India’s landscape begins at the Himalayas, a mountain range that includes some of the highest and most inhospitable peaks in the world. It continues south through sweltering deserts and jungles lush with plants — some of which grow nowhere else in the world — and ends in miles of coastal plain bordering the Indian Ocean.
The home of Gandhi and Mother Teresa is also the home of the world’s most highly militarized territorial dispute. Slums that house millions in abject poverty exist in the shadow of palatial buildings like the famous Taj Mahal.
The world’s largest democracy, made up of more than 2,000 people groups, has a fascinating history that dates back some 5,000 years.
Archaeologists have unearthed evidence of an urban culture in the Indus River valley dating back to 2500 B.C. Later, migrant groups moved from the north, east and west into the subcontinent, leaving their marks on the nation in the form of 16 major languages and 1,500 dialects. For much of its history, India was a loose collection of states ruled by various maharajahs and sultans.
By the late 1400s, India’s spices were so coveted that merchants from Europe began frantically searching for a faster route to obtain the valuable goods.
Breaking free peacefully
The British began establishing outposts in India in 1619, gradually strengthening their influence until the mid 1800s, when all authority was transferred to Britain.
Starting in the 1920s, Mohandas K. Gandhi led a passive resistance movement against British rule, which included a series of peaceful strikes. These actions eventually led to the nation’s independence in 1947 and provided the pattern for the Civil Rights movement a few years later in the United States.
Today, India is increasingly viewed as a world power, entering this millennium as a nuclear power with a strong and growing economy. Even with the growth, however, poverty remains a major issue for the heavily populated country.
Only China has a larger population than India. At more than 1 billion people, India accounts for 15 percent of the world’s population but living on only 2.4 percent of the world’s land area.
India has a strong public education system, emerging as a major exporter of computer software support.
With a well-educated English-speaking workforce, India is a major beneficiary of controversial outsourced U.S. jobs.
However, many of the poor in India do not benefit from the education system. Young children still leave school in large numbers to begin working — a situation that dooms them to a lifetime of limited possibilities.
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