brief history of india
The Indus Valley civilization, one of the world's oldest, flourished during the 3rd and 2nd millennia B.C. and extended into northwestern India. The inhabitants of the Indus River valley were thought to be Dravidians, whose descendants later migrated to the south of India. As a result of ecological changes, this civilization which developed a culture based on commerce and sustained by agricultural trade came to its end (Historyindia.org, n.d).
Aryan tribes from the northwest infiltrated the Indian subcontinent about 1500 B.C. Their merger with the earlier Dravidian inhabitants created the classical Indian culture. The Maurya Empire of the 4th and 3rd centuries B.C. - which reached its zenith under ASHOKA - united much of South Asia. It is during the time of the Mauryas that Buddhism first spread to other parts of Asia and Hinduism first began to take the shape that fundamentally informs the religion down to the present day (Lal, 2007). The Golden Age ushered in by the Gupta dynasty (4th to 6th centuries A.D.) saw a flowering of Indian science, art, and culture.
Islam spread across the subcontinent over a period of 700 years. In the 10th and 11th centuries, Turks and Afghans invaded India and established the Delhi Sultanate. In the early 16th century, the Emperor BABUR established the Mughal Dynasty which ruled India for more than three centuries.
European explorers began establishing footholds in India during the 16th century. By the 19th century, Great Britain had become the dominant political power on the subcontinent. The British Indian Army played a vital role in both World Wars. Years of nonviolent resistance to British rule, led by Mohandas GANDHI and Jawaharlal NEHRU, eventually resulted in Indian independence, which was granted in 1947. Large-scale communal violence took place before and after the subcontinent partition into two separate states - India and Pakistan. The neighbouring nations have fought three wars since independence, the last of which was in 1971 and resulted in East Pakistan becoming the separate nation of Bangladesh. India's nuclear weapons tests in 1998 emboldened Pakistan to conduct its own tests that same year. In November 2008, terrorists originating from Pakistan conducted a series of coordinated attacks in Mumbai, India's financial capital. Despite pressing problems such as significant overpopulation, environmental degradation, extensive poverty, and widespread corruption, economic growth following the launch of economic reforms in 1991 and a massive youthful population are driving India's emergence as a regional and global power.
The first prime minister of independent India was Jawaharlal Nehru, who held office from 1947 until his death in 1964. Apart from a short period of two years from 1975-1977, when an internal emergency was imposed by then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and constitutional liberties were suspended, India has been a thriving parliamentary democracy .
(Lal, 2007).
Partly taken from Nanyang Girls' High School Integrated Humanities Dept ITunes U Country Bites
Aryan tribes from the northwest infiltrated the Indian subcontinent about 1500 B.C. Their merger with the earlier Dravidian inhabitants created the classical Indian culture. The Maurya Empire of the 4th and 3rd centuries B.C. - which reached its zenith under ASHOKA - united much of South Asia. It is during the time of the Mauryas that Buddhism first spread to other parts of Asia and Hinduism first began to take the shape that fundamentally informs the religion down to the present day (Lal, 2007). The Golden Age ushered in by the Gupta dynasty (4th to 6th centuries A.D.) saw a flowering of Indian science, art, and culture.
Islam spread across the subcontinent over a period of 700 years. In the 10th and 11th centuries, Turks and Afghans invaded India and established the Delhi Sultanate. In the early 16th century, the Emperor BABUR established the Mughal Dynasty which ruled India for more than three centuries.
European explorers began establishing footholds in India during the 16th century. By the 19th century, Great Britain had become the dominant political power on the subcontinent. The British Indian Army played a vital role in both World Wars. Years of nonviolent resistance to British rule, led by Mohandas GANDHI and Jawaharlal NEHRU, eventually resulted in Indian independence, which was granted in 1947. Large-scale communal violence took place before and after the subcontinent partition into two separate states - India and Pakistan. The neighbouring nations have fought three wars since independence, the last of which was in 1971 and resulted in East Pakistan becoming the separate nation of Bangladesh. India's nuclear weapons tests in 1998 emboldened Pakistan to conduct its own tests that same year. In November 2008, terrorists originating from Pakistan conducted a series of coordinated attacks in Mumbai, India's financial capital. Despite pressing problems such as significant overpopulation, environmental degradation, extensive poverty, and widespread corruption, economic growth following the launch of economic reforms in 1991 and a massive youthful population are driving India's emergence as a regional and global power.
The first prime minister of independent India was Jawaharlal Nehru, who held office from 1947 until his death in 1964. Apart from a short period of two years from 1975-1977, when an internal emergency was imposed by then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and constitutional liberties were suspended, India has been a thriving parliamentary democracy .
(Lal, 2007).
Partly taken from Nanyang Girls' High School Integrated Humanities Dept ITunes U Country Bites
Key events
1858 - India comes under direct rule of the British crown.
1885 - Indian National Congress founded as forum for emerging nationalist feeling.
1920-22 - Nationalist figurehead Mahatma Gandhi launches anti-British civil disobedience campaign.
1947 - End of British rule and partition of sub-continent into mainly Hindu India and Muslim-majority state of Pakistan.
1947-48 - Widespread communal bloodshed after partition.
1948 - Mahatma Gandhi assassinated by Hindu extremist.
1948 - War with Pakistan over disputed territory of Kashmir.
1951-52 - Congress Party wins first general elections under leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru.
1962 - India loses brief border war with China.
1965 - Second war with Pakistan over Kashmir.
1966 - Indira Gandhi becomes prime minister.
1971 - Third war with Pakistan over creation of Bangladesh.
1971 - Twenty-year treaty of friendship signed with Soviet Union.
1974 - India explodes first nuclear device in underground test.
1975 - Indira Gandhi declares state of emergency after being found guilty of electoral malpractice.
1975-1977 - Nearly 1,000 political opponents imprisoned. Programme of compulsory birth control introduced.
1984 - Troops storm Golden Temple - Sikhs' most holy shrine - to flush out Sikh militants pressing for self-rule.
1984 - Indira Gandhi assassinated by Sikh bodyguards, following which her son, Rajiv, takes over.
1989 - Falling public support leads to Congress defeat in general election.
1990 - Muslim separatist groups begin campaign of violence in Kashmir.
1991 - Rajiv Gandhi assassinated by suicide bomber sympathetic to Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers.
1992 - Hindu extremists demolish mosque in Ayodhya, triggering widespread Hindu-Muslim violence.
1998 - BJP forms coalition government under Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.
1998 - India carries out nuclear tests, leading to widespread international condemnation.
1999 February - Vajpayee makes historic bus trip to Pakistan to meet Premier Nawaz Sharif and to sign bilateral Lahore peace declaration.
1999 May - Tension in Kashmir leads to brief war with Pakistan-backed forces in Kargil in Indian-held Kashmir.
2000 May - India marks the birth of its billionth citizen.
2000 - US President Bill Clinton makes a groundbreaking visit to improve ties.
2001 A high-powered rocket is launched, propelling India into the club of countries able to fire big satellites deep into space.
2001 September - US lifts sanctions which it imposed against India and Pakistan after they staged nuclear tests in 1998. The move is seen as a reward for their support for the US-led anti-terror campaign.
2001 December - India imposes sanctions against Pakistan, to force it to take action against two Kashmir militant groups blamed for the suicide attack on parliament. Pakistan retaliates with similar sanctions, and bans the groups in January.
2002 January - India successfully test-fires a nuclear-capable ballistic missile - the Agni - off its eastern coast.
2002 February - Inter-religious bloodshed breaks out after 59 Hindu pilgrims returning from Ayodhya are killed in a train fire in Godhra, Gujarat. More than 1,000 people, mainly Muslims, die in subsequent violence. In 2012 a court convicts 32 people over the Naroda Patiya riots in Ahmedabad.
2002 June - UK, US urge their citizens to leave India and Pakistan, while maintaining diplomatic offensive to avert war.
2003 November - India matches Pakistan's declaration of a Kashmir ceasefire.
2004 May - Surprise victory for Congress Party in general elections. Manmohan Singh is sworn in as prime minister.
2004 September - India, along with Brazil, Germany and Japan, launches an application for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
2004 December - Thousands are killed when tidal waves, caused by a powerful undersea earthquake off the Indonesian coast, devastate coastal communities in the south and in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
2005 July - More than 1,000 people are killed in floods and landslides caused by monsoon rains in Mumbai (Bombay) and Maharashtra region.
2006 February - India's largest-ever rural jobs scheme is launched, to lift around 60 million families out of poverty.
2006 March - US and India sign a nuclear agreement during a visit by US President George W Bush. The US gives India access to civilian nuclear technology while India agrees to greater scrutiny for its nuclear programme.
2006 11 July - More than 180 people are killed in bomb attacks on rush-hour trains in Mumbai. Investigators blame Islamic militants based in Pakistan.
2006 November - Hu Jintao makes the first visit to India by a Chinese president in a decade.
2007 18 February - 68 passengers, most of them Pakistanis, are killed by bomb blasts and a blaze on a train travelling from New Delhi to the Pakistani city of Lahore.
2007 February - India and Pakistan sign an agreement aimed at reducing the risk of accidental nuclear war.
2007 April - India's first commercial space rocket is launched, carrying an Italian satellite.
2007 May - Government announces its strongest economic growth figures for 20 years - 9.4% in the year to March.
2007 July - Pratibha Patil becomes first woman to be elected president of India.
2008 July - Congress-led coalition survives vote of confidence brought after left-wing parties withdraw their support over controversial nuclear cooperation deal with US. After the vote, several left-wing and regional parties form new alliance to oppose government, saying it has been tainted by corruption.
2008 October - Following approval by the US Congress, President George W Bush signs into law a nuclear deal with India, which ends a three-decade ban on US nuclear trade with Delhi.
India successfully launches its first mission to the moon, the unmanned lunar probe Chandrayaan-1.
2008 - Hundreds injured and more dead in a series of co-ordinated attacks by gunmen on the main tourist and business area of Mumbai. India blames militants from Pakistan.
2009 May - General election victory by governing Congress.
2009 July - Pakistani, Indian premiers pledge to work together to fight terror.
2009 December - The government says it will allow a new state, Telangana, to be carved out of part of the southern state of Andhra Pradesh. Violent protests for and against break out.
2010 September - Allahabad High Court rules that disputed holy site of Ayodhya should be divided between Hindus and Muslims. The destruction of a mosque here by Hindu extremists in 1992 caused 2000 deaths in a riot that followed.
2011 March - India's population is now at 1.21bn, increase of 181 million over ten years.
2011 - India overtakes China to become the world's largest importer of arms, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
2011 November - Fourteen people including a government minister go on trial in one of India's biggest ever corruption scandals - the selling of mobile phone licenses in exchange for bribes.
2012 July - Pranab Mukherjee from the ruling Congress party is elected president.
2013 March - Five policemen are killed in a militant assault in Indian-administered Kashmir - the first major attack in the region in three years.
2013 September - A court sentences four men to death for the gang rape and murder of a student in Delhi the previous December. This case had sparked protests across India and caused the formation of new rules.
1885 - Indian National Congress founded as forum for emerging nationalist feeling.
1920-22 - Nationalist figurehead Mahatma Gandhi launches anti-British civil disobedience campaign.
1947 - End of British rule and partition of sub-continent into mainly Hindu India and Muslim-majority state of Pakistan.
1947-48 - Widespread communal bloodshed after partition.
1948 - Mahatma Gandhi assassinated by Hindu extremist.
1948 - War with Pakistan over disputed territory of Kashmir.
1951-52 - Congress Party wins first general elections under leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru.
1962 - India loses brief border war with China.
1965 - Second war with Pakistan over Kashmir.
1966 - Indira Gandhi becomes prime minister.
1971 - Third war with Pakistan over creation of Bangladesh.
1971 - Twenty-year treaty of friendship signed with Soviet Union.
1974 - India explodes first nuclear device in underground test.
1975 - Indira Gandhi declares state of emergency after being found guilty of electoral malpractice.
1975-1977 - Nearly 1,000 political opponents imprisoned. Programme of compulsory birth control introduced.
1984 - Troops storm Golden Temple - Sikhs' most holy shrine - to flush out Sikh militants pressing for self-rule.
1984 - Indira Gandhi assassinated by Sikh bodyguards, following which her son, Rajiv, takes over.
1989 - Falling public support leads to Congress defeat in general election.
1990 - Muslim separatist groups begin campaign of violence in Kashmir.
1991 - Rajiv Gandhi assassinated by suicide bomber sympathetic to Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers.
1992 - Hindu extremists demolish mosque in Ayodhya, triggering widespread Hindu-Muslim violence.
1998 - BJP forms coalition government under Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.
1998 - India carries out nuclear tests, leading to widespread international condemnation.
1999 February - Vajpayee makes historic bus trip to Pakistan to meet Premier Nawaz Sharif and to sign bilateral Lahore peace declaration.
1999 May - Tension in Kashmir leads to brief war with Pakistan-backed forces in Kargil in Indian-held Kashmir.
2000 May - India marks the birth of its billionth citizen.
2000 - US President Bill Clinton makes a groundbreaking visit to improve ties.
2001 A high-powered rocket is launched, propelling India into the club of countries able to fire big satellites deep into space.
2001 September - US lifts sanctions which it imposed against India and Pakistan after they staged nuclear tests in 1998. The move is seen as a reward for their support for the US-led anti-terror campaign.
2001 December - India imposes sanctions against Pakistan, to force it to take action against two Kashmir militant groups blamed for the suicide attack on parliament. Pakistan retaliates with similar sanctions, and bans the groups in January.
2002 January - India successfully test-fires a nuclear-capable ballistic missile - the Agni - off its eastern coast.
2002 February - Inter-religious bloodshed breaks out after 59 Hindu pilgrims returning from Ayodhya are killed in a train fire in Godhra, Gujarat. More than 1,000 people, mainly Muslims, die in subsequent violence. In 2012 a court convicts 32 people over the Naroda Patiya riots in Ahmedabad.
2002 June - UK, US urge their citizens to leave India and Pakistan, while maintaining diplomatic offensive to avert war.
2003 November - India matches Pakistan's declaration of a Kashmir ceasefire.
2004 May - Surprise victory for Congress Party in general elections. Manmohan Singh is sworn in as prime minister.
2004 September - India, along with Brazil, Germany and Japan, launches an application for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
2004 December - Thousands are killed when tidal waves, caused by a powerful undersea earthquake off the Indonesian coast, devastate coastal communities in the south and in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
2005 July - More than 1,000 people are killed in floods and landslides caused by monsoon rains in Mumbai (Bombay) and Maharashtra region.
2006 February - India's largest-ever rural jobs scheme is launched, to lift around 60 million families out of poverty.
2006 March - US and India sign a nuclear agreement during a visit by US President George W Bush. The US gives India access to civilian nuclear technology while India agrees to greater scrutiny for its nuclear programme.
2006 11 July - More than 180 people are killed in bomb attacks on rush-hour trains in Mumbai. Investigators blame Islamic militants based in Pakistan.
2006 November - Hu Jintao makes the first visit to India by a Chinese president in a decade.
2007 18 February - 68 passengers, most of them Pakistanis, are killed by bomb blasts and a blaze on a train travelling from New Delhi to the Pakistani city of Lahore.
2007 February - India and Pakistan sign an agreement aimed at reducing the risk of accidental nuclear war.
2007 April - India's first commercial space rocket is launched, carrying an Italian satellite.
2007 May - Government announces its strongest economic growth figures for 20 years - 9.4% in the year to March.
2007 July - Pratibha Patil becomes first woman to be elected president of India.
2008 July - Congress-led coalition survives vote of confidence brought after left-wing parties withdraw their support over controversial nuclear cooperation deal with US. After the vote, several left-wing and regional parties form new alliance to oppose government, saying it has been tainted by corruption.
2008 October - Following approval by the US Congress, President George W Bush signs into law a nuclear deal with India, which ends a three-decade ban on US nuclear trade with Delhi.
India successfully launches its first mission to the moon, the unmanned lunar probe Chandrayaan-1.
2008 - Hundreds injured and more dead in a series of co-ordinated attacks by gunmen on the main tourist and business area of Mumbai. India blames militants from Pakistan.
2009 May - General election victory by governing Congress.
2009 July - Pakistani, Indian premiers pledge to work together to fight terror.
2009 December - The government says it will allow a new state, Telangana, to be carved out of part of the southern state of Andhra Pradesh. Violent protests for and against break out.
2010 September - Allahabad High Court rules that disputed holy site of Ayodhya should be divided between Hindus and Muslims. The destruction of a mosque here by Hindu extremists in 1992 caused 2000 deaths in a riot that followed.
2011 March - India's population is now at 1.21bn, increase of 181 million over ten years.
2011 - India overtakes China to become the world's largest importer of arms, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
2011 November - Fourteen people including a government minister go on trial in one of India's biggest ever corruption scandals - the selling of mobile phone licenses in exchange for bribes.
2012 July - Pranab Mukherjee from the ruling Congress party is elected president.
2013 March - Five policemen are killed in a militant assault in Indian-administered Kashmir - the first major attack in the region in three years.
2013 September - A court sentences four men to death for the gang rape and murder of a student in Delhi the previous December. This case had sparked protests across India and caused the formation of new rules.
Other comprehensive resources to know more about India:
1. http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0107629.html
2. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-south-asia-12557384
3. http://asiasociety.org/asia101/understanding-modern-india
1. http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0107629.html
2. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-south-asia-12557384
3. http://asiasociety.org/asia101/understanding-modern-india