and a western half divided by India. (East Pakistan eventually gained independence as Bangladesh in 1971.)

The splendid moment of Independence was shattered by two terrible events. The first was the appalling death toll that accompanied the movement of peoples across the Punjab (the setting for 'Earth'); the second was the outbreak of war between India and Pakistan over Kashmir.

The Punjab saw the greatest violence between Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus as partition split the region in two. One of the most fertile and affluent regions of the country, the Punjab's population consisted of Muslims (55%), Hindus (30%) and a large number of Sikhs. With the announcement of the dividing line just days after independence the bloodshed was far worse than anyone had expected. There was a massive exchange of populations as Muslims moved to Pakistan and Hindus moved to India. This great exodus was still taking place months after Partition. Prior to independence the city of Lahore had had a population of 500,000 Hindus and 100,000 Sikhs out of a population of 1.2 million. Once the upheaval had died down however, Lahore had a Hindu and Sikh population of only 1000. Estimates suggest that over 10 million people had moved countries.

1. Find and examine a map of the British Empire. Did it cover an extensive amount of territory?
a) Why do you think that certain world events and changes in ideology led to the dismantling of British power in India? Were the British the only power to give up their colonies?
b) Can you think what those world events and changes in ideology might have been?
c) Did the British withdraw from any other areas?

2. Look at British newspapers from 1947 (you should be able to find them on the internet). What was the British press' attitude to British withdrawal from India and to Partition? Try to find Pakistani and Indian newspapers of the period and compare their different responses to that of the British.

3. Did anyone in your family experience the events of 1947? Is so, ask if you could interview them. Perhaps the class would like to start a testimony project, either written, oral or visual. Try to find as many different opinions as possible eg: Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and British soldiers.

HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHIES

GANDHI, Mohandas Karamchand, known as Mahatma ("Great Soul") (1869-1948)

Gandhi was an Indian nationalist leader who led the struggle for independence from Britain through the process of non-violent non-cooperation. He was born in Porbandar and studied law in London. He settled in South Africa where until 1914 he led the Indian community in opposition to racial discrimination. On his return to India he emerged as leader of the Indian National Congress. Gandhi's non-violent non-cooperation involved organising hunger strikes and events of civil disobedience as he campaigned for social reform and religious tolerance. Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu nationalist in the violence that followed the partition of British India into India and Pakistan.

JINNAH, Muhammad Ali (1876-1948)

Jinnah was a Pakistani statesman, born in Karachi. He studied at Bombay and Lincoln's Inn, London. Already a member of the Indian National Congress, in 1913 he joined the Indian Muslim League. As its president he brought about peace between the two organisations. Although a supporter of the Congress, he opposed Gandhi's civil disobedience policy and in 1928 resigned from the Congress Party which he believed was solely fostering Hindu interests. Jinnah continued to advocate his '14 points' safeguarding Muslim minorities at the London Round Table Conference of 1931. At the 1946 conferences in London he insisted on the partition of British India into separate Hindu and Muslim states. Jinnah became Pakistan's first governor general in 1947.

NEHRU, Jawaharlal (1889-1964)

Nehru, an Indian statesman, became a member of the Indian Congress Committee in 1914. Between 1921 and 1947 Nehru was imprisoned for a total of 18 years by the British for political activities. Nehru led the socialist wing of the Indian Congress Party prior to British withdrawal from India and was second in influence only to Gandhi. In 1947, when India achieved her independence he became her first prime minister and minister of external affairs.

MOUNTBATTEN, Louis Francis Victor Albert Nicholas, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma (1900-1979)

Mountbatten was a British naval commander and statesman, born near Windsor. He was the younger son of Prince Louis Mountbatten and great-grandson of Queen Victoria. Mountbatten was appointed last viceroy of India (1947) to oversee the rapid transition of power. He was murdered by an IRA bomb while sailing near his holiday home in County Sligo, Ireland.