Highlights - Essential Info - Itineraries - History
The first major Indian civilisations date back to 2500 BC when the resident peoples were swept away by the arrival of the Aryan invaders from the north, who developed the origins of the caste system still in place today. They in turn were succeeded by a sequence of empires that came and went over the next centuries, often influenced by foreign links with North Africa and the Romans.
It was the Mughal Empire that lasted from 1527 until 1760 that was perhaps the first empire to unite much of what is present day India. Art, literature and architecture all flourished under the Mughals and one of the world's greatest buildings, the Taj Mahal, was built by Shah Jahan from 1631 to 1653. The decline of this great empire was quite rapid however on account of mismanagement of resources.
In spite of attentions from the Dutch, French and Portuguese, it was the British who became the first Imperial power in the subcontinent when the East India Company founded trading posts on the coast in the early 17th Century. The British fought the French on and off as well as the Marathas, Sikhs and a number of other Indian peoples before they finally brought a large portion of the subcontinent under their control.
The British developed a vast infrastructure for transport, trade, agriculture, justice and the civil service that helped them run the country reasonably efficiently and with maximum profit for the Crown. During this colonial period the Maharajas and other princely rulers were generally allowed to remain in their states with a certain amount of autonomous government although towards the end of the 19th Century the growth in calls for more democratic self-determination increased.
Although World War I forced certain plans for independence to be shelved, the people continued to push for it through both violent and non-violent means and by the end of World War II Britain no longer had the resources to maintain such a vast empire and preparations were quickly made for full independence. The principal stumbling block was the call by Muhammad Ali Jinnah for an independent Muslim state and despite all attempts by the British to avoid this, it was realised that civil war would result if it did not happen.
Independence was granted on 15 August 1947 and this was swiftly followed by one of the greatest, yet most tragic, exoduses of modern times with more than 10 million people moving between the new Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India. Since independence, first under Jawaharlal Nehru and then under the Gandhis and other political leaders, India has managed to maintain a policy of non-alignment and has enjoyed very real and significant progress in terms of economy, agriculture and prosperity. At the same time India has maintained its rich cultural and historical past, thus making it one of the world's most fascinating and dynamic countries to visit.
