|
|
"The Path shown by Bapu is the solution to the present problems". Mary I. Vanvahati/ GandhiServe, 7th class, S.N. Kansagara School, Rajkot, India. Prize winner in the running inter-school drawing competition "GANDHI AS I SEE HIM", Rajkot, India, 1991, organized by Gandhi Information Center, Germany
n
the conventional narrative, Indian history begins with the birth of the
Indus Valley Civilization in such sites as Mohenjo-Daro, Harappa, and
Lothal, followed by the coming of the Aryans. These two phases are usually
described as the pre-Vedic and Vedic periods. It is in the Vedic period
that Hinduism first arose, though some elements of Hinduism are clearly
drawn from the Indus Valley civilization. In the fourth century BCE, large
parts of India were united under the emperor Ashoka; he also converted
to Buddhism, and it is in his reign that Buddhism first spread to other
parts of Asia. It is during the time of the Mauryas that Hinduism first
began to take the shape that fundamentally informs the religion down to
the present day, though popular or Puranic Hindism is generally dated
to around the beginning of the Christian Era. Successor states were more
fragmented. Islam first came to India in the eighth century, and by the
eleventh century had firmly established itself in India as a political
force; the North Indian dynasties of the Lodhis, Tughlaqs, and numerous
others, whose remains are visible in Delhi and scattered elsewhere around
North India, were finally succeeded by the Mughal empire, under which
India once again achieved a large measure of political unity. These are
certainly the generally accepted contours of Indian history before the
advent of colonialism, though specialists are all inclined to write this
history with particular emphases and accents.
The European
presence in India dates to the sixteenth century, and it is in the very
early part of the eighteenth century that the Mughal empire began to disintegrate,
paving the way for regional states. In the contest for supremacy, the
English emerged victors, their rule marked by the conquests at the battlefields
of Plassey and Buxar. The Rebellion of 1857-58, which sought to restore
Indian supremacy, was crushed; and with the subsequent crowning of Victoria
as Empress of India, the incorporation of India into the empire was complete.
By the early part of the twentieth century, a nationalist movement had
emerged; and by 1919-20, Mohandas Karamchand ('Mahatma') Gandhi had emerged
as, if not the virtually undisputed leader of this movement, certainly
its most well-known and formidable architect. Successive campaigns had
the effect of driving the British out of India in 1947, but not before
they had partitioned it, and carved out the Muslim-majority state of Pakistan
-- later itself dismembered into Pakistan and Bangladesh..
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 1975-77,
when an internal emergency was imposed by then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi
and constitutional liberties were suspended, India has been a thriving
parliamentary democracy. For a capsule political history of India in the
post-1947 period, readers are invited to turn to the “Independent
India” section of this site, where they will also find other
specialized articles, as well as the “Current
Affairs” section of MANAS, where readers will be able to find
articles on selected political and social phenomena of recent years.
Copyright: Vinay Lal, 1998 & 2007
