Exactly fifty years after the film by Vijay Bhatt, Narsaiyo (1991), a 27-part television serial in Gujarati was telecast by the Ahmedabad center of Doordarshan (lit. Who revitalized traditional melodies with innovations, and the songs were in the voice of the acclaimed Gujarati singer Asit Desai, whose successful audio CD is.

INDIA Republic of India Bharat Ganarajya CAPITAL: New Delhi FLAG: The national flag, adopted in 1947, is a tricolor of deep saffron, white, and green horizontal stripes. In the center of the white stripe is a blue wheel representing the wheel (chakra) that appears on the abacus of Asoka's lion capital (c.250 bc) at Sarnath, Uttar Pradesh. ANTHEM: Jana gana mana (Thou Art the Ruler of the Minds of All People ). A national song of equal status is Vande Mataram (I Bow to Thee, Mother). MONETARY UNIT: The rupee (r) is a paper currency of 100 paise. There are coins of 5, 10, 20, 25, and 50 paise, and 1, 2, and 5 rupees, and notes of 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, and 500 rupees. R1 = 0.02294 (or $1 = r43.6) as of 2005.

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES: Metric weights and measures, introduced in 1958, replaced the British and local systems. Indian numerical units still in use include the lakh (equal to 100,000) and the crore (equal to 10 million). HOLIDAYS: Republic Day, 26 January; Independence Day, 15 August; Gandhi Jayanti, 2 October. Annual events —some national, others purely local, and each associated with one or more religious communities —number in the hundreds.

The more important include Shivarati in February; and Raksha Bandhan in August. Movable religious holidays include Holi, Ganesh Chaturthi, Durga Puja, Dussehra, 'Id al-Fitr, Dewali; and Christmas, 25 December. TIME: 5:30 pm = noon GMT.

The Republic of India, Asia's second-largest country after China, fills the major part of the South Asian subcontinent (which it shares with Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangladesh) and includes the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal and Lakshadweep (formerly the Laccadive, Minicoy, and Amindivi Islands) in the Arabian Sea. The total area is 3,287,590 sq km (1,269,345 sq mi), including 222,236 sq km (85,806 sq mi) belonging to Jammu and Kashmir; of this disputed region, 78,932 sq km (30,476 sq mi) are under the de facto control of Pakistan and 42,735 sq km (16,500 sq mi) are held by China. Comparatively, the area occupied by India is slightly more than one-third the size of the United States.

China claims part of Arunachal Pradesh. Manual Da Pod Xt Live Em Portugues. Continental India extends 3,214 km (1,997 mi) n –s and 2,933 km (1,822 mi) e –w. India is bordered on the n by the disputed area of Jammu and Kashmir (west of the Karakoram Pass), China, Nepal, and Bhutan; on the e by Myanmar, Bangladesh, and the Bay of Bengal; on the s by the Indian Ocean; on the w by the Arabian Sea; and on the nw by Pakistan. The total boundary length is 21,103 km (13,113 mi), of which 7,000 km (4,340 mi) is coastline. India's capital city, New Delhi, is located in the north central part of the country. Three major features fill the Indian landscape: the Himalayas and associated ranges, a geologically young mountain belt, folded, faulted, and uplifted, that marks the nation's northern boundary and effectively seals India climatically from other Asian countries; the Peninsula, a huge stable massif of ancient crystalline rock, severely weathered and eroded; and the Ganges-Brahmaputra Lowland, a structural trough between the two rivers, now an alluvial plain carrying some of India's major rivers from the Peninsula and the Himalayas to the sea.

These three features, plus a narrow coastal plain along the Arabian Sea and a wider one along the Bay of Bengal, effectively establish five major physical-economic zones in India. Some of the world's highest peaks are found in the northern mountains: Kanchenjunga (8,598 m/28,208 ft), the third-highest mountain in the world, is on the border between Sikkim and Nepal; Nanda Devi (7,817 m/25,645 ft), Badrinath (7,138 m/23,420 ft), and Dunagiri (7,065 m/23,179 ft) are wholly in India; and Kamet (7,756 m/25,447 ft) is on the border between India and Tibet. The Peninsula consists of an abrupt 2,400-km (1,500-mi) escarpment, the Western Ghats, facing the Arabian Sea; interior low, rolling hills seldom rising above 610 m (2,000 ft); an interior plateau, the Deccan, a vast lava bed; and peripheral hills on the north, east, and south, which rise to 2,440 m (8,000 ft) in the Nilgiris and Cardamoms of Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

The Peninsula holds the bulk of India's mineral wealth, and many of its great rivers —the Narbada, Tapti, Mahanadi, Godavari, Krishna, and Kaveri —flow through it to the sea. The great trench between the Peninsula and the Himalayas is the largest alluvial plain on earth, covering 1,088,000 sq km (420,000 sq mi) and extending without noticeable interruption 3,200 km (2,000 mi) from the Indus Delta (in Pakistan) to the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta (shared by India and Bangladesh), at an average width of about 320 km (200 mi). Along this plain flow the Ganges, Brahmaputra, Son, Jumna, Chambal, Gogra, and many other major rivers, which provide India with its richest agricultural land. India is located in a seismically active region prone to destructive earthquakes. On 26 January 2001, a 7.7 magnitude earthquake hit northwest India with tremors felt through most of Pakistan as well. Over 20,000 people were killed and over 166,800 were injured. It was recorded as the deadliest earthquake of the year worldwide.

The disastrous tsunami that struck Indonesia on 26 December 2004 also impacted India. The tsunami was caused by an underwater earthquake 324 km (180 mi) south of Indonesia's Sumatra island. More than 100,000 people were affected and there were more than 10,000 casualties. On 8 October 2005, an earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale, struck the Kashmir region. There were more than 140 aftershocks recorded; many measured 5 in magnitude. More than 1,300 were killed and at least 32,000 homes were destroyed. The lower east (Coromandel) and west (Malabar) coasts of the Peninsula and the Ganges Delta are humid tropical; most of the Peninsula and the Ganges-Brahmaputra Lowland are moist subtropical to temperate; and the semiarid steppe and dry desert of the far west are subtropical to temperate.

The northern mountains display a zonal stratification from moist subtropical to dry arctic, depending on altitude. Extremes of weather are even more pronounced than the wide variety of climatic types would indicate. Thus, villages in western Rajasthan, in the Thar (Great Indian) Desert, may experience less than 13 cm (5 in) of rainfall yearly, while 2,400 km (1,500 mi) eastward, in the Khasi Hills of Assam, Cherrapunji averages about 1,143 cm (450 in) yearly.

Sections of the Malabar Coast and hill stations in the Himalayas regularly receive 250 –760 cm (100 –300 in) yearly; many areas of the heavily populated Ganges-Brahmaputra Lowland and the Peninsula receive under 100 cm (40 in). Winter snowfall is normal for the northern mountains and Kashmir Valley, but for most of India, scorching spring dust storms and severe hailstorms are more common.

The northern half of the country is subject to frost from November through February, but by May a temperature as high as 49 °c (120 °f) in the shade may be recorded. High relative humidity is general from April through September. Extratropical cyclones (similar to hurricanes) often strike the coastal areas between April and June and between September and December. The monsoon is the predominant feature of India's climate and helps to divide the year into four seasons: rainy, the southwest monsoon, June –September; moist, the retreating monsoon, October –November; dry cool, the northeast monsoon, December –March; hot, April –May. Irc Sp 63 2004 Pdf Free Download more.

The southwest monsoon brings from the Indian Ocean the moisture on which Indian agriculture relies. Unfortunately, neither the exact times of its annual arrival and departure nor its duration and intensity can be predicted, and variations are great. In 1987, the failure of the southwest monsoon resulted in one of India's worst droughts of the century. Almost one-fourth of the land is forested. Valuable commercial forests, some of luxuriant tropical growth, are mainly restricted to the eastern Himalayas, the Western Ghats, and the Andaman Islands. Pine, oak, bamboo, juniper, deodar, and sal are important species of the Himalayas; sandalwood, teak, rosewood, mango, and Indian mahogany are found in the southern Peninsula.

Some 15,000 varieties of midaltitude, subtropical, and tropical flowers abound in their appropriate climatic zones. The neem tree, a native tropical evergreen tree, has been called the 'village pharmacy' because many parts of the tree have been used for a variety of medicines and lotions.

India has over 300 species of mammals, 900 species of breeding birds, and a great diversity of fish and reptiles. Wild mammals, including deer, Indian bison, monkeys, and bears, live in the Himalayan foothills and the hilly section of Assam and the plateau.

In the populated areas, many dogs, cows, and monkeys wander as wild or semiwild scavengers. Among India's most pressing environmental problems are land damage, water shortages, and air and water pollution. During 1985, deforestation, which, especially in the Himalayan watershed areas, aggravates the danger of flooding, averaged 1,471 sq km (568 sq mi) per year. India also lost 50% of its mangrove area between 1963 and 1977. In 2000, about 21% of the total land area was forested. Despite three decades of flood-control programs that had already cost an estimated $10 billion, floods in 1980 alone claimed nearly 2,000 lives, killed tens of thousands of cattle, and affected 55 million people on 11.3 million hectares (28 million acres) of land.

As of the mid-1990s, 60% of the land where crops could be grown had been damaged by the grazing of the nation's 406 million head of livestock, deforestation, misuse of agricultural chemicals, and salinization. Due to uncontrolled dumping of chemical and industrial waste, fertilizers and pesticides, 70% of the surface water in India is polluted. The nation has 1,261 cu km of renewable water resources, of which 92% is used for farming. Safe drinking water is available to 96% of urban and 82% of rural dwellers. Air pollution is most severe in urban centers, but even in rural areas, the burning of wood, charcoal, and dung for fuel, coupled with dust from wind erosion during the dry season, poses a significant problem. Industrial air pollution threatens some of India's architectural treasures, including the Taj Mahal in Agra, part of the exterior of which has been dulled and pitted by airborne acids. In what was probably the worst industrial disaster of all time, a noxious gas leak from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh, killed more than 1,500 people and injured tens of thousands of others in December 1985.

In 1992 India had the world's sixth-highest level of industrial carbon dioxide emissions, which totaled 769 million metric tons, a per capita level of 0.88 metric tons. In 2000, the total carbon dioxide emissions was reported at 1 billion metric tons. The environmental effects of intensive urbanization are evident in all the major cities, although Calcutta —once a symbol of urban blight —has been freed of cholera, and most of the city now has water purification and sewer services. Analogous improvements have been made in other leading cities under the Central Scheme for Environmental Improvement in Slum Areas, launched in 1972, which provided funds for sewers, community baths and latrines, road paving, and other services. The National Committee on Environmental Planning and Coordination was established in 1972 to investigate and propose solutions to environmental problems resulting from continued population growth and consequent economic development; in 1980, the Department of the Environment was created. The sixth development plan (1979 –84), which for the first time included a section on environmental planning and coordination, gave the planning commission veto power over development projects that might damage the environment; this policy was sustained in the seventh development plan (1985 –90).

The National Environmental Engineering Research Institute has field center areas throughout the country. The Wildlife Act of 1972 prohibits killing of and commerce in threatened animals.

There are about 20 national parks and more than 200 wildlife sanctuaries, including 5 natural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and 19 Ramsar wetland sites. As of 2003, 5.2% of India's total land area was protected. According to a 2006 report issued by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), threatened species included 85 types of mammals, 79 species of birds, 25 types of reptiles, 66 species of amphibians, 28 species of fish, 2 types of mollusks, 21 species of other invertebrates, and 246 species of plants. In 2005 the net immigration rate was estimated as -0.07 migrants per 1,000 population. The government views the migration levels as satisfactory. India's ethnic history is extremely complex, and distinct racial divisions between peoples generally cannot be drawn clearly.

However, Negroid, Australoid, Mongoloid, and Caucasoid stocks are discernible. The first three are represented mainly by tribal peoples in the southern hills, the plateau, Assam, the Himalayas, and the Andaman Islands. The main Caucasoid elements are the Mediterranean, including groups dominant in much of the north, and the Nordic or IndoAryan, a taller, fairerskinned strain dominant in the northwest. The dark-complexioned Dravidians of the south have a mixture of Mediterranean and Australoid features.

In 2000, 72% of the population was IndoAryan, 25% Dravidian, and 3% Mongoloid and other. The 1961 census recorded 1,652 different languages and dialects in India; one state alone, Madhya Pradesh, had 377. There are officially 211 separate, distinct languages, of which Hindi, English, and 15 regional languages are officially recognized by the constitution. There are 24 languages that are each spoken by a million or more persons. The most important speech group, culturally and numerically, is the IndoAryan branch of the IndoEuropean family, consisting of languages that are derived from Sanskrit. Hindi, spoken as the mother tongue by about 240 million people (30% of the total population), is the principal language in this family. Urdu differs from Hindi in being written in the ArabicFarsi script and containing a large mixture of Arabic and Farsi words.

Western Hindi, Eastern Hindi, Bihari, and Pahari are recognized separate Hindi dialects. Other IndoAryan languages include Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kashmiri, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Rajasthani, and Sindhi. Languages of Dravidian stock are dominant in southern India and include Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, and Malayalam. A few tribal languages of eastern India, such as Ho and Santali, fit into the aboriginal Munda family, which predates the Dravidian family on the subcontinent. Smaller groups in Assam and the Himalayas speak languages of MonKhmer and Tibeto-Chinese origin.

English is spoken as the native tongue by an estimated 10 –15 million Indians and is widely employed in government, education, science, communications, and industry; it is often a second or third language of the educated classes. Although Hindi in Devanagari script is the official language, English is also recognized for official purposes. According to government policy, Hindi is the national language; for that reason, Hindi instruction in nonHindi areas is being rapidly increased, and large numbers of scientific and other modern words are being added to its vocabulary. However, there has been considerable resistance to the adoption of Hindi in the Dravidian-language areas of southern India, as well as in some of the IndoAryanspeaking areas, especially West Bengal. The importance of regional languages was well demonstrated in 1956, when the states were reorganized along linguistic boundaries. Thus, multilingual Hyder āb ād state was abolished by giving its Marathispeaking sections to Mumbai (formerly Bombay, now in Maharashtra), its Telugu sections to Andhra Pradesh, and its Kannada sections to Mysore (now Karnataka). The Malayalamspeaking areas of Madras were united with TravancoreCochin to form a single Malayalam state, Kerala.

Madhya Bharat, Bhopal, and Vindhya Pradesh, three small Hindispeaking states, were given to Madhya Pradesh, a large Hindi state, which, at the same time, lost its southern Marathi areas to Mumbai (formerly Bombay) state. Many other boundary changes occurred in this reorganization. Mumbai state originally was to have been divided into Gujarati and Marathi linguistic sections but remained as one state largely because of disagreement over which group was to receive the city of Mumbai (formerly Bombay). In 1960, however, it, too, was split into two states, Gujarat and Maharashtra, on the basis of linguistic boundaries. In 1966, the government of India accepted the demand of the Punjabispeaking people, mainly Sikhs, to divide the bilingual state of Punjab into two unilingual areas, with the Hindispeaking area to be known as Haryana and the Punjabispeaking area to retain the name of Punjab. India has almost as many forms of script as it has languages.

Thus, all of the Dravidian and some of the IndoAryan languages have their own distinctive alphabets, which differ greatly in form and appearance. Some languages, such as Hindi, may be written in either of two different scripts.

Konkani, a dialect of the west coast, is written in three different scripts in different geographic areas. India is the cradle of two of the world's great religions, Hinduism and Buddhism. The principal texts of Hinduism —the Rig Veda ( Verses of Spiritual Knowledge ), the Upanishads ( Ways of Worship ), and the BhagavadGita ( Song of the Lord ) —were written between 1200 and 100 bc. The teachings of Buddha, who lived during the 6th –5th centuries bc, were first transmitted orally and then systematized for transmission throughout Asia. Jainism, a religion that developed contemporaneously with Buddhism, has largely been confined to India. The Sikh religion began in the 15th century as an attempt to reconcile Muslim and Hindu doctrine, but the Sikhs soon became a warrior sect bitterly opposed to Islam.

An estimated 82% of the population are Hindus. Hindus have an absolute majority in all areas except Nagaland, Jammu, and Kashmir, and the tribal areas of Assam. Sikhs account for about 2% of the population and are concentrated in the state of Punjab, which since 1980 has been the site of violent acts by Sikh activists demanding greater autonomy from the Hindudominated central government. Other religious groups include Muslims (12% of the population, mostly Sunni) and Christians (2.3%). Large Muslim populations are located in Utar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Jammu, and Kashmir.

The northeastern states of Nagaland, Mizoram, and Meghalaya have Christian majorities. Buddhists, Jains, Parsis (Zoroastrians), Jews, and Baha'is make up less than 2% of the total population. The caste system is a distinct feature of Hinduism, wherein every person either is born into one of four groups —Brahmans (priests and scholars), Kshatriyas (warriors and rulers), Vaisyas (shopkeepers, artisans, and farmers), and Sudras (farm laborers and menial workers) —or is casteless and thus untouchable. The untouchables are commonly known as Dalits or as Harijan (from the term used by Mahatma Gandhi). Although the constitution outlaws caste distinctions and discrimination, especially those applying to untouchability, progress in changing customs has been slow. Many Dalits have converted to other faiths in order to escape widespread discrimination in some areas; but several states have anticonversion laws in place for Dalits.

Freedom of worship is theoretically assured under the constitution; however, the government has the right to religious organizations that are considered to provoke public disorder. There are also a number of laws in place on both the federal and state level that regulate the activities of religious groups and even the right to religious conversions. There is a great deal of animosity between Muslims and Hindus, as well as Christians and Hindus; violent outbursts between these groups are not uncommon.

India's railway system is highly developed and constitutes the country's primary means of long-distance domestic transport. In 2004, the Indian railway system consisted of 63,230 km (39,329 mi), of broad and narrow gauge rail lines, of which 16,693 km (10,383 mi) were electrified. Broad gauge lines were the most extensive at 45,718 km (28,437 mi), with three sizes of narrow gauge line accounting for the remainder. Virtually all of India's railways are state-owned, and are the nation's largest public enterprise. It is also the largest railroad system in Asia and the fourth-largest in the world. In October 1984, India's first subway began operation in Calcutta over 3 km (1.9 mi) of track.

The national and state road network in 2002 consisted of about 3,319,644 km (2,064,818 mi), of which 1,517,077 km (942,712 mi) were paved. In 2003, there were 10,694,000 motor vehicles, including 6,669,000 automobiles and 4,025,000 commercial vehicles. As of 2004, India had about 14,500 km (9,019 mi) of inland waterways, with 5,200 km (3,234 mi) on major rivers and 485 km (302 mi) on canals accessible by motorized vessels. Most important are the Ganges, Brahmaputra, Godavari, and Krishna rivers and the coastal plain canals of Kerala, Chennai, Andhra Pradesh, and Orissa. In 2005, India's merchant fleet totaled 299 vessels of 1,000 GRT or more, with a combined total of 6,555,507 GRT, sufficient to handle almost all of the country's coastal trade and much of its trade with adjacent countries. The rest of India's trade is handled by foreign ships.

Eleven major ports handle the bulk of the import-export traffic; the leading ports are Mumbai (formerly Bombay) and Mormugao. There are 140 smaller ports along the Indian coastline. In 2004, there were an estimated 333 airports. As of 2005, a total of 239 had paved runways and there were also 27 heliports.

International airports are at Mumbai, formerly Bombay (Santa Cruz); Calcutta (Dum Dum); Delhi (Indira Gandhi); Chennai, formerly Madras (Meenambakkam); and Trivandrum. The Indian Airlines Corp., a nationalized industry, operates all internal flights and services to neighboring countries with daily flights to 60 cities. Air-India, also government-owned, operates long-distance services to foreign countries on five continents.

A national airline, Vayudoot, was established in 1981 to provide service to otherwise inaccessible areas in the northeast. Private airlines are growing in importance as well. In 2003, about 19.456 million passengers were carried on scheduled domestic and international airline flights.

India is one of the oldest continuously inhabited regions in the world. In Harappa, an area in the Indus Valley (now in Pakistan), between 3000 and 2000 bc, scores of thriving municipalities developed a distinct urban culture. This riverain civilization fell into decay around 1500 –1200 bc, probably owing to the arrival of Aryan (Indo-European-speaking) invaders, who began entering the northern part of the subcontinent via Afghanistan. There followed over a thousand years of instability, of petty states and larger kingdoms, as one invading group after another contended for power. During this period, Indian village and family patterns, along with Brahmanism —one form of Hinduism —and its caste system, became established.

Among the distinguished oral literature surviving from this period are two anonymous Sanskrit epics, the Ramayana (traditionally attributed to the legendary poet Valmiki) and the Mahabharata (the longest poem in the world, containing over 100,000 verses, including one of Hinduism's more sacred texts, the Bhagavad-Gita ). The South Asian subcontinent already had a population of about 30 million, of whom approximately 20 million lived in the Ganges Basin, when Alexander the Great invaded the Indus Valley in 326 bc. His successors were absorbed by the new Maurya dynasty (c.321 –c.184 bc); under Chandragupta (r. C.321 –c.297 bc), from his capital at Pataliputra (now Patna), the Mauryans subdued most of northern India and what is now Bangladesh.

His successor, Asoka (r.273 –232 bc), put all of India under unified control for the first time; an early convert to Buddhism, his regime was remembered for its sectarian tolerance, as well as for remarkable administrative, legal, and cultural achievements. Many Buddhist monuments and elaborately carved cave temples found at Sarnath, Ajanta, Bodhgaya, and other places in India date from the reigns of Asoka and his Buddhist successors. In the years following Asoka, India divided again into a patchwork of kingdoms, as other invaders arrived from central and western Asia. In the process, Hinduism prevailed over Buddhism, which found wide acceptance elsewhere in Asia but remained widely practiced in India, its birthplace. Hindu kingdoms began to appear in what is presentday southern India after the 4th century ad. The era of the Gupta dynasty rule (ad 320 –c.535) was a golden age of art, literature, and science in India.

Hindu princes of the Rajput sub-caste, ruling in the northwest, reached their peak of power from ad 700 to 1000, although their descendants retained much of their influence well into British days. In the 8th century, the first of several Islamic invaders appeared in the northwest; between 1000 and 1030, Mahmud of Ghazn ī made 17 forays into the subcontinent. The first Muslim sultan of Delhi was Kutbuddin (r. C.1195 –1210), and Islam gradually spread eastward and southward, reaching its greatest territorial and cultural extent under the Mughal (or Mogul) dynasty. 'Mughal' comes from the Farsi word for Mongol, and the earlier Mughals were descendants of the great 14thcentury Mongol conqueror Timur (also known as 'Timur the Lame' or Tamerlane), a descendant in turn of Genghis Khan.

Much of the population of the subcontinent began converting to Islam during the Mughal period, however, which helped weave Islam into the social fabric of India. One of the Timurid princes, Babur (r.1526 –30), captured Kabul in 1504 and defeated the Sultan of Delhi in 1526, becoming the first of the Mughals to proclaim himself emperor of India.

In 1560, Akbar (r.1556 –1605), Babur's grandson, extended the dynasty's authority over all of northern India. Akbar also attempted to establish a national state in and it was Akbar who was the first of the Muslim emperors to attempt the establishment alliance with Hindu rajahs (kings). Though illiterate, he was a great patron of art and literature. Among his successors were Shah Jahan and his son Aurangzeb, who left their imprint in massive palaces and mosques, superb fortresses (like the Lahore fort), dazzling mausoleums (like the Taj Mahal at Agra), elaborate formal gardens (like those in Srinagar), and the abandoned city of Fatehpur Sikri (37 km/23 mi w of Agra). Under Aurangzeb (r.1658 –1707), who seized his father's throne, the Mughal Empire reached its greatest extent and then began its decline, largely the result of his repressive policies. The Hindu Marathas fought the Mughals and established their own empire in western India. Vasco da Gama reached India's southwest coast by sea in 1498, and for a century the Portuguese had a monopoly over the Indian sea.

Although it continued to hold bits of Indian territory until 1961, Portugal lost its dominant position as early as 1612 when forces controlled by the British East India Company defeated the Portuguese and won concessions from the Mughals. The company, which had been established in 1600, had permanent trading settlements in Chennai (formerly Madras), Mumbai (formerly Bombay), and Calcutta by 1690. Threatened by the French East India Company, which was founded in 1664, the two companies fought each other as part of their nations' struggle for supremacy in Europe and the western hemisphere in the 18th century. They both allied with rival Indian princes and recruited soldiers ( sepoys ) locally, but the French and their allies suffered disastrous defeats in 1756 and 1757, against the backdrop of the Seven Years' War (1756 –63) raging in Europe.

By 1761, France was no longer a power in India. The architect of the British triumph, later known as the founder of British India, was Robert Clive, later Baron, who became governor of the Company's Bengal Presidency in 1764, to be followed by Warren Hastings and Lord Cornwallis in the years before 1800. The Company's rule spread up the Gangetic plain to Oudh and Delhi, and eventually, to western India where the Maratha Confederacy, the alliance of independent Indian states that had succeeded the Mughal Empire there, was reduced to a group of relatively weak principalities owing fealty to the British in 1818. The British government took direct control of the East India Company's Indian domain during the Sepoy Mutiny (1857 –59), a widespread rebellion by Indian soldiers in the company's service, and in 1859, Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India. The succeeding decades were characterized by significant economic and political development, but also by a growing cultural and political gap between Indians and the British. Indian troops were deployed elsewhere in the world by the Crown in defense of British interests but without any recourse of Indian views.

Nationalism and Independence While the British moved gradually to expand local self-rule along federal lines, British power was increasingly challenged by the rise of indigenous movements challenging its authority. A modern Indian nationalism began to grow as a result of the influence of Western culture and education among the elite, and the formation of such groups as the Arya Samaj and Indian National Congress.

Founded as an Anglophile debating society in 1885, the congress grew into a movement leading agitation for greater self-rule in the first 30 years of this century. Under the leadership of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (called the Mahatma, or Great Soul) and other nationalist leaders, such as Motilal and Jawaharlal Nehru, congress began to attract mass support in the 1930s with the success of noncooperation campaigns spearheaded by Gandhi and its advocacy of education, cottage industries, self-help, an end to the caste system, and nonviolent struggle.

Muslims had also been politicized, beginning with the abortive partition of Bengal during the period 1905 –12. And despite the INC leadership's commitment to secularism, as the movement evolved under Gandhi, its leadership style appeared —to Muslims —uniquely Hindu, leading Indian Muslims to look to the protection of their interests in the formation of their own organization, the AllIndia Muslim League.

National and provincial elections in the mid-1930s, coupled with growing unrest throughout India, persuaded many Muslims that the power the majority Hindu population could exercise at the ballot box could leave them as a permanent electoral minority in any single democratic polity that would follow British rule. Sentiment in the Muslim League began to coalesce around the 'two nation' theory propounded by the poet Iqbal, who argued that Muslims and Hindus were separate nations and that Muslims required creation of an independent Islamic state for their protection and fulfillment. A prominent attorney, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, led the fight for a separate Muslim state to be known as Pakistan, a goal formally endorsed by the Muslim League in Lahore in 1940.

Mahatma Gandhi, meanwhile, had broadened his demand in 1929 from self-rule to independence in 1929; in the 1930s, his campaigns of nonviolent noncooperation and civil disobedience electrified the countryside. In 1942, with British fortunes at a new low and the Japanese successful everywhere in Asia, Gandhi rejected a British appeal to postpone further talks on Indian self-rule until the end of World War II. Declining to support the British (and Allied) war effort and demanding immediate British withdrawal from India, he launched a 'Quit India' campaign. In retaliation, Gandhi and most of India's nationalist leaders were jailed. The end of World War II and the British Labor Party's victory at the polls in 1945 led to renewed negotiations on independence between Britain and the Hindu and Muslim leaders.

Jawaharlal Nehru and the Congress leadership pressed anew for a single, secular nation in which the rights of all would be guarded by constitutional guarantees and democratic practice. But Jinnah and the Muslim League persevered in their campaign for Pakistan. In midAugust 1947, with HinduMuslim tensions rising, British India was divided into the two self-governing dominions of India and Pakistan, the latter created by combining contiguous, Muslimmajority districts in the western and eastern parts of British India, with the former, the new republic of India, consisting of the large remaining land mass in between. Partition resulted in one of the world's largest mass movements of people: Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs who found themselves on the 'wrong' side of new international boundaries sought to cross over.

As many as 20 million people moved, and up to 3 million of these were killed as violence erupted along the borders. Gandhi, who opposed the partition and worked unceasingly for HinduMuslim amity, became himself a casualty of heightened communal feeling; he was assassinated by a Hindu extremist five months after Partition. Kashmiri Dispute.