Hot answers tagged india
16
I think the OP knows that the Dravidians were in India before the Aryans, and is asking why historians don't talk more about them.
The answer is that Sanskrit (Aryan) scholarship has been going on in the west for centuries, while we still can't read the Indus Valley (probably Dravidian) script. Most of what we know about the Indus Valley civilization is ...
13
To begin, the following passage from Britain, the Commonwealth and the End of Empire by Dr John Darwin discusses the "staggering blow" Great Britain felt after granting independence to India.
...
Repairing Britain
The huge sense of relief at a more or less dignified exit, and much
platitudinous rhetoric, disguised the fact that the end of ...
12
The actual decision of how to divide the country - how to draw the partition line - was the work of, Sir Cyril Radcliffe, chair of the Border Commissions.
There were two border Commissions. One for Punjab and the other for Bengal. Each commission had 4 representatives. Of which, 2 were from the Indian National Congress and the other 2 were from the Muslim ...
12
The partition of India was undertaken per the Indian Independence Act of the British Parliament, taken after consultation with the main interest groups.
Gandhi agreed to the partition reluctantly; other groups, such as the Muslim League, enthusiastically.
12
Personally, I don't think anything ever went particularly "wrong" with India. They only fell behind the civilizations of Western Europe, not the rest of the world. So the proper question to ask here is what suddenly went right with heretofore backward Europe.
To my mind the answer to this question is clear: The printing press. Nearly overnight Europeans had ...
11
First of all, Hong Kong is now China (from 1997), based off your question, I wasn't sure if you knew.
India and Hong Kong were very different stories. India was most definitely hurt by Great Britain. For example, Great Britain had a total monopoly on Indian salt. That meant that the Indians produced salt, and then, the British took it and sold it back to ...
9
First off the wikipedia page that you cite to is based on the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index ("EIUDI") which is not an academic source. The methodology used to assemble the report is not known, but that doesn't mean that it is not useful.
With that in mind from the EIUDI 2011 Report:
Flawed democracies: These countries also have free and ...
9
According to Freedom at Midnight by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins (I have a link to Wikipedia but have read the book multiple times), the idea for Pakistan came from a British Raj (wasn't sure whether to write India or Pakistan here) student studying in England who pitched the idea to Mohammed Ali Jinnah at a dinner. Jinnah wasn't receptive to the ...
9
The British East India Company did not set out to conquer and rule India, nor did that situation manifest itself overnight, nor by any single battle or treaty.
The British
built ties with stable commercial interests in India, leaving the freedom to
act opportunistically in Indian politics as the Mughal Empire crumbled
outmaneuvered European rivals in ...
9
Madras was bombarded by a German warship during World War I. That's the only instance I could find in either war of an Indian city coming under that kind of fire from German regular armed forces.
Germany had no aircraft carriers, and their only real long-range bomber in WWII, the Heinkel HE 177, appears to have only been used in the Eastern and Western ...
9
Yes, Bose was welcome in Germany. The Germans could have denied him entry if they wanted to, and so there are no doubts that they were happy to see him in their country. However, Hitler repeatedly refused to issue a declaration supporting India's independence, and this suggests that he personally did not support Bose's cause. It also has to be remembered ...
7
One thing that might be a factor is the culture of each country going in.
During the colonial period the British got a great deal of their military manpower from India. However, it wasn't evenly distributed. In fact, the native colonial Indian military units were heavily Muslim. The result of this is that Muslim Indians grew to view the military very ...
7
China had a permanent seat since 1945
As one of the "Big Four" allies in World War II (China, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States), the Republic of China (ROC) was one of the founding members of the United Nations. President Franklin Roosevelt had acknowledged China's war effort in World War II and stated his desire to allow China ...
7
Were British fears of Russia using Afghanistan as a staging post for an invasion of India unfounded?
I think everyone who has posted here (@ihtkwot, @mgb, @Russell) have all brought up important points. I agree with @ihtkwot and @Russell that Russia simply did not have the military capacity to challenge Britain's hold on India (a territory that the British would have vigorously defended). Also, Russia seemed far more interested in territories to the west ...
7
Frankly a country made up of two large population lobes completely separated by 3000 kilometers of relatively hostile neighbor (or twice that in ocean) is bound to break up eventually. It just logistically can't work out very well, and culturally they are bound to start going their separate ways. I'm unaware of any country like that in history that lasted ...
7
There are a good number of reasons why the British were able to do so, and in fact rule over India effectively for over a century.
Disunity among Indian princely states. India was more a collection of warring princely states, at loggerheads with each
other. The British sucessfully used this to play off one state
against another. Add to it there was no ...
7
I strongly suggest you read the celebrated and widely read and revered books on Ancient India by:
Romila Thapar (Marxist in views)
A. L. Basham (Non-partisan)
You can also refer to the bibliography of the Wikipedia page Indian campaign of Alexander the Great.
In earlier times, India ran from the Hindukush mountains(Afghanistan) to the Himalayas, and ...
6
Largely from his family religion of Jainism. Adding onto this was his exposure to Hindu, Buddhist and Theosophical thought while he was a student in London. His eventual philosophy of Satyagraha came to fruition from his experiences in South Africa.
6
These two separated in 1960. In 1956, under the States Reorganisation act, most states were reorganized along linguistic lines. However, this act actually consolidated Gujarati and Marathi speaking areas together. This led to agitation in both these regions, and they were separated in 1960.
6
There's no real way to definitivately answer this. It would be a good subject for speculative fiction.
I think what can be said is that it almost certianly would not have been one united country covering the whole subcontinent, as it (mostly) is now. I can say this because it was not one when the British arrived. Short of external conqest, it never really ...
6
Cannabis is just one of the candidates for soma, other candidates including fungi, namely Amanita Muscaria which seems to be the best candidate according wikipedia wisdom, and Papaver. A synonym for soma is Amrita, which is a also a synonym for the ellenic Ambrosia. There is an entire book dedicated to the topic.
There is also a free accessible online ...
6
Given that both are thought to date back to the 4th or 5th centuries BCE, and the poetic verse structure strongly implies a long history as an oral tradition before it was committed to writing, this would be very much like asking how true the Iliad is.
The purpose of epic poems is not really to act as a historical document like we think of them today. The ...
5
While the size of India and the presence of multi cultural society makes it hard for an armed force to take control of the entire country I think the structure of the Indian army makes it even harder.
India's military is not independent of the democratic structure. The President of the Republic of India is the supreme commander of the armed forces and the ...
5
From independent sources, I'd go with the Post's version. India never received any such offer.
The UN actually existed during WW2. This is what the group of countries allied against the Axis powers called themselves. The Security Council was the group of countries that were actually the major allies supplying large numbers of troops in the fight, and thus ...
5
Of the three answers Jayaraj's answer is the most appropriate. Other answers are purely technical. Those answers are akin to saying the US President is elected by the state electors ignoring the fact that the election by state electors is mostly a formality after the people of the United States have voted.
Jinnah didn't stop with just threatening violence. ...
5
Was democracy present in India when British colonization began?
Democracy, in some fashion, has appeared in India throughout its history. However,
just prior to the British arrival in India; representative democracy was not being practiced in regards to government. Though the following is largely a depiction of South Asia the text and links represent the ...
5
Just speculating here, but moving sterling from Britain to India would have been rather expensive back in the day. Also, minting sterling in India would have been risky to the currency back home since in those days currencies were based on the gold standard and Indian mints could easily have diluted the metals and thereby the home currency. also, it sounds ...
5
From the wikipedia
Following the Indian Mutiny in 1857, the British government took
direct control of British India. Since 1851, gold sovereigns were
produced en masse at the Royal Mint in Sydney, New South Wales. In an
1864 attempt to make the British gold sovereign the "imperial coin",
the treasuries in Bombay and Calcutta were instructed to ...
5
Well, as a matter of fact yes. It seems a little odd today, but during the period of European supremacy (aka: The colonial era), it was quite common for companies to band together to exploit European military superiority for financial gain when, for whatever reason, the country they were operating in had scruples against doing so itself.
In fact, Wikipedia ...
5
Probably the more appropriate answer is strike actions in general, as also Gandhi did a long hunger strikes himself. Labour strikes date back at least to the strikes of Deir el-Medina:
In about the 25th year the reign of Ramses III (c. 1170 BCE) the
laborers were so exasperated by delays in supplies they threw down
their tools and walked off the job ...
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