- Prehistory
Because the Indians of remote antiquity
left no written records of their social,
cultural, and political activities,
historians are obliged to rely almost
exclusively on archaeological discoveries
for an understanding of the earliest
civilizations on the subcontinent.
Evidence indicates that, possibly during
the Neolithic period of the Stone Age,
the inhabitants of the subcontinent were
dispersed and partially assimilated by
invading Dravidian tribes, who probably
came from the west. On the basis of
archaeological discoveries in the Indus
Valley, the civilization subsequently
developed by the Dravidians equalled and
possibly surpassed in splendour the
civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia and
Egypt.About the middle of the 3rd
millennium BC, Dravidian India was
subjected to the first of a sustained
series of invasions by tribes of the
Indo-European linguistic stock. These
tribes, of uncertain origin but usually
referred to as Indo-Aryans, entered the
subcontinent through the mountain passes
along the north-western frontier and
gradually occupied most of the territory
north of the Vindhya Range and west of
the River Yamuna. Many Dravidians fled to
the north and into the Indian peninsula,
regions where the Dravidian linguistic
stock is still large. The remnants of the
Dravidian people and, in the view of some
authorities, much of their culture, were
absorbed by the Indo-Aryans.
- Vedic
Period
Obscurity surrounds India’s
political history for many centuries
after the conquest of the Dravidians, but
the Veda, a collection of sacred writings
dating from about 1200 BC, contains
considerable information on social
practices, religious beliefs, and
cultural attainments. As depicted in some
Vedic hymns, the civilization that
emerged during the early centuries after
the intermingling of Indo-Aryan and
Dravidian cultures on the subcontinent
was notable in several respects. Tribal
political organs functioned according to
democratic principles, the social status
of women compared favourably with that of
men, and marriage was regarded as sacred.
The IndoAryans had advanced skills in
various arts and sciences, including
livestock-raising, metal handicrafts,
carpentry, boatbuilding, and military
science.The Vedic hymns composed during
this and later periods also depict the
emergence and crystallization of key
features of the socio-religious system
known as Hinduism. Virtually all that is
known with certainty of the political
situation is that in the course of the
1st millennium BC, 16 autonomous states
were established in the region bounded by
the Himalaya, the southern reaches of the
Ganges, the Vindhya Range, and the Indus
Valley. Of these states, comprising both
republics and kingdoms, the most
important was Kosala, a kingdom situated
in the region occupied by modern Oudh.
Other important kingdoms were Avanti,
Vamsas, and Magadha. The last-named
kingdom occupied the territory of modern
Bih?r, and in about the middle of the 6th
century BC it became the dominant state
of India. During the reign of its first
great King Bimbisara (reigned about
543-491 BC), Buddha and Vardhamana
Jnatiputra or Nataputta Mahavira, the
respective founders of Buddhism and
Jainism, preached and taught in
Magadha.In 326 BC Alexander the Great led
an expedition across the Hindu Kush into
northern India. He won several victories
during his march into India, climaxing in
the Battle of Hydaspes which ended in the
defeat of King Poros near the River
Hydaspes (now the Jhelum). However,
Alexander did not stay in India long, and
the political and cultural effects of the
invasion were insignificant, except in
the opportunity provided for the Mauryan
King Chandragupta to expand his empire
westwards utilizing the political vacuum.
- The
Maurya Dynasty
In 321 BC Chandragupta, known to the
Greeks as Sandrocottos, seized control of
Magadha. Within the next decade
Chandragupta, founder of the Maurya
dynasty of Indian kings, extended his
sovereignty over most of the
subcontinent. He was assisted by Kautilya
(or Chanakya), a chief minister who may
have been the main contributor to the
Arthashastra, a textbook on politics akin
to The Prince by the Italian historian
Niccolò Machiavelli. The military power
of the Indian Empire caused Seleucus I,
one of Alexander’s generals and the
founder of the Seleucid Empire, to
arrange an alliance with the Maurya
ruler. Concluded in 305 BC, the treaty
was consolidated by a marriage
arrangement between Chandragupta and a
daughter of the Seleucid ruler.As one
result of the close relations between the
two empires, Greek cultural influence was
widespread in northern India. The Maurya
dynasty endured until about 185 BC.
During the reign (c. 273-232 BC) of
Ashoka, the greatest Maurya sovereign,
Buddhism became the dominant religion of
the empire. India was, by now, a great
centre of learning with universities such
as those at Nalanda, and Takshasila
attracting scholars from China and South
East Asia. Of the dynasties that appeared
in the period immediately following the
downfall of the Mauryas, the Sunga
endured longest, lasting more than a
century. The chief event of this period
(c. 184-72 BC) was the persecution and
decline of Buddhism in India and the
triumph of Brahmanism. In consequence of
the victory of the Hindu Brahman
(priests), the caste system became deeply
ingrained in the Indian social structure,
creating great obstacles to national
unification.An extensive section of
western India was occupied in about 100
BC by invading Shakas (Scythians), then
in retreat before the Yueh-chi of central
Asia. Pushing southwards, the Yueh-chi
subsequently settled in north-western
India, where Kadphises, one of their
kings, founded the Kushan dynasty in
about AD 40. A large part of northern
India shortly fell under the sway of the
Kushan kings. One of the early Kushan
monarchs established diplomatic and
commercial relations with the Roman
Empire. Buddhism thrived under the
Kushans, and especially under the rule of
Emperor Kanishka, who was a patron of
learning and the arts. Mathematics and
science flourished and the medical texts
of Charaka were written at this time.The
rulers of the indigenous Andhra dynasty,
which came to control the former Sunga
dominions in about 27 BC and endured for
about 460 years, made repeated attempts
to expel the Shakas. These attempts ended
in failure and in about AD 236 the Shakas
attained complete sovereignty over
western India. A decade earlier, shortly
before the fall of the Andhra dynasty,
the Kushan realm also disintegrated. The
ensuing century was a period of political
confusion throughout most of India.
- Gupta
Empire
In 320 a Magadha raja named Chandragupta
I (reigned 320-330), who had conquered
the neighbouring territories, founded a
new imperial regime and the Gupta
dynasty. His grandson Chandragupta II
(reigned 375-413) vastly expanded the
realm, subjugating all of the
subcontinent north of the River Narmada.
Under the Gupta dynasty, which lasted for
160 years, Indian culture reached new
heights. The period was one of sustained
peace, steady economic advance, and
intellectual accomplishment, particularly
in art, music, and literature. Equally
importantly, Hinduism, which had long
been in decline, experienced a robust
renaissance through absorption of some
features of Buddhism.Towards the close of
the 5th century, Hunnish invaders, often
referred to as the White Huns, pushed
into India from central Asia. The Gupta
Empire broke up under the attacks of
these invaders, whose supremacy went
unchallenged for nearly a century.
Foreign military reverses, notably at the
hands of the Turks in about 565, finally
undermined the power of the Huns in
India. Among the contemporary descendants
of the Huns who remained in India are
certain tribal groups of Rajasthan state.
Another powerful kingdom was founded in
northern India in 606 by Harsha, the last
Buddhist monarch of consequence in Indian
history. Harsha’s reign emulated the
Gupta period in its patronage of the
arts, and the cultural achievements of
this period can be seen in the chronicles
of the great Chinese pilgrim, Xuangzang
(Hsuan-tsang or Tripitaka). During his
reign, Harsha secured control of almost
the entire mainland and attempted,
without success, to conquer the Deccan.
After Harsha’s death, his realm
disintegrated into a multiplicity of
warring petty states and principalities.
This anarchic state of affairs, which was
also generally characteristic of the
situation on the peninsula, prevailed
throughout India until the beginning of
the 11th century.
- Muslim
and Mongol Invasions
The prolonged period of internal strife
drew to a close as a new power, solidly
united under Islam, arose in western
Asia. This new power was Khurasan,
previously a Samanid province which had
been transformed into an independent
kingdom by Mahmud of Ghazn? (reigned
999-1030). A capable warrior whose
sovereignty over Khurasan had been
recognized by the caliph of Baghd? Mahmud
in 1000 launched the first of 17
consecutive expeditions across the Afghan
frontier into India. These incursions
were marked by victories over the
disunited Indians. By 1025 Mahmud had
sacked many western Indian cities,
including the fabulously wealthy port of
Somnath, and had annexed the region of
Punjab to his empire.The most successful
of the Muslim rulers after Mahmud was
Muhammad of Ghur, whose reign began in
1173. Regarded by most historians as the
real founder of Muslim power in India, he
initiated his campaigns of conquest in
1175. In the course of the next three
decades, he subjugated all of the
Indo-Gangetic plain west of Benares (now
V?r?nasi). On the death of Muhammad of
Ghur, Qutb-ud-Din Aybak, his viceroy in
Delhi and a former slave, proclaimed
himself Sultan. The so-called Slave
dynasty founded by Qutb-ud-Din, its only
outstanding ruler, endured until
1288.Another capable Muslim, Ala-ud-Din
(reigned 1296-1316), was the second ruler
of the succeeding Khalji dynasty. He
consolidated the Indian realm by
conquering the Deccan. However, before
the end of his reign, the Mongols began
to infiltrate the northern frontiers of
his dominions. Muhammad Tughluq, the last
Delhi sultan of importance, completely
alienated both Muslims and subject Hindus
by his cruelty and religious fanaticism.
The empire was torn by revolutionary
strife and some provinces, notably
Bengal, seceded.The turmoil increased
after Tughluq’s death. In 1398, when
the Mongol conqueror Tamerlane led his
armies into India, he met little
organized resistance. Tamerlane completed
his victorious invasion by sacking and
destroying Delhi, and massacring its
inhabitants. He withdrew from India
shortly after the sack of Delhi, leaving
the remnants of the empire to Mahmud
(reigned 1399-1413), the last of the
Tughluqs. Mahmud was succeeded in 1414 by
the first of the Sayyids, a dynasty that
was later driven from power by Bahlol
(reigned 1451-1489), founder of the Lodi
line of kings. The Lodi dynasty,
generally weak and ineffectual, ended in
1526. In that year Babur, a descendant of
Tamerlane and the founder of the great
Mughal dynasty, carried out a series of
raids into India which ended with the
defeat of the Lodi army. Babur occupied
?gra, the Lodi capital, and proclaimed
himself emperor of the Muslim dominions.
Within four years of his initial victory,
Babur controlled a large part of the
Indian mainland.
- The
Mughal Empire
Akbar, Babur’s grandson, was the
greatest Mughal sovereign. During his
reign (1556-1605), he subdued rebellious
princes in various regions, including the
Punjab, Rajputana (modern Rajasthan
State), and Gujarat. He added Bengal to
his realm in 1576, conquered Kashmir
between 1586 and 1592, and annexed Sind
in 1592. Between 1598 and 1601 he
subjugated a number of the Deccan Muslim
kingdoms. In the administration of his
vast dominions, Akbar revealed remarkable
organizational abilities. He secured the
allegiance of hundreds of feudal rulers,
promoted trade, introduced an equitable
system of taxation, and encouraged
religious tolerance. The Mughal Empire
reached its cultural peak under Shah
Jahan, Akbar’s grandson. Shah
Jahan’s reign (1628-1658) coincided
with the golden age of Indian Saracenic
architecture, best exemplified by the Taj
Mahal.He was driven from the throne in
1658 by his son, Aurangzeb, who took the
title of Alamgir ("Conqueror of the
World"). Treacherous and aggressive,
Aurangzeb murdered his three brothers and
waged a series of wars against the
autonomous kingdoms of India, sapping the
moral and material strength of the
empire. During his campaigns in the
Deccan, the Marathas, a Scytho-Dravidian
people, inflicted numerous defeats on the
imperial armies. The stability of
Aurangzeb’s regime was further
undermined as a result of popular
antagonism to the religious bigotry he
fostered. During his reign, which ended
in 1707 with his death in exile, the Sikh
faith gained a strong foothold in
India.In the half-century following
Aurangzeb’s death, the Mughal Empire
ceased to exist as an effective state.
The political chaos of the period was
marked by the rapid decline of
centralized authority. Numerous petty
kingdoms and principalities were created
by Muslim and Hindu adventurers, and
large independent states were formed by
the governors of the imperial provinces.
Among the first of the large independent
states to emerge was Hyder?b?d,
established in 1712. The tottering Mughal
regime suffered a disastrous blow in 1739
when the Persian King Nadir Shah led an
army into India and plundered Delhi.
Among the loot seized by the invaders,
the sixth Muslim force to overrun India,
was the mammoth Koh-i-noor diamond and
the fabulous Peacock Throne, made of
solid gold inlaid with precious stones.
The Persian King soon withdrew from
India, But in 1756 Delhi was again
captured—this time by Ahmad Shah,
Emir of Afghanistan, who had previously
seized the Punjab. In 1760 the Marathas
and the Sikhs joined forces against the
armies of Ahmad Shah. The ensuing battle,
fought at Panipat on January 7, 1761,
resulted in complete victory for the
invaders. In 1764, following the
withdrawal of the invaders from India,
the Mughal Emperor regained his throne.
His authority, like that of his
successors, was purely nominal, however.
With the defeat of the Marathas and the
Sikhs, the possibility of the
reunification of India into a strong,
single state had vanished—and the
country, long the arena of bitter
colonial rivalry among the maritime
powers of Europe, fell increasingly under
British domination.
- Portuguese
and Dutch Colonialism
Muslim control of the trade arteries
between the Mediterranean and India, led
various European powers to dream of a new
route to the Far East long before Babur
founded the Mughal Empire. The Portuguese
devoted remarkable zeal and initiative to
the search for such a route. In 1497 and
1498 Vasco da Gama, one of the royal
navigators, led an expedition around the
Cape of Good Hope and across the Indian
Ocean. On May 19, 1498, da Gama sailed
into the harbour of Calicut, on the
Malabar Coast, opening a new era of
Indian history. Establishing friendly
relations with the dominant Deccan
kingdom, the Portuguese secured a
monopoly of Indian maritime trade and
maintained it for a century. The
Portuguese monopoly was broken early in
the 17th century by the Dutch East India
Company, an amalgamation of private Dutch
merchant traders set up in 1602 under the
auspices of the Dutch government. Two
years earlier, the English monarch
Elizabeth I had granted a charter to a
similar merchant organization, the first
English East India Company. Company
negotiations with the Mughal ruler,
Emperor Jahangir, were successful, and in
December 1612 the English founded their
first trading post at Surat, on the Gulf
of Khambh?t. On November 29 a Portuguese
fleet had attacked a number of English
vessels in the Gulf of Khambh?t and the
English had triumphed in the ensuing
battle.During the next decade the
Portuguese were defeated in several more
naval engagements with the English, who
thereafter encountered little opposition
in India from that quarter. The Dutch,
already entrenched in the Malay
Archipelago, also endeavoured to drive
the English out of India, but were
themselves eliminated as a serious
competitive force before the end of the
17th century. Meanwhile the English East
India Company steadily expanded its
sphere of influence and operations. It
secured a foothold in Orissa in 1633,
founded the city of Madras in 1639,
obtained trading privileges in Bengal in
1651, acquired Bombay from Portugal in
1661, and arranged a commercial treaty
with the Maratha ruler Shivaji Bhonsle in
1674; in 1690 it established Calcutta
after forcibly suppressing local
opposition to the move.
- Growing
French and British Rivalry
During the first half of the 18th century
the French, who had begun to operate in
India about 1675, emerged as a serious
threat to the growing power and
prosperity of the English East India
Company. The friction between France and
the newly formed Great Britain reached an
acute stage in 1746, when a French fleet
seized Madras. This action, a phase of
the War of the Austrian Succession
(1740-1748), and the subsequent fighting
in India ended in a stalemate; in 1748
the French returned Madras to the
British. Within three years the
smouldering feud between the European
rivals again flared into armed conflict.
Robert Clive, a British East India
Company employee, won distinction and
victory in the fight for control of
Hyder?b?d and the Carnatic.The final
stage of the contest between the French
and British for dominance in India
developed as an extension of the Seven
Years’ War in Europe. In the course
of the hostilities which lasted from 1756
to 1763, and involved large contingents
of Indian partisans, the British won
several decisive victories and
effectively ended French plans for
political control of the subcontinent.
The most important event of the war was
Clive’s victory at Plassey, which
made the British virtual masters of
Bengal. By the terms of the general peace
settlement following the Seven
Years’ War, French territory in
India was reduced to a few trading posts.
See Also Carnatic Wars.East India Company
As a result of its victories, the East
India Company had acquired strategic
political and territorial positions in
Bengal, the most populous Indian
province, and in important areas of the
Deccan. Consolidation and extension of
these gains characterized the
company’s subsequent policy, which
retained its status as a private
commercial firm until 1773. In that year
the East India Company was made by
parliament a semi-official agency of the
British government. The application of
British policy in India was facilitated
by the power vacuum that followed the
Battle of Panipat (1761), when neither
the Mughal Empire nor the Maratha
Confederacy was strong enough to exercise
authority.Armed Resistance In the pursuit
of their objectives, the British relied
primarily on superior military power, but
bribery, extortion, and the political
manipulation of Indian leaders were
frequently and successfully employed.
Disunity among the various Indian
kingdoms and principalities paved the way
for eventual British subjugation of the
entire subcontinent and contiguous
regions, notably Burma. At sporadic
intervals, individual Indian states and
groups of states fiercely, but vainly,
resisted exploitation and territorial
seizures by the company. The chief
centres of armed resistance to British
rule included, at various times, the
Maratha Confederacy, Mysore, Sind, and
Punjab. In 1845, hostilities broke out
between the Sikhs of Punjab and the
British, starting a war that proved
costly to both sides. The Sikhs were
defeated in 1846 but two years later they
again engaged the British. In one battle,
fought at Chilianwala, the Sikhs
inflicted nearly 2,500 casualties on the
British. The latter won a decisive
victory on February 21, 1849, however,
forcing the Sikhs to
capitulate.Dalhousie’s Impact
Annexation of Punjab by the East India
Company followed. During the next few
years James Andrew Broun Ramsay, 10th
Earl of Dalhousie, then governor-general
of the company in India, annexed the
kingdoms of Satara, Jaipur, Sambalpur,
Jhansi, and N?gpur on the death of their
rulers. Dalhousie’s policy of
annexation engendered profound hostility
among the Indian nobility and peoples.
India benefited materially, however, from
various improvements and reforms
introduced by Dalhousie’s
administration. Railways, bridges, roads,
and irrigation systems were built;
telegraph and postal services were
established; and restrictions were
imposed on suttee (the immolation of
wives on the funeral pyres of their
husbands), slave trading, and other
ancient practices. These innovations and
reforms, however, aroused little
enthusiasm among the Indian people, many
of whom regarded the modernization of
their country with fear and distrust. In
1856 Dalhousie annexed Oudh, an act that
added immeasurably to popular discontent.
Dalhousie’s apparent attitude of
contempt for the learning and culture of
India caused particular resentment.
- Indian
Mutiny
As the unrest in India mounted, a
large-scale conspiratorial movement
spread among the sepoys, the Indian
troops employed by the British East India
Company. A general uprising, known as the
Indian or Sepoy Mutiny, began at Meerut,
a town near Delhi, on May 10, 1857.
Sparked off by a spontaneous reaction of
Hindu and Muslim troops offended at the
use ofcow and pig fat, respectively, in a
new type of cartridge, it became a more
general expression of opposition to
British rule, rallied around the banner
of Bahadur Shah II, titular emperor of
the moribund Mughal Empire. The mutineers
quickly occupied Delhi and other
strategic centres, massacred hundreds of
Europeans, and, on June 30, laid siege to
the British residency at Lucknow. The
city was relieved in November and
reinforcements of British troops and
loyal sepoys were rushed to the
disaffected areas. Fighting continued
into 1859, but by June 1858 the chief
rebel strongholds had fallen.A period of
brutal reprisals by the British troops
followed, especially in Delhi, where
thousands were killed, many without
trial. In the same year, the judicial
authorities of the East India Company
convicted Bahadur Shah II on charges of
rebellion and sentenced him to life
imprisonment, thus closing the final
chapter of Mughal history. As one major
result of the Indian Mutiny, the British
Parliament in 1858 passed the Act for the
Better Government of India, which
transferred the administration of India
from the East India Company to the
British Crown.British India and Rising
Nationalism Many of the abuses prevalent
in India during the rule of the East
India Company were eradicated or modified
after the British government assumed
control of Indian affairs. Important
fiscal, governmental, judicial,
educational, and social reforms were
instituted, and the system of public
works inaugurated by Dalhousie was vastly
extended. The British government had
inherited numerous difficult problems,
including the impoverished condition of
the majority of Indian people, popular
resentment over the country’s
colonial status, and a growing spirit of
nationalism. Frequent disastrous famines,
beginning with the 1866 Orissa famine,
which took the lives of 1.5 million
people—contributed substantially to
political unrest. In 1876 the British
government, then headed by Benjamin
Disraeli, proclaimed Queen Victoria
Empress of India.
- Political
Ferment
In the closing years of the 19th century
and during the first decade of the 20th
century, social and political ferment in
India spread widely. Aspects of Western
and Eastern ideas and cultures were
effectively combined by the Indian
intellectual elite, some of whom had
studied and travelled in the West. Under
the stimulus of vigorous propaganda
campaigns in the local press, mass
meetings, and secret political
organizations, Indian nationalism began
to seriously threaten Britain’s
position in India. A number of
associations dedicated to the struggle
against British rule had been created in
the decades following the Indian Mutiny.
Of these, the most influential was the
Indian National Congress, founded in
1885. This organization, which enlisted
the support of many prominent Hindus and
Muslims, gradually heightened the
political consciousness of the masses and
accelerated the trend towards national
unification. On the cultural level, the
celebrated poet and educator Rabindranath
Tagore made enduring contributions to the
cause of Indian unity.The Indian National
Congress drew inspiration and
encouragement from the Japanese victory
in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904 and
1905, a practical demonstration of the
latent power of the Asian peoples.
Hostile manifestations against British
rule became more and more frequent,
particularly in Bengal. The more radical
nationalists resorted to assassination,
bombings, and other acts of terrorism.
Retaliatory measures by the colonial
authorities were countered by a popular
boycott of British goods.
- Repressive
Measures
Condemning most of the nationalist
activities as seditious, the British
government adopted a special criminal
code to deal with the situation. Among
other measures, this code provided for
trial without jury for those accused of
treason, and for deportation or summary
imprisonment for agitators. These
repressive steps were followed in 1909 by
the India Councils Act, which introduced
a limited degree of self-government in
India. Dissatisfied with this concession
to Indian demands for independence, the
nationalist movement continued to gain
headway.A new and disruptive current had,
meanwhile, been introduced into the
movement for national unification with
the formation in 1906 of the Muslim
League. It was established with the
encouragement of the British government
and supported primarily by those Muslims
who, for reasons of self-interest,
loyalty to Great Britain, or Muslim
nationalism, were hostile to the
objectives of the Indian National
Congress. The league succeeded in
diverting significant numbers of young
Indian Muslims and of the intelligentsia
from the independence struggle. Many
outstanding Muslims, however, including
the influential journalist Abul Kalam
Azad, registered disapproval of league
policy, resigned from the organization,
and joined the Indian National Congress.
- Joint
Campaign
Following the outbreak of World War I,
many Indians, both Hindu and Muslim,
rallied to the British cause. More than
1.2 million participated in the British
war effort, giving valiant and loyal
service in all theatres of the conflict.
The nationalist movement, generally
quiescent during the first two years of
the war, resumed the campaign for
fundamental political reforms in the
autumn of 1916. The campaign was
initiated by a joint declaration of
minimum demands by the Indian National.
- Pro-British
policy
After Turkey, a Muslim country, entered
the war on the side of the Central
Powers. There followed a policy
pronouncement from the British government
in August 1917, promising an increase of
" … the association of Indians
in every branch of the administration and
the gradual development of self-governing
institutions" in India.
- Gandhi’s
Protest Movement
Political strife increased after World
War I. In reply to the upsurge of
nationalist activity, the British
parliament passed the Rowlatt Acts, which
suspended civil rights and provided for
martial law in areas disturbed by riots
and uprisings. Passage of the Rowlatt
Acts precipitated a wave of violence and
disorder in many parts of India. In this
period of turmoil, Mohandas K. Gandhi, a
Hindu social and religious reformer,
called on the Indian people to meet
British repression with passive
resistance (Satyagraha). The protest
movement reached insurrectionary
proportions on April 13, 1919, proclaimed
by Gandhi as a day of national mourning.
In Amritsar, in the Punjab, an unarmed
crowd of men, women, and children,
staging a peaceful protest in a confined
square, were massacred by British troops
under the orders of General Dyer.In
consequence of the Amritsar massacre, the
anti-British movement in India reached
new levels of intensity. The outstanding
feature of this stage of the struggle was
Gandhi’s policy of non-cooperation,
instituted in 1920. Among other things,
the policy called for the boycott of
British goods, courts, and educational
institutions; for non-cooperation in
political life; and for the renunciation
of British titles held by Indians. The
non-cooperation movement was sometimes
attended by violence, despite admonitions
by Gandhi against the use of force.
Combined with parliamentary methods of
struggle, the movement proved to be a
remarkably effective weapon in the fight
for Indian independence. In the view of
British officialdom, the activities
engaged in by Gandhi constituted
sedition, and the Indian leader, along
with other outstanding activists such as
Sarojini Naidu, was periodically
imprisoned or interned during the 1920s
and 1930s. Gandhi, known among his
admirers as Mahatma (Sanskrit for
"great soul"), figured
decisively in Indian political history.
- Increasing
Internal Dissension
Between 1922, the year of the initial
imprisonment of Gandhi for sedition, and
1942, when he was placed in custody for
the last time, the fight for Indian
independence was marked by serious
setbacks, including the renewal of
dissension between Muslims and Hindus,
and by many victories.Civil Disobedience
The tide of Indian nationalism, having
acquired momentum steadily since Gandhi
was first arrested, attained a climactic
stage in the spring of 1930. On March 12
of that year, following British rejection
of demands for dominion status for India,
Gandhi announced that he would lead a
mass violation of the government salt
monopoly. This was accomplished, after a
long march to the Gulf of Khambh?t, by
boiling sea-water to produce salt.
Similar actions occurred throughout
India. This simple act, of making salt,
proved profoundly symbolic and effective,
and on May 5 Gandhi was again jailed by
the British authorities. Riots and
demonstrations immediately followed in
Calcutta, Delhi, and other centres.
Trains were stoned, telegraph wires were
cut, and several government officials
were assassinated. Striving to cope with
these and later disorders, the government
carried out wholesale arrests; by
November about 27,000 Indian nationalists
had been sentenced to prison
terms.Hindu-Muslim Schism Finally, in
March 1931, the British government
arranged a truce with Gandhi, who had
been released in January along with
otherpolitical prisoners, including
Jawaharlal Nehru, his closest associate
and the secretary of the Indian National
Congress. Meanwhile the Muslim League,
professing fears of Hindu domination, had
advanced demands for special privileges
in the proposed dominion government. In
the course of the resulting controversy,
bitter Hindu-Muslim rioting ravaged many
communities of India. Adding to the
misery and suffering occasioned by these
outbursts, the world economic crisis,
which had begun in 1929, completely
disrupted the economy of India during the
early 1930s.
- Government
of India Act
In 1935, following a series of
conferences in London between British and
Indian leaders, the Government of India
Act was approved by the British
parliament. The act provided for the
establishment of autonomous legislative
bodies in the provinces of British India,
for the creation of a central government
representative of the provinces and
princely states, and for the protection
of Muslim minorities. Inaddition, the act
provided for a bicameral national
legislature and an executive arm under
the control of the British government.
Largely influenced by Gandhi, the Indian
people approved the measures, which
became effective on April 1, 1937. Many
members of the Indian National Congress,
however, continued to insist on full
independence for India.On the provincial
level, few difficulties developed in the
application of the Government of India
Act. However, the plan for federation
proved unworkable for a variety of
reasons, including mutual suspicion and
antagonism between the Indian princes and
the radicals of the Indian National
Congress, and Muslim claims that the
Hindus would have excessive influence in
the national legislature. As an
alternative, the Muslim League, then
headed by Mohammed Ali Jinnah, advocated
the creation of an independent Muslim
state (Pakistan). This proposal met
violent Hindu opposition. Further
complicating the Indian political
situation, Subhas Chandra Bose, an
extreme nationalist, was elected
President of the Indian National Congress
early in 1939. Within a few months,
however, Congress rejected his policies
and he resigned. Wartime Agitation On the
outbreak of World War II the Viceroy of
India, Victor Alexander John Hope,
Marquess of Linlithgow, declared war on
Germany in the name of India. This step,
taken in accordance with the constitution
of 1937 but without consulting Indian
leaders, alienated Gandhi and important
sections of the Indian National Congress.
Influential groups within Congress,
supporting Gandhi’s position,
intensified the campaign for immediate
self-government, naming it as their price
for cooperation in the war effort. At the
end of October 1939 the ministries of
eight provinces resigned in protest
against the adamant attitude of the
British. The civil disobedience campaign
was resumed by the Indian National
Congress in October 1940. Meanwhile the
Muslim League, many of the princely
states, and certain members of the Indian
National Congress had endorsed the
British war effort. The subsequent
contributions of India to the struggle
against the Axis powers were extensive.
About 1.5 million Indian troops were
serving at home and on the fronts by the
end of the war, while India’s
financial contribution totalled
approximately US$12 billion.In December
1941 the British authorities in India
released the Congress leaders who had
been placed under arrest in 1940. A new
wave of anti-British agitation followed,
and in March 1942 the British government
dispatched Sir Stafford Cripps, then Lord
Privy Seal, to India with proposals
designed to satisfy nationalist demands.
These proposals contained the promise of
full independence for India after the end
of the war and called for the
establishment of an interim Indian
government responsible for all matters
except national defence and foreign
affairs. Because the leaders of both the
Indian National Congress and the Muslim
League had basic objections to various
sections of the proposals, the Cripps
mission ended in failure.The civil
disobedience movement was resumed in
August 1942. Gandhi, Nehru, and thousands
of their supporters were rounded up and
imprisoned, and the Indian National
Congress was outlawed. Encouraged by
Indian disunity and with the help of
Bose, who had organized a
"provisional Indian government"
in Burma, the Japanese promptly
intensified military operations along the
Burmese-Indian frontier. The Japanese
invasion of India began along a 322-km
(200-mi) front in March 1944. After
initial successes, the Japanese were
gradually forced back into Burma by
Anglo-Indian troops.The British
government released Gandhi from jail on
May 6, 1944. During his internment Gandhi
had modified most of his views regarding
the nature of the war and the Cripps
programme, and in September 1944 he and
the Muslim leader Jinnah began
discussions on mutual differences.
Primarily because of Jinnah’s
insistence on the demarcation of the
frontiers of Pakistan prior to the
formation of an interim government, the
discussions ended in failure.Interim
Government In June 1945 India became a
charter member of the United Nations
(UN). In the same month Nehru was
released from jail, and shortly
thereafter the British government issued
a white paper on the Indian question. The
proposals closely resembled those of the
Cripps programme. Another deadlock
developed and during the second half of
1945 a new wave of anti-British riots and
demonstrations swept India. Three
representatives of the British
government, including Cripps, made
another attempt to negotiate an agreement
with Indian leaders in the spring of
1946. Although the Muslim League
temporarily withdrew its demands for the
partition of India along religious lines,
insuperable differences developed with
respect to the character of an interim
government. The negotiations were
fruitless, and in June the British
viceroy Archibald Wavell announced the
formation of an emergency
"caretaker" government. An
interim executive council, headed by
Nehru and including representatives of
all major political groups except the
Muslim League, replaced this government
in September. The following month, the
Muslim League agreed to participate in
the new government. Nonetheless, communal
strife between Muslims and Hindus
increased in various parts of India.By
the end of 1946 the Indian political
situation verged on anarchy. The British
prime minister Clement R. Attlee
announced in February 1947 that his
government would relinquish power in
India not later than June 30, 1948.
According to the announcement, the move
would be made whether or not the
political factions of India had agreed on
a constitution. Political tension mounted
in India following the announcement,
creating grave possibilities of a
disastrous Hindu-Muslim civil war. After
consultations with Indian leaders, Louis
Mountbatten, who succeeded Wavell as
Viceroy in March 1947, recommended
immediate partition of India to the
British government as the only means of
averting catastrophe. A bill
incorporating Mountbatten’s
recommendations was introduced into the
British parliament on July 4; it obtained
speedy and unanimous approval in both
houses of parliament.
- Indian
Independence Act
Under the provisions of the Indian
Independence Act, which became effective
on August 15, 1947, India and Pakistan
were established as independent states
within the Commonwealth of Nations, with
the right to withdraw from or remain
within the Commonwealth. The Indian
government, by the terms of a declaration
issued jointly by the then eight members
of the Commonwealth on April 28, 1949,
elected to retain its membership. For the
subsequent history of Pakistan, see
Pakistan: History.The new states of India
and Pakistan were created along religious
lines. Areas inhabited predominantly by
Hindus were allocated to India, those
with a predominantly Muslim population
were allocated to Pakistan. Because the
overwhelming majority of people on the
Indian subcontinent are Hindus, partition
resulted in the inclusion within the
Union of India, as the country was then
named, of most of the 562 princely states
in existence prior to August 15, 1947, as
well as the majority of the British
provinces.By the terms of the Indian
Independence Act, governmental authority
in the Union was vested in the
Constituent Assembly, originally an
all-India body created for the purpose of
drafting a constitution for the entire
nation. The All-India Constituent
Assembly, which held its first session in
December 1946, was boycotted by the
delegates of the Muslim League. The
remaining delegates, who were chiefly
representative of the Indian National
Congress, formed the Constituent Assembly
of the Indian Union. After the transfer
of power from the British government, the
Constituent Assembly assigned executive
responsibility to a cabinet, with Nehru
as Prime Minister. Mountbatten became
Governor-General of the new
country.Continued Hindu-Muslim-Sikh
Antagonisms The termination of British
rule in India was greeted
enthusiastically by Indians of every
religious faith and political persuasion.
On August 15, 1947, officially designated
Indian independence day, celebration
ceremonies were held in all parts of the
subcontinent and in Indian communities
abroad. These ceremonies took place,
however, against an ominous background of
Hindu-Muslim and Sikh-Muslim antagonism,
which were particularly acute in regions
equally or almost equally shared by
members of the different faiths.
- Population
Shifts
In anticipation of border disputes in
such regions, notably Bengal and Punjab,
a boundary commission with a neutral
(British) chair was established prior to
partition. The recommendations of this
commission occasioned little active
disagreement with respect to the division
of Bengal. In that region, largely
because of Gandhi’s moderating
influence, little communal strife
developed. In the Punjab, however, the
demarcation line brought nearly 2 million
Sikhs under the jurisdiction of Pakistan.
The boundary commission’s decisions
precipitated bitter fighting. A mass
exodus of Muslims from Union territory
into Pakistan and of Sikhs and Hindus
from Pakistan into Union territory took
place. In the course of the initial
migrations, which involved more than 4
million people in September 1947 alone,
refugee convoys were frequently attacked
and massacred by fanatical partisans.
Co-religionists of the victims resorted
to reprisals against minorities in other
sections of the Union and Pakistan. The
Indian and Pakistani authorities brought
the strife under control during October,
but the shift of populations in the
Punjab and other border areas continued
until the end of the year. Relations
between the two states grew worse in
October, when the Indian armed forces
surrounded Junagadh, a princely state on
the Kathiawar Peninsula. This action was
taken because the nawab (ruler) of the
state, which had a large Hindu majority,
had previously announced that he would
affiliate with Pakistan. The Indian
military authorities subsequently assumed
control of Junagadh, pending a
plebiscite.War in Kashmir Kashmir, a
princely state inhabited predominantly by
Muslims but ruled by a Hindu, became the
next major source of friction between
India and Pakistan. On October 24, 1947,
Muslim insurgents, supported by invading
co-religionists from the North-West
Frontier Province of Pakistan, proclaimed
the establishment of a "Provisional
Government of Kashmir". Three days
later Hari Singh, the Hindu Maharaja of
Kashmir, announced the accession of
Kashmir to the Union of India. Approving
the maharaja’s decision and
promising a plebiscite after the
restoration of peace, the Indian
government immediately dispatched troops
to Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir and
the major objective of the insurgents.
Political agitation in Kashmir was led by
Sheikh Abdullah, the leader of the
region’s largest secular party, who
favoured Kashmir’s accession to
India. Hostilities quickly attained
serious proportions, and at New Year 1948
the Indian government filed a formal
complaint with the UN Security Council,
accusing Pakistan of giving help to the
Muslim insurgents.Despite repeated
attempts by the Security Council to
obtain a truce in the troubled area,
fighting continued throughout 1948. The
peacemaking efforts of the Security
Council finally met with success in
January 1949, when both India and
Pakistan accepted proposals for a
plebiscite on the political future of
Kashmir, held under the auspices of the
UN. Ceasefire orders were issued by the
two governments on the same day. Among
other things, the UN plan provided for
the withdrawal of combat troops from the
state, for the return of refugees
desirous of participating in the
plebiscite, and for a free and impartial
vote under the direction of a
"personality of high international
standing". In March 1949 UN
Secretary-General Trygve Lie appointed
the American Admiral Chester W. Nimitz
administrator of the Kashmir plebiscite,
scheduled for later in the year.Meanwhile
both the Union of India and Pakistan had
suffered the loss of outstanding leaders,
and the Indian government had become
embroiled in a dispute with the nizam of
Hyder?b?d, Mir Osman Ali Khan Bahadur.
Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu
fanatic on January 30, 1948, and Jinnah,
the founder of Pakistan, died the
following September. The tension between
the Indian government and Hyder?b?d,
inhabited preponderantly by Hindus,
resulted from the reluctance of the
nizam, a Muslim, to bring his state into
the Union. Protracted negotiations for a
peaceful solution of the dispute ended in
failure; on September 17 Indian forces
occupied Hyder?b?d, the capital city,
ending the nizam’s resistance. He
subsequently signed instruments of
accession making Hyder?b?d part of the
Union of India.Although India and
Pakistan agreed, in July 1949, on a line
demarcating their respective zones of
occupation in Kashmir, the two nations
were unable to reconcile basic
differences on the terms of the proposed
plebiscite. The deadlock was primarily
due to Indian insistence that Pakistani
troops be withdrawn from the disputed
territory before the plebiscite and to
Pakistan’s refusal to withdraw its
troops unless the Indians also withdrew
theirs.
- First
Years as a Republic
The Indian Constituent Assembly approved
a republican constitution for the Union
on November 26, 1949. Comprising a
preamble, 395 articles, and 8 schedules,
the document proved to be more voluminous
than any other body of organic law in
existence. One of the constitution’s
features is a clause outlawing
untouchability, the ancient practice of
caste that condemned about 40 million
Hindus to social and economic
degradation. The Gandhi disciple and
All-India Congress leader Rajendra Prasad
was elected first President of the
republic in January 1950. As provided by
the constitution, the republic was
formally proclaimed on January 26. The
Constituent Assembly then reconstituted
itself as a provisional parliament and
Jawaharlal Nehru was elected Prime
Minister.Non-Alignment During its first
year as a republic, India figured
increasingly in international affairs,
especially in UN deliberations and
activities. Nehru’s government,
adhering to policiesdeveloped in the
pre-republican period, maintained a
generally neutral position with respect
to the Cold War between the Soviet bloc
and the Western democracies. Indian
determination to avoid entanglement with
either side became increasingly apparent
following the outbreak of the Korean War
in June 1950. Subsequently the Indian
government approved the UN Security
Council resolution invoking military
sanctions against North Korea; no Indian
troops were committed to the UN cause,
however. Beginning in July, when Nehru
dispatched notes on the Korean situation
to the United States and the Union of
Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), India
sought repeatedly to restore peace in the
Far East. In its initial attempts at
mediation, the Indian government
suggested that admission of the Chinese
People’s Republic to the UN was a
prerequisite of a solution of the Far
Eastern crisis. Even after the Chinese
intervention in the Korean War, and
despite Indian-Chinese differences over
Tibet, India adhered to this view but it
was rejected by a majority of the
Security Council. In October 1950, after
a Chinese army invaded Tibet, the Indian
government dispatched a note to China
expressing "surprise and
regret". Foreign Aid Outstanding
among domestic events during the first
year of republican rule was a series of
natural disasters, notably an extended
drought in southern India and severe
earthquakes and floods in Assam. About 6
million tonnes of grain and other
foodstuffs were lost, according to an
official estimate made in November 1950.
During the resulting famine, large
sections of the population were forced to
subsist on a daily ration of 57 g (2 oz)
of rice. India appealed to the United
States in December 1950 for US$200
million worth of food. In February 1951
US President Harry S. Truman asked
Congress to enact legislation providing 2
million tonnes of grain for Indian
relief. Considerable opposition to the
request developed in Congress, primarily
because of Indian policy on the Korean
War. Indian restrictions on the export of
certain strategic materials also provoked
congressional opposition to the relief
measure. Nehru declared that India would
refuse to accept relief "with
political strings attached", and in
June 1951 Congress finally approved a
US$190 million relief loan to be repaid
on terms acceptable to the Indian
government.Domestic Policies The
following month Nehru announced that the
government must encourage birth control
in order to cope with the problem of a
rapid population growth and a food supply
rendered inadequate by traditional
agricultural methods and frequent natural
disasters. Shortly afterwards, the
government promulgated a five-year
national development plan providing for
expenditure of US$3.8 billion, largely on
irrigation and hydroelectric projects.The
results of the first general elections in
the Indian Republic were announced on
March 1, 1952. Based on universal
suffrage, the balloting had begun in
October 1951 and ended in February 1952.
The Indian National Congress, the ruling
party, won 364 of 489 contested seats in
the national legislature and was
victorious in all but two of the
constituent states. In May the newly
constituted electoral college elected
President Rajendra Prasad to the
presidency for a full five-year term.
- International
Affairs
In June 1952 India, which had boycotted
the 1951 Japanese peace conference,
signed a bilateral peace treaty with
Japan. Among the provisions was a waiver
of all reparations claims. During
September the Indian government accepted
famine-relief food shipments from the
People’s Republic of China and the
Soviet Union, but only after both
countries agreed to Indian stipulations
against possible "political
strings".
- Korea
and Kashmir
India figured significantly in
international developments during 1953.
An Indian general was named to chair the
Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission
provided for by the Korean armistice
agreement of July 27. In this position,
he perpetuated the Indian policy of
neutrality, provoking accusations of
partiality from both the UN and Communist
commands. The issue of Indian
participation in the projected Korean
peace conference was decided in August
when the UN General Assembly voted down a
British-backed resolution inviting India
to the conference. Subsequently, the US
Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles,
termed Indian exclusion from the proposed
peace talks the "price" of
neutrality. Indian-Pakistani talks on
plebiscite arrangements for Kashmir were
terminated in December 1953 over
disagreement on the number and
composition of troops to be stationed
there during the voting. The Kashmir
Constituent Assembly unanimously approved
accession to the Indian Republic early in
February 1954.Indochina The prime
ministers of India, Pakistan, Burma,
Indonesia, and Sri Lanka conferred in Sri
Lanka from April 28 to May 2, 1954. Among
other actions, the leaders adopted a
declaration of support for the Geneva
Conference on Far Eastern Affairs, then
about to convene. The conference was
called, in the face of imminent French
defeat, to discuss an end to the war in
Indochina. Nehru held a series of
meetings late in June with Premier Zhou
Enlai of China, who was a delegate to the
Geneva Conference; they issued a joint
statement urging a political settlement.
Under the provisions of the Indochinese
ceasefire agreements in July of that
year, India chaired the three-power
International Commission established to
supervise application of the
agreements.Bandung Conference India
participated in the Asian-African
Conference, a meeting in April 1955 of 22
Asian and 7 African states, held in
Bandung, Indonesia. In June, Nehru spent
two weeks in the USSR. At the conclusion
of the visit he and Soviet premier
Nikolay A. Bulganin issued a joint
statement appealing for a ban on nuclear
weapons, for disarmament, for "wider
application" of the principles of
coexistence, and for recognition of the
"legitimate rights" of Taiwan
by the People’s Republic of
China.Indian-Portuguese relations had
worsened steadily in 1954 because of
insistent demands by Indian nationalists
that Portugal vacate Goa and the rest of
Portuguese India. In August 1955
Portuguese security forces fired on a
group of Indian demonstrators who crossed
the Goan border. India then severed
diplomatic ties with Portugal.Suez and
Hungary In July 1956 Nehru conferred with
President Tito of Yugoslavia and
President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt.
The three leaders later issued a joint
communqué affirming their opposition to
colonialism and their belief in a
worldwide system of collective security.
During the crisis following Egypt’s
seizure of the Suez Canal on July 26, and
the subsequent invasion of Egypt by
Israel, France, and Great Britain, India
made numerous attempts to reconcile the
various nations. Throughout the crisis
the Indian minister without portfolio V.
K. Krishna Menon conferred frequently
with representatives of both sides. At
the same time Indiawas widely criticized
for its failure to support a UN
resolution of November 5, 1956,
condemning the USSR for its use of force
against anti-Soviet rebels in Hungary.
Later that month, however, Nehru, who had
initially characterized the anti-Soviet
uprising as a civil war, denounced the
Soviet occupation of Hungary.Internal
Affairs On January 26, 1957, India
declared the state of Kashmir to be an
integral part of the Indian Republic,
following decisions to that effect by the
Kashmir Constituent Assembly. Protest
riots and burnings of effigies of Nehru
subsequently took place in Pakistan,
which lodged a vigorous complaint in the
UN. In national elections held in
February and March 1957, the Congress
Party won 366 of 494 seats in the lower
house of parliament; the Communists won
29 seats to become the largest opposition
party and also gained control of the
state of Kerala. Prime Minister Nehru and
President Prasad retained their
positions. In March a decimal system of
currency was introduced.In Kerala efforts
to increase government control of private
schools aroused mass opposition,
manifested by frequent anti-government
demonstrations during 1958. To uphold law
and order, Prasad took over the functions
of the Kerala government in July 1959.
Legislative elections in the state in
February 1960 resulted in substantial
gains for the anti-Communist parties.In
May 1960 the state of Bombay was divided
along linguistic lines into the two
states of announced that a new state of
Nagaland would be created out of the
Assam State. Subsequently, elements of
the Sikh population agitated for creation
of a separate Sikh state out of part of
the Punjab. The matter was settled in
1966 by the formation of the new state of
Haryana. The third Indian five-year
economic development plan was inaugurated
in April 1961; its cost was estimated at
US$24.36 billion and its objective was to
increase the average annual per-capita
income from US$69.30 to US$80.85. A
long-range goal was to make India
independent of foreign aid by
1976.Clashes with Neighbours During the
Tibetan revolt of March 1959, some 9,000
Tibetan refugees sought political asylum
in India. Thereafter several border
clashes occurred between Chinese and
Indian troops, and in August Indian
territory was penetrated by Chinese
troops. A conference to settle the
dispute, in April 1960, attended by Nehru
and Zhou Enlai, ended in a
deadlock.Following charges of Portuguese
aggression, Indian forces on December 18,
1961, invaded and annexed the remaining
Portuguese enclaves on the subcontinent:
Goa, Daman, and Diu. The next day a
resolution was brought before the UN
Security Council condemning India as an
aggressor; it failed to be adopted
because of a Soviet veto.During 1962 the
border dispute between China and India
grew increasingly tense. Early in the
year both countries added outposts along
the contested frontier territory in the
high Himalaya, and in October the Chinese
attacked and overran Indian outposts on
both western and eastern parts of the
border. The Indians, ill-prepared and
particularly ill-equipped for
high-elevation fighting, were unable to
halt the Chinese advance, which only
ended when Beijing announced a unilateral
ceasefire in late November. The crisis
precipitated a drastic overhaul of Indian
defences, and Defence Minister V. K.
Krishna Menon, a powerful neutralist, was
ousted from the government at the end of
October.On May 27, 1964, Nehru, who had
served as Prime Minister since India
attained its independence, died. He was
succeeded by Lal Bahadur Shastri,
formerly Home Affairs Minister. Pakistan
continued to challenge India’s claim
to the predominantly Muslim state of
Kashmir, where in August 1965 incidents
involving Pakistani guerrillas and Indian
troops precipitated an undeclared war
between the two states. Hostilities
continued despite a UN-arranged ceasefire
and the situation remained tense until
Soviet-mediated negotiations between
Shastri and Pakistani President Muhammad
Ayub Khan resulted, on January 10, 1966,
in a troop-withdrawal agreement.New
Leadership A few hours after signing the
agreement in Tashkent, USSR, Shastri died
of a heart attack. Nehru’s daughter
Indira Gandhi, a former Minister of
Information, was chosen to be the new
Prime Minister.In 1969 Prime Minister
Gandhi faced a revolt by the conservative
wing of the Congress Party but won an
impressive victory when, with her
support, the former Vice-President,
Varahagiri Venkata Giri, defeated the
official Congress candidate for
president. Consolidating her strength,
Gandhi and her faction, called the Ruling
Congress Party or Congress (R), won a
major victory in the elections of March
1971.Later that month, civil war erupted
in Pakistan, as the national government,
dominated by West Pakistanis, moved to
suppress Bengali efforts to achieve
autonomy for East Pakistan. As millions
of Bengali refugees streamed across the
border into India, relations between
India and West Pakistan worsened. In
December, India joined the war in support
of East Pakistan, compelled the surrender
of Pakistani forces there, and was the
first to recognize the new nation of
Bangladesh. Most Bengali refugees
subsequently returned.Economic conditions
in India worsened during the mid-1970s.
As unemployment mounted, food riots broke
out, and accusations of government
corruption intensified. To world
surprise, India exploded its first
nuclear device on May 18, 1974. A
parliamentary effort to topple the Gandhi
government was defeated in July; in the
following month a candidate backed by
Gandhi, Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, was elected
National President. Early in 1975 India
annexed Sikkim, which then became the
22nd state of the republic.Gandhi was
convicted in June 1975 of corrupt
practices during the 1971 election
campaign. Faced with the loss of her
parliamentary seat, she declared a
national state of emergency. Centralizing
power in her own hands, she implemented
strong measures to foster economic
development and lower the national birth
rate. Increasingly, she relied on her
younger son, Sanjay Gandhi. Political
opposition was quelled by mass
imprisonment and press censorship. Her
methods, especially the censorship of the
press and the harsh methods introduced in
some areas to compel the sterilization of
people as part of the drive for
population control, caused widespread
resentment.Janata Government In early
1977, however, Gandhi called a general
election, hoping to be able to
demonstrate popular support. Instead, she
lost her seat in parliament and the
Congress Party failed to win a majority
in the legislature for the first time
since 1952. The Janata Party, a coalition
formed to oppose her regime, won about
half the seats in parliament and its
head, Morarji R. Desai, was named Prime
Minister. The emergency was ended and the
repressive actions of the Gandhi
government were reversed. In January 1978
Gandhi formed Congress-Indira (I) as a
breakaway party from the Congress Party.
Gandhi’s personal charisma remained
strong despite the Emergency years, and
Congress (I) soon won elections in the
south and in Maharashtra; in April
Congress (I) was named the main
opposition party in the Lok Sabha (lower
house).Gandhi Returns In 1979, after more
than two years in power, the Janata
government lost its parliamentary
majority and Desai resigned. Elections in
January 1980 resulted in a major victory
for Gandhi and her Congress (I) party and
she resumed the office of Prime Minister.
On June 23 Sanjay, who had emerged from
the elections as a major political force,
was killed in a plane crash. His seat in
parliament was taken by his older
brother, Rajiv Gandhi, whom Indira Gandhi
appeared to be grooming as her
successor.To appease Sikhs demanding
autonomy for Punjab, where they are a
majority, Indira Gandhi supported the
presidential candidacy of Zail Singh, who
in July 1982 became India’s first
Sikh chief of state. Autonomist agitation
continued with a number of terrorist
incidents, however, and in October 1983
Gandhi brought Punjab under
President’s rule, giving the police
emergency powers.The centre of Sikh
resistance was the religion’s
holiest shrine, the Golden Temple at
Amritsar. On June 2, 1984, the temple was
sealed off and occupied by Indian troops
in a poorly judged and implemented
operation, killing hundreds of Sikhs and
seizing caches of ammunition. The troops
withdrew by the end of the month, but
outrage among Sikh nationalists
persisted. On October 31, Indira Gandhi
was shot and killed by Sikh members of
her personal guard. In the rioting that
followed, at least 1,000 Sikhs were
killed by mobs. Rajiv Gandhi was sworn in
as Prime Minister hours after his
mother’s death.He faced a new crisis
on December 3, when a leak of methyl
isocyanate gas from a Union Carbide
pesticide plant in Bhopal, central India,
resulted in the deaths of at least 3,300
people and in the illness of more than
20,000 others. With his leadership
reaffirmed in the December 1984
parliamentary elections, Gandhi responded
to unrest among the Sikhs by agreeing to
expand the boundaries of Punjab.Early in
1987 Indian troops were sent to Sri Lanka
to help suppress a rebellion by Tamil
guerrillas. A peace agreement was signed
in July, but violent clashes continued.
Also in July, the election of Ramaswami
Venkataraman as President seemed to
consolidate Gandhi’s position.
Allegations of corruption and
mismanagement weakened the Congress (I),
however, as did Gandhi’s inability
to deal effectively with demands for
autonomy in Punjab and Kashmir. In the
November 1989 elections, Congress (I)
lost its parliamentary majority, and
Vishwanath Pratap Singh, leader of the
Janata Dal Party, became Prime Minister.
In 1990, a split within Singh’s own
party led to the collapse of his minority
government; he was succeeded by his chief
rival, Chandra Shekhar, whose government
stepped down in March 1991, paving the
way for new elections. During the
election campaign, Rajiv Gandhi was
killed by a Tamil suicide bomber.
Outraged voters gave Congress (I) a
parliamentary majority, and P. V.
Narasimha Rao, former Foreign Minister
and a Gandhi supporter, became Prime
Minister.The Rao Government In January
1993 Rao’s authority was undermined
by nationwide riots that followed the
destruction of the 16th-century Babri
Masjid mosque in Ayodhya by Hindu
militants, who claimed the site
originally belonged to a Hindu temple
dedicated to the god Rama, who according
to tradition, isbelieved to have been
born in the city. Nearly 3,000 people
throughout India died in the ensuing six
weeks of sectarian violence. Fearing more
riots, Rao prevented Hindu nationalists,
who were demanding the resignation of him
and his government, from holding a mass
rally in the capital. In March, a series
of unrelated bombs exploded in Bombay and
Calcutta. The wave of explosions in
Bombay killed more than 300 people in the
city’s financial district. The
Calcutta explosions were linked to a
group of criminals who mishandled
explosives when attempting to assemble
bombs in an apartment building.During the
early 1990s tensions between India and
Pakistan over Kashmir increased (see
Jammu and Kashmir). Since 1989 Jammu and
Kashmir State in India has been the site
of sporadic fighting between the Indian
army and militant Muslim separatists, who
either want to form an independent state,
or unite with Muslim Pakistan. Pakistani
Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto openly
supported the Muslim rebels in Indian
Kashmir. In January 1994, India and
Pakistan held talks concerning the
disputed region, but no real progress was
made. Since Pakistan was pursuing a
nuclear weapons development programme,
many countries feared that the dispute
over Kashmir could escalate into a
nuclear conflict.In September 1993 a
devastating earthquake shook central
India about 320 km (200 mi) west of
Hyder?b?d. It killed an estimated 10,000
people and destroyed dozens of villages.
The problems faced by Rao and Congress
(I) were underlined towards the end of
1994 when the party was heavily defeated
in state elections in the south. Voter
rejection of Congress (I) partly
reflected the continuing effect of the
1993 riots and continuing inter-religion
tension, but it was also a result of
popular antipathy to the market-oriented
economic reforms introduced by the Rao
government after 1991. Although the
opening up of the economy had helped to
restore growth, it had also led to a
sharp increase in inflation, higher
prices, and cuts in jobs in certain
areas. State elections in some of the
northern states, including key Congress
(I) strongholds, during early 1995
further underlined Congress (I)’s
fall from favour, amid growing support
for the right-wing Hindu nationalist
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Violence in
Jammu and Kashmir continued, with claims
of torture and murder made against
government forces by respected
international bodies like Amnesty
International and the International
Commission of Jurists.In March 1996 the
Supreme Court freed the Central Bureau of
Investigation from prime ministerial
control to investigate political
corruption, as widening scandals
undermined public faith in established
politicians. In lower house elections in
April and May, Congress (I) was toppled
from power, ending its post-independence
domination of Indian politics. Since no
party had won a clear majority in the
elections, the struggle began to find
successors to Congress rule.New Political
Order The Bharatiya Janata Party, which
had won 194 seats in the elections, was
first to form a government on May 16,
1996, but despite belated attempts to
shed its Hindu fundamentalist image and
woo other political groups, the BJP-led
administration was unable to assemble the
273 members needed for a parliamentary
majority, and on May 28 the BJP leader A.
B. Vajpayee resigned as Prime Minister to
avoid a vote of no confidence. The
centre-left United Front coalition then
formed a government under H. D. Deve
Gowda, backed by a rump of Congress (I)
MPs. The United Front government
reflected a broader base of support among
castes and interest groups than the
Congress (I) and BJP, but also a danger
of national fragmentation, as many of its
members were purely regional parties.
Underlining separatist tensions, violence
erupted anew in Jammu and Kashmir on May
30 following polling in the region, with
Muslim anti-government rebels pressing
for boycott of the poll.The United Front
coalition government, although holding
only 128 seats in the 545-member Lok
Sabha, gained effective endorsement in
June, when it won a vote of confidence.
The plethora of corruption allegations
that had dogged former Prime Minister Rao
culminated in corruption and forgery
charges in September. Additional
indictments of bribery were brought
against Rao in October and the former
Communications Minister Sukh Ram was
charged with corruption in the same
month. The first state visit by a Chinese
head of state was made by President Jiang
Zemin in November. Rao resigned his
position as Congress (I) parliamentary
leader in December, and was replaced by
the party president Sitaram Kesri in
January 1997.The withdrawal of support
for the government by Congress (I)
resulted in a vote of confidence in the
Lok Sabha in which the government was
defeated, leading to the resignation of
Deve Gowda as prime minister. A general
election was prevented by negotiations
between the United Front and Congress
(I), resulting in the resumed support of
Congress (I) with the appointment of a
new leader of the coalition. The former
Minister of External Affairs, Inder Kumar
Gujral, a respected senior figure known
for improving relations with Pakistan,
became the new Prime Minister of India on
April 22, 1997.
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