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India before the Europeans
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The Bronze Age
According to historians of ancient Indian history, civilisation
on the subcontinent began around 2,300 BC. In the1920s, archaeologists
discovered the ruins of two flourishing Bronze Age cities
in the Indus Valley, Harappa and Mohenjadaro. Bronze tools
were found there, along with copper, pottery, gold and silver
items, showing that the settlements were considerably wealthy.
The cities were described as being well-planned, with similar
layouts.
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India in the 18th Century
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Early Evidence of Writing from the
Indus Valley Civilisation
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Harappa and Mohenjadaro
were part of a network of urban centres occupying nearly half
a million square miles in the area of the Punjab and Sind. Historians
have suggested that the economy of the Indus Valley was based
on farming, which was dependent on the flooding of the River
Indus to irrigate the land. And it was probably by flooding
and earthquake, which caused the Indus to change its course,
that Harappa and Mohenjadaro were eventually destroyed, around
1,700 BC. |
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The Aryans and the Caste System
In about 1,500 BC the Aryans, a nomadic, pastoral people,
migrated into India, perhaps from Persia. They gradually settled
over northern India, sometimes conquering the existing inhabitants,
and sometimes assimilating more peacefully.
The Aryan or  Vedic
civilisation created a new culture. Early Indians were literate
and considerably knowledgeable about astronomy and mathematics.
Aryan society seems to have been divided into groups on a
socio-economic basis. A 'war chief' was in charge together
with a high priest of the polytheistic Aryan religion. The
social groups comprised: priests or Brahmans, nobles and warriors,
artisans and merchants, and servants. These groupings became
known as 'the caste system'. Social classes became completely
inflexible, with little or no mobility. For example, an individual
was unable to move up from the merchant caste to the warrior
caste.
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Religion and the Coming of Islam
It was in the Aryan period that Hinduism
became the central religious force in India. Later, from the
6th century BC, Buddhism
spread throughout India and other parts of Asia. Christianity
came to southwest India in the 1st century AD, brought, according
to legend, by the apostle St Thomas.
Islam, which was founded in the 7th century AD, reached India
through a series of conquests. The first of these began in
AD 771 when the governor of Iraq launched a successful expedition
to conquer Sind, in northwest India. Over the following centuries
Islamic forces from the north took over large areas of the
Indian subcontinent, which came to be ruled by competing dynasties,
some Muslim, some Hindu.
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The Mughal Empire
From the 15th century, the Islamic Mughal emperors arrived
in India and created a certain amount of political unity.
The Mughals ruled over a population in India that was two-thirds
Hindu, and the earlier spiritual teachings of the Vedic tradition
remained influential in Indian values and philosophy. The
early Mughal empire was a tolerant place.
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Unlike the preceding civilisations, the Mughals controlled
a vast area of India. They were wealthy and politically powerful,
renowned for building great palaces and monuments. But this
wealth and power did not last for ever. The Mughal empire
began to disintegrate. Tolerance waned, and wars overstretched
its resources.
European traders contributed to the decline of the Mughal
empire. European control of early modern India began with
merchants establishing forts and factories along the periphery
of this ancient dominion. The Portuguese arrived first, in
Kerala in 1498. The first Dutch possession was on the Coromandel
Coast and in 1600 the British entered the Asian trade, establishing
a settlement at Surat in 1619. In 1674 the French established
a settlement at Pondicherry.
The splendour of Mughal architecture and the magnificence
of their state pageantry and durbars
had the Europeans spellbound.
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Shah Jahan in his Durbar
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References and Further Reading
Bayly, C. A. (ed.), The Raj: India and the British 1600-1947,
London, 1990
Lawrence, J., Raj: The Making and Unmaking of British
India, London, 1997
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