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Travel to India — Unbiased reviews and
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| Republic of India National
name: Bharat President: Pratibha
Patil (2007) Prime Minister:
Manmohan Singh (2004)
Current government officials
Land area: 1,147,949 sq mi (2,973,190 sq
km); total area: 1,269,338 sq mi (3,287,590 sq km) Population (2008 est.): 1,147,995,898
(growth rate: 1.5%); birth rate: 22.2/1000; infant mortality rate:
32.3/1000; life expectancy: 69.2; density per sq mi: 386
Capital (2003 est.):
New Delhi, 15,334,000 (metro. area), 9,817,439
(city proper) Largest cities:
Bombay (Mumbai), 18,336,000 (metro. area), 11,914,398 (city proper);
Calcutta (Kolkata), 14,299,000 (metro. area), 4,760,800 (city proper);
Bangalore, 4,461,100; Madras (Chennai), 4,382,100; Ahmedabad,
3,653,700; Hyderabad, 3,585,600; Kanpur, 2,631,800 Monetary unit: Rupee
Principal languages:
Hindi 30%, English, Bengali, Gujarati, Kashmiri,
Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Kannada,
Assamese, Sanskrit, Sindhi (all official); Hindi/Urdu; 1,600+
dialects
Ethnicity/race:
Indo-Aryan 72%, Dravidian 25%, Mongoloid and
other 3% (2000)
Religions:
Hindu 81%, Islam 13%, Christian 2%, Sikh 2%
(2001)
National Holiday:
Republic Day, January 26 Literacy rate: 61% (2005 est.) Economic summary: GDP/PPP (2007 est.):
$2.989 trillion; per capita $2,700. Real growth rate: 9.2%.
Inflation: 6.4%. Unemployment: 7.2%. Arable land:
49%. Agriculture: rice, wheat, oilseed, cotton, jute, tea,
sugarcane, potatoes; cattle, water buffalo, sheep, goats, poultry;
fish. Labor force: 516.4 million; agriculture 60%, services
12%, industry 28% (2003). Industries: textiles, chemicals, food
processing, steel, transportation equipment, cement, mining,
petroleum, machinery, software. Natural resources: coal
(fourth-largest reserves in the world), iron ore, manganese, mica,
bauxite, titanium ore, chromite, natural gas, diamonds, petroleum,
limestone, arable land. Exports: $140.8 billion f.o.b. (2007
est.): textile goods, gems and jewelry, engineering goods, chemicals,
leather manufactures. Imports: $224.1 billion f.o.b. (2007
est.): crude oil, machinery, gems, fertilizer, chemicals. Major
trading partners: U.S., UAE, China, Germany, UK, Singapore
(2006).
Member of Commonwealth of Nations
Communications: Telephones: main
lines in use: 49.75 million (2005); mobile cellular: 166.1 million
(2006). Radio broadcast stations: AM 153, FM 91, shortwave 68
(1998). Television broadcast stations: 562 (of which 82
stations have 1 kW or greater power and 480 stations have less than 1
kW of power) (1997). Internet hosts: 2.306 million (2007).
Internet users: 60 million (2005). Transportation: Railways: total: 63,221 km
(16,693 km electrified) (2006). Highways: total: 3,383,344 km;
paved: 1,603,705 km; unpaved: 1,779,639 km (2002). Waterways:
14,500 km; note: 5,200 km on major rivers and 485 km on canals
suitable for mechanized vessels (2006). Ports and harbors:
Chennai, Haldia, Jawaharal Nehru, Kandla, Kolkata (Calcutta), Mumbai
(Bombay), New Mangalore, Vishakhapatnam. Airports: 346
(2007). International disputes: China
and India launched a security and foreign policy dialogue in 2005,
consolidating discussions related to the dispute over most of their
rugged, militarized boundary, regional nuclear proliferation, Indian
claims that China transferred missiles to Pakistan, and other matters;
recent talks and confidence-building measures have begun to defuse
tensions over Kashmir, site of the world's largest and most
militarized territorial dispute with portions under the de facto
administration of China (Aksai Chin), India (Jammu and Kashmir), and
Pakistan (Azad Kashmir and Northern Areas); in 2004, India and
Pakistan instituted a cease fire in the Kashmir and in 2005, restored
bus service across the highly militarized Line of Control; Pakistan
has taken its dispute on the impact and benefits of India's building
the Baglihar dam on the Chenab River in Jammu and Kashmir to the World
Bank for arbitration; UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan
(UNMOGIP) has maintained a small group of peacekeepers since 1949;
India does not recognize Pakistan's ceding historic Kashmir lands to
China in 1964; disputes persist with Pakistan over Indus River water
sharing; to defuse tensions and prepare for discussions on a maritime
boundary, in 2004, India and Pakistan resurveyed a portion of the
disputed boundary in Sir Creek estuary at the mouth of the Rann of
Kutch; Pakistani maps continue to show Junagadh claim in Indian
Gujarat State; discussions with Bangladesh remain stalled to delimit a
small section of river boundary, to exchange 162 miniscule enclaves in
both countries, to allocate divided villages, and to stop illegal
cross-border trade, migration, violence, and transit of terrorists
through the porous border; Bangladesh protests India's attempts to
fence off high-traffic sections; dispute with Bangladesh over New
Moore/South Talpatty/Purbasha Island in the Bay of Bengal deters
maritime boundary delimitation; India seeks cooperation from Bhutan
and Burma to keep Indian Nagaland and Assam separatists from hiding in
remote areas along the borders; Joint Border Committee with Nepal
continues to demarcate minor disputed boundary sections; India has
instituted a stricter border regime to keep out Maoist insurgents and
control illegal cross-border activities from Nepal.
Major sources and definitions
Native States
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Geography
One-third the area of the United States, the
Republic of India occupies most of the subcontinent of India in southern
Asia. It borders on China in the northeast. Other neighbors are Pakistan
on the west, Nepal and Bhutan on the north, and Burma and Bangladesh on
the east.
The country can be divided into three distinct
geographic regions: the Himalayan region in the north, which contains some
of the highest mountains in the world, the Gangetic Plain, and the plateau
region in the south and central part. Its three great river
systems—the Ganges, the Indus, and the Brahmaputra—have
extensive deltas and all rise in the Himalayas.
Government
Federal republic.
History
One of the earliest civilizations, the Indus
Valley civilization flourished on the Indian subcontinent from c. 2600
B.C. to c. 2000 B.C.
It is generally accepted that the Aryans entered India c. 1500 B.C. from the northwest, finding a land that was
already home to an advanced civilization. They introduced Sanskrit and the
Vedic religion, a forerunner of Hinduism. Buddhism was founded in the 6th
century B.C. and was spread throughout northern
India, most notably by one of the great ancient kings of the Mauryan
dynasty, Asoka (c. 269–232 B.C.), who
also unified most of the Indian subcontinent for the first time.
In 1526, Muslim invaders founded the great Mogul
Empire, centered on Delhi, which lasted, at least in name, until 1857.
Akbar the Great (1542–1605) strengthened and consolidated this
empire. The long reign of his great-grandson, Aurangzeb (1618–1707),
represents both the greatest extent of the Mogul Empire and the beginning
of its decay.
Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese explorer, landed
in India in 1498, and for the next 100 years the Portuguese had a virtual
monopoly on trade with the subcontinent. Meanwhile, the English founded
the East India Company, which set up its first factory at Surat in 1612
and began expanding its influence, fighting the Indian rulers and the
French, Dutch, and Portuguese traders simultaneously.
Bombay, taken from the Portuguese, became the
seat of English rule in 1687. The defeat of French and Mogul armies by
Lord Clive in 1757 laid the foundation of the British Empire in India. The
East India Company continued to suppress native uprisings and extend
British rule until 1858, when the administration of India was formally
transferred to the British Crown following the Sepoy Mutiny of native
troops in 1857–1858.
After World War I, in which the Indian states
sent more than 6 million troops to fight beside the Allies, Indian
nationalist unrest rose to new heights under the leadership of a Hindu
lawyer, Mohandas K. Gandhi, called Mahatma Gandhi. His philosophy of civil
disobedience called for nonviolent noncooperation against British
authority. He soon became the leading spirit of the Indian National
Congress Party, which was the spearhead of revolt. In 1919, the British
gave added responsibility to Indian officials, and in 1935, India was
given a federal form of government and a measure of self-rule.
In 1942, with the Japanese pressing hard on the
eastern borders of India, the British War Cabinet tried and failed to
reach a political settlement with nationalist leaders. The Congress Party
took the position that the British must quit India. Fearing mass civil
disobedience, the government of India carried out widespread arrests of
Congress Party leaders, including Gandhi.
Gandhi was released in 1944 and negotiations for
a settlement were resumed. Finally, in Aug. 1947, India gained full
independence. The victory was soured, however, by the partitioning of the
predominantly Muslim regions of the north into the separate nation of
Pakistan. The Muslim League, led by Mohammed Ali Jinnah, demanded a
separate nation for the Muslim minority to prevent Hindu political and
social domination. Indian Hindus, however, had hoped for a unified rather
than balkanized Indian subcontinent. Lord Mountbatten as viceroy
partitioned India along religious lines and split the provinces of Bengal
and the Punjab, which both nations claimed. The partition of Pakistan and
India led to the largest migration in human history, with 17 million
people fleeing across the borders in both directions to escape the bloody
riots occurring among sectarian groups. Armed conflict also broke out over
rival claims to the princely states of Jammu and Kashmir.
Jawaharlal Nehru, nationalist leader and head of
the Congress Party, was made prime minister. In 1949, a constitution was
approved, making India a sovereign republic. Under a federal structure the
states were organized on linguistic lines. The dominance of the Congress
Party contributed to stability. In 1956, the republic absorbed former
French settlements. Five years later, the republic forcibly annexed the
Portuguese enclaves of Goa, Damao, and Diu.
Nehru died in 1964. His successor, Lal Bahadur
Shastri, died on Jan. 10, 1966. Nehru's daughter, Indira Gandhi, became
prime minister, and she continued his policy of nonalignment.
In 1971, the Pakistani army moved in to quash
the independence movement in East Pakistan that was supported by India,
and some 10 million Bengali refugees poured across the border into India,
creating social, economic, and health problems. After numerous border
incidents, India invaded East Pakistan and in two weeks forced the
surrender of the Pakistani army. East Pakistan was established as an
independent state and renamed Bangladesh.
In May 1975, the 300-year-old kingdom of Sikkim
became a full-fledged Indian state. Situated in the Himalayas, Sikkim was
a virtual dependency of Tibet until the early 19th century. Under an 1890
treaty between China and Great Britain, it became a British protectorate
and was made an Indian protectorate after Britain quit the
subcontinent.
In the summer of 1975, the world's largest
democracy veered suddenly toward authoritarianism when a judge in
Allahabad, Indira Gandhi's home constituency, found Gandhi's landslide
victory in the 1971 elections invalid because civil servants had illegally
aided her campaign. Amid demands for her resignation, Gandhi decreed a
state of emergency on June 26 and ordered mass arrests of her critics,
including all opposition party leaders except the Communists.
Despite strong opposition to her repressive
measures, particularly resentment against compulsory birth control
programs, in 1977 Gandhi announced parliamentary elections for March. At
the same time, she freed most political prisoners. The landslide victory
of Morarji R. Desai unseated Gandhi, but she staged a spectacular comeback
in the elections of Jan. 1980.
In 1984, Gandhi ordered the Indian army to root
out a band of Sikh holy men and gunmen who were using the most sacred
shrine of the Sikh religion, the Golden Temple in Amritsar, as a base for
terrorist raids in a violent campaign for greater political autonomy in
the strategic Punjab border state. The perceived sacrilege to the Golden
Temple kindled outrage among many of India's 14 million Sikhs and brought
a spasm of mutinies and desertions by Sikh officers and soldiers in the
army.
On Oct. 31, 1984, Indira Gandhi was assassinated
by two men identified by police as Sikh members of her bodyguard. The
ruling Congress Party chose her older son, Rajiv Gandhi, to succeed her as
prime minister for four years. While running for reelection, Rajiv Gandhi
was assassinated on May 22, 1991, by Tamil militants who objected to
India's mediation of the civil war in Sri Lanka.
The ruling Congress Party lost the parliamentary
elections of May 1996, and its waning resulted in a period of political
instability. The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) then
became the dominant force in politics, with Atal Bihari Vajpayee as prime
minister.
In May 1998, India set off five nuclear tests,
surprising the international community, which widely condemned India's
pronuclear stance. Despite international urging for restraint, Pakistan
responded by conducting several nuclear tests of its own two weeks later.
India has resisted signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty for nuclear
weapons and has been slapped with sanctions by the U.S. and other
countries. Less than a year later, in April 1999, both India and Pakistan
tested nuclear-capable ballistic missiles.
India and Pakistan have held various talks about
the disputed territory of Kashmir, which is the issue at the base of their
chronic antagonism and their displays of nuclear strength. India controls
two-thirds of this Himalayan region, which is the only Indian state that
is predominantly Muslim.
The Indian Air Force launched air strikes on May
26, 1999, and later sent in ground troops against Islamic guerrilla forces
in Kashmir. India blamed Pakistan for orchestrating violence in Kashmir by
sending soldiers and mercenaries across the so-called Line of Control that
divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan. Pakistan countered that the
guerrillas were independent Kashmiri freedom fighters struggling for
India's ouster from the region. Most international sources agreed with
India's assumption that Pakistan was arming the soldiers. In Aug. 1999,
Pakistan was forced to withdraw, but fighting continued sporadically
during the coming year.
In Oct. 2001, violence again broke out in the
region when a suicide bombing by a Pakistan-based militant organization
killed 38 in India-controlled Kashmir. India retaliated with heavy
shelling across the Line of Control. India, angered by Washington's sudden
coziness with Pakistan following the Sept. 11 attacks, took the
opportunity to point out that, while Pakistan might be helping the U.S.
fight terrorism on the Afghan front, it was simultaneously supporting
terrorism on its own borders with India. On Dec. 13, 2001, suicide bombers
attacked the Indian parliament, killing 14 people. Indian officials blamed
the deadly attack on Islamic militants supported by Pakistan.
Violent clashes between Muslims and Hindus
rocked the state of Gujarat in late February and early March 2002 after a
Muslim mob fire-bombed a train, killing 58 Hindu activists. Hindus
retaliated, and more than 500 people died in the bloodshed.
Hope for a peaceful solution to the conflict in
Kashmir was raised in Nov. 2002, when a newly elected coalition government
in India-controlled Jammu and Kashmir vowed to reach out to separatists
and to improve conditions in the state. But hopes were dashed in March
2003, following the slaughter of 24 Hindus in Kashmir. Officials blamed
the massacre on Islamic militants. Days after the violence, both India and
Pakistan test-fired short-range missiles capable of carrying nuclear
warheads. Two bombs exploded in Mumbai (Bombay) in August, killing more
than 50 people and injuring about 150. Indian officials blamed
Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based militant Islamic group. But in Nov.
2003, India and Pakistan declared their first formal cease-fire in 14
years. The cease-fire applied to the entire Line of Control dividing
Kashmir. Relations between the two countries have continued to thaw,
though no real progress has been made.
In one of the most dramatic political upsets in
modern Indian history, the Indian National Congress Party, led by Sonia
Gandhi, prevailed in parliamentary elections in May 2004, prompting Prime
Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to resign. Although the country prospered
economically under Vajpayee's rule, a substantial number of India's poor
felt they had not benefitted from India's economic growth. Sonia Gandhi,
the Italian-born widow of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, dealt a
further shock to the country when she refused to become prime minister.
The BJP had vociferously protested Gandhi's expected elevation to prime
minister because of her foreign birth. The Congress Party instead chose
former finance minister Manmohan Singh, who became India's first Sikh
prime minister.
On Dec. 26, 2004, a tremendously powerful
tsunami ravaged 12 Asian countries. Nearly 11,000 people perished in
India.
President Bush announced in March 2005 that he
would allow American companies to provide India with several types of
modern combat weapons, including F-16 and F-18 fighter jets. The
announcement was seen as an attempt to balance Bush's offer to sell
Pakistan about two dozen F-16s.
Monsoon rains in late July and early August 2005
caused devastating landslides and floods that killed about 900 people in
and around Mumbai. An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.6 struck
Pakistani-controlled Kashmir on October 8, 2005. More than 81,000 people
were killed and 2.5 million left homeless. India suffered about 1,300
casualties.
In March 2006, President Bush and Prime Minister
Singh agreed to a controversial civil nuclear power deal that permitted
the sale of nuclear technology to India despite the fact that India has
never signed the international Nuclear Nonproliferation agreement. Since
1998, the U.S. has imposed sanctions on India for undertaking nuclear
tests. Critics of the deal contend that allowing India to circumvent the
international treaty will make it more difficult to negotiate with Iran
and North Korea and their nuclear ambitions. In September 2008, the
Nuclear Suppliers Group, comprised of representatives from 45 countries,
voted in favor of the deal, bringing it a step away from implementation.
The U.S. Congress approved the deal in October 2008; it was the last
hurdle for the implementation of the controversial agreement. India's
Bharatiya Janata Party, which opposes the deal, called it a
"nonproliferation trap." The deal could be scrapped if India uses the fuel
for its weapons program.
Pratibha Patil, of the governing Congress party,
was elected president in July 2007, becoming the country's first woman to
hold the post. She defeated Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, of the opposition
Bharatiya Janata Party.
Prime Minister Singh survived a confidence vote
in July 2008, taking 275 votes to the opposition's 256. Eleven members of
Parliament abstained. He had lost the support of Communist parties as he
sought to seal the deal that has the U.S. providing India with nuclear
technology and fuel for civilian purposes.
Squirmishing along Kashmir's Line of Control broke out over the summer
of 2008, after more than four years of relative calm. The problems arose
after authorities in Indian-controlled Kashmir transferred 99 acres of
land to a trust that runs a Hindu shrine, called Amarnath. Muslims
launched a series of protests. The government rescinded the order, which
outraged Hindus. About 40 people were killed in the protests and
counterdemonstrations, which involved several hundred thousand people.
Despite the hostilities, a trade route between India and Pakistan across
the line of control opened in October for the first time in 60 years.
Religious and ethnic clashes that pitted Muslims against Hindus and
Hindus against Christians broke out throughout India in the summer and
fall of 2008. The violence was exacerbated by a series of terrorist
attacks largely blamed on Islamic militants, including one in the northern
state of Assam that killed at least 64 people and wounded hundreds in
October. In total, well over 200 people died in the attacks.
India launched its first unmanned spacecraft in October 2008 for a
two-year mission to map a three-dimensional atlas of the Moon and search
for natural resources on the Moon's surface.
See also Encyclopedia: India.
U.S. State Dept. Country Notes:
India
Registrar General (Census Information) www.censusindia.net/ ;
Department
of Statistics (General Statistics) http://mospi.nic.in/
.
Information Please® Database, © 2008 Pearson
Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
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