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India
India
country that occupies the
greater part of South Asia. Its capital is New Delhi, built in the 20th century
just south of the historic hub of Old Delhi to serve as India’s administrative
centre. Its government is a constitutional republic that represents a highly
diverse population consisting of thousands of ethnic groups and likely hundreds
of languages. With roughly one-sixth of the world’s total population, India is
the second most populous country, after China.
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| India |
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India
India
It is known from archaeological evidence that a highly sophisticated
urbanized culture—the Indus civilization—dominated the northwestern part of the
subcontinent from about 2600 to 2000 BCE. From that period on, India functioned
as a virtually self-contained political and cultural arena, which gave rise to
a distinctive tradition that was associated primarily with Hinduism, the roots
of which can largely be traced to the Indus civilization. Other religions,
notably Buddhism and Jainism, originated in India—though their presence there
is now quite small—and throughout the centuries residents of the subcontinent
developed a rich intellectual life in such fields as mathematics, astronomy,
architecture, literature, music, and the fine arts.
Taj Mahal
Taj Mahal
Jaisalmer, Rajasthan, India: fort
Jaisalmer, Rajasthan, India: fort
Throughout its history, India was intermittently disturbed by incursions
from beyond its northern mountain wall. Especially important was the coming of
Islam, brought from the northwest by Arab, Turkish, Persian, and other raiders
beginning early in the 8th century CE. Eventually, some of those raiders
stayed; by the 13th century much of the subcontinent was under Muslim rule, and
the number of Muslims steadily increased. Only after the arrival of the
Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama in 1498 and the subsequent establishment of
European maritime supremacy in the region did India become exposed to major
external influences arriving by sea, a process that culminated in the decline
of the ruling Muslim elite and absorption of the subcontinent within the
British Empire.
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Direct administration by the British, which began in 1858, effected a
political and economic unification of the subcontinent. When British rule came
to an end on August 14-15, 1947, celebrated annually as Independence Day, the
subcontinent was partitioned along religious lines into two separate
countries—India, with a majority of Hindus, and Pakistan, with a majority of
Muslims; the eastern portion of Pakistan later split off to form Bangladesh.
Many British institutions stayed in place (such as the parliamentary system of
government); English continued to be a widely used lingua franca; and India
remained within the Commonwealth. Hindi became the official language (and a
number of other local languages achieved official status), while a vibrant
English-language intelligentsia thrived.
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India remains one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the world.
Apart from its many religions and sects, India is home to innumerable castes
and tribes, as well as to more than a dozen major and hundreds of minor
linguistic groups from several language families unrelated to one another. Religious
minorities, including Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Jains, still
account for a significant proportion of the population; collectively, their
numbers exceed the populations of all countries except China. Earnest attempts
have been made to instill a spirit of nationhood in so varied a population, but
tensions between neighbouring groups have remained and at times have resulted
in outbreaks of violence. Yet social legislation has done much to alleviate the
disabilities previously suffered by formerly “untouchable” castes, tribal
populations, women, and other traditionally disadvantaged segments of society.
At independence, India was blessed with several leaders of world stature, most
notably Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, who were able to
galvanize the masses at home and bring prestige to India abroad. The country
has played an increasing role in global affairs.
Mumbai, India: Gateway to India monument
Mumbai, India: Gateway to India monument
Contemporary India’s increasing physical prosperity and cultural
dynamism—despite continued domestic challenges and economic inequality—are seen
in its well-developed infrastructure and a highly diversified industrial base,
in its pool of scientific and engineering personnel (one of the largest in the
world), in the pace of its agricultural expansion, and in its rich and vibrant
cultural exports of music, literature, and cinema. Though the country’s
population remains largely rural, India has three of the most populous and
cosmopolitan cities in the world—Mumbai (Bombay), Kolkata (Calcutta), and
Delhi. Three other Indian cities—Bengaluru (Bangalore), Chennai (Madras), and
Hyderabad—are among the world’s fastest-growing high-technology centres, and
most of the world’s major information technology and software companies now
have offices in India.
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The history section of the articles Pakistan and Bangladesh discuss
those countries since their creation.
Land
Himachal Pradesh, India: Kullu Valley
Himachal Pradesh, India: Kullu Valley
India’s frontier, which is roughly one-third coastline, abuts six
countries. It is bounded to the northwest by Pakistan, to the north by Nepal,
China, and Bhutan; and to the east by Myanmar (Burma). Bangladesh to the east
is surrounded by India to the north, east, and west. The island country of Sri
Lanka is situated some 40 miles (65 km) off the southeast coast of India across
the Palk Strait and Gulf of Mannar.
Himalayas
Himalayas
The land of India—together with Bangladesh and most of Pakistan—forms a
well-defined subcontinent, set off from the rest of Asia by the imposing
northern mountain rampart of the Himalayas and by adjoining mountain ranges to
the west and east. In area, India ranks as the seventh largest country in the
world.
Much of India’s territory lies within a large peninsula, surrounded by
the Arabian Sea to the west and the Bay of Bengal to the east; Cape Comorin,
the southernmost point of the Indian mainland, marks the dividing line between
those two bodies of water. India has two union territories composed entirely of
islands: Lakshadweep, in the Arabian Sea, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands,
which lie between the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea.
Relief
Physical features of India
Physical features of India
It is now generally accepted that India’s geographic position,
continental outline, and basic geologic structure resulted from a process of
plate tectonics—the shifting of enormous, rigid crustal plates over the Earth’s
underlying layer of molten material. India’s landmass, which forms the
northwestern portion of the Indian-Australian Plate, began to drift slowly
northward toward the much larger Eurasian Plate several hundred million years
ago (after the former broke away from the ancient southern-hemispheric
supercontinent known as Gondwana, or Gondwanaland). When the two finally
collided (approximately 50 million years ago), the northern edge of the
Indian-Australian Plate was thrust under the Eurasian Plate at a low angle. The
collision reduced the speed of the oncoming plate, but the underthrusting, or
subduction, of the plate has continued into contemporary times.
The effects of the collision and continued subduction are numerous and
extremely complicated. An important consequence, however, was the slicing off
of crustal rock from the top of the underthrusting plate. Those slices were
thrown back onto the northern edge of the Indian landmass and came to form much
of the Himalayan mountain system. The new mountains—together with vast amounts
of sediment eroded from them—were so heavy that the Indian-Australian Plate
just south of the range was forced downward, creating a zone of crustal
subsidence. Continued rapid erosion of the Himalayas added to the sediment
accumulation, which was subsequently carried by mountain streams to fill the
subsidence zone and cause it to sink more.
India’s present-day relief features have been superimposed on three
basic structural units: the Himalayas in the north, the Deccan (peninsular
plateau region) in the south, and the Indo-Gangetic Plain (lying over the
subsidence zone) between the two. Further information on the geology of India
is found in the article Asia.
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