India

India, officially the Republic of India,Template:Efn<ref>

• Template:Citation "Official name: Republic of India.";
• Template:Citation "Official name: Republic of India; Bharat Ganarajya (Hindi)";
• Template:Citation "Official name: Republic of India; Bharat.";
• Template:Citation "Official name: English: Republic of India; Hindi:Bharat Ganarajya";
• Template:Citation "Official name: Republic of India";
• Template:Citation "Officially, Republic of India";
• Template:Citation "Official name: Republic of India";
• Template:Citation</ref> is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area; the most populous country from June 2023 onwards;<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and since its independence in 1947, the world's most populous democracy.Template:Sfn<ref name="stein-arnold">Template:Citation</ref>Template:Sfn Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west;Template:Efn China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north; and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is near Sri Lanka and the Maldives; its Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand, Myanmar, and Indonesia.

Modern humans arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa no later than 55,000 years ago.<ref name="PetragliaAllchin">Template:Harvnb, "Y-Chromosome and Mt-DNA data support the colonization of South Asia by modern humans originating in Africa. ... Coalescence dates for most non-European populations average to between 73 and 55 ka."</ref><ref name="Dyson2018p1">Template:Harvnb, "Modern human beings—Homo sapiens—originated in Africa. Then, intermittently, sometime between 60,000 and 80,000 years ago, tiny groups of them began to enter the north-west of the Indian subcontinent. It seems likely that initially they came by way of the coast. ... it is virtually certain that there were Homo sapiens in the subcontinent 55,000 years ago, even though the earliest fossils that have been found of them date to only about 30,000 years before the present."</ref><ref name="Fisher2018p23">Template:Harvnb, "Scholars estimate that the first successful expansion of the Homo sapiens range beyond Africa and across the Arabian Peninsula occurred from as early as 80,000 years ago to as late as 40,000 years ago, although there may have been prior unsuccessful emigrations. Some of their descendants extended the human range ever further in each generation, spreading into each habitable land they encountered. One human channel was along the warm and productive coastal lands of the Persian Gulf and northern Indian Ocean. Eventually, various bands entered India between 75,000 years ago and 35,000 years ago."</ref> Their long occupation, predominantly in isolation as hunter-gatherers, has made the region highly diverse, second only to Africa in human genetic diversity.<ref name="Dyson2018-28a">Template:Harvnb</ref> Settled life emerged on the subcontinent in the western margins of the Indus river basin 9,000 years ago, evolving gradually into the Indus Valley Civilisation of the third millennium BCE.<ref name="Combined-2">(a) Template:Harvnb;
(b) Template:Harvnb</ref> By Template:BCE, an archaic form of Sanskrit, an Indo-European language, had diffused into India from the northwest.<ref>Template:Harvnb, "It consists of 1,028 hymns (sūktas), highly crafted poetic compositions originally intended for recital during rituals and for the invocation of and communication with the Indo-Aryan gods. Modern scholarly opinion largely agrees that these hymns were composed between around 1500 BCE and 1200 BCE, during the eastward migration of the Indo-Aryan tribes from the mountains of what is today northern Afghanistan across the Punjab into north India."</ref><ref name="Combined-4-Rigveda">(a) Template:Harvnb, "It is known from internal evidence that the Vedic texts were orally composed in northern India, at first in the Greater Punjab and later on also in more eastern areas, including northern Bihar, between ca. 1500 BCE and ca. 500–400 BCE. The oldest text, the Rgveda, must have been more or less contemporary with the Mitanni texts of northern Syria/Iraq (1450–1350 BCE); [...] The Vedic texts were orally composed and transmitted, without the use of script, in an unbroken line of transmission from teacher to student that was formalised early on. This ensured an impeccable textual transmission superior to the classical texts of other cultures; it is in fact something of a tape-recording of ca. 1500–500 BCE. Not just the actual words, but even the long-lost musical (tonal) accent (as in old Greek or in Japanese) has been preserved up to the present. [...] The RV text was composed before the introduction and massive use of iron, that is before ca. 1200–1000 BCE.";
(b) Template:Harvnb, "A Chronology of Hinduism: ca. 1500–1000 BCE Rig Veda; ca. 1200–900 BCE Yajur Veda, Sama Veda and Atharva Veda [...] Hindu texts began with the Rig Veda ('Knowledge of Verses'), composed in northwest India around 1500 BCE; the first of the three Vedas, it is the earliest extant text composed in Sanskrit, the language of ancient India.";
(c) Template:Harvnb, "In Punjab, a dry region with grasslands watered by five rivers (hence 'panch' and 'ab') draining the western Himalayas, one prehistoric culture left no material remains, but some of its ritual texts were preserved orally over the millennia. The culture is called Aryan, and evidence in its texts indicates that it spread slowly south-east, following the course of the Yamuna and Ganga Rivers. Its elite called itself Arya (pure) and distinguished themselves sharply from others. Aryans led kin groups organized as nomadic horse-herding tribes. Their ritual texts are called Vedas, composed in Sanskrit. Vedic Sanskrit is recorded only in hymns that were part of Vedic rituals to Aryan gods. To be Aryan apparently meant to belong to the elite among pastoral tribes. Texts that record Aryan culture are not precisely datable, but they seem to begin around 1200 BCE with four collections of Vedic hymns (Rg, Sama, Yajur, and Artharva).";
(d) Template:Harvnb, "Although the collapse of the Indus valley civilization is no longer believed to have been due to an 'Aryan invasion' it is widely thought that, at roughly the same time, or perhaps a few centuries later, new Indo-Aryan-speaking people and influences began to enter the subcontinent from the north-west. Detailed evidence is lacking. Nevertheless, a predecessor of the language that would eventually be called Sanskrit was probably introduced into the north-west sometime between 3,900 and 3,000 years ago. This language was related to one then spoken in eastern Iran; and both of these languages belonged to the Indo-European language family. [...] It seems likely that various small-scale migrations were involved in the gradual introduction of the predecessor language and associated cultural characteristics. However, there may not have been a tight relationship between movements of people on the one hand, and changes in language and culture on the other. Moreover, the process whereby a dynamic new force gradually arose—a people with a distinct ideology who eventually seem to have referred to themselves as 'Arya'—was certainly two-way. That is, it involved a blending of new features which came from outside with other features—probably including some surviving Harappan influences—that were already present. Anyhow, it would be quite a few centuries before Sanskrit was written down. And the hymns and stories of the Arya people—especially the Vedas and the later Mahabharata and Ramayana epics—are poor guides as to historical events. Of course, the emerging Arya were to have a huge impact on the history of the subcontinent. Nevertheless, little is known about their early presence.";
(e) Template:Harvnb, "The expansion of Aryan culture is supposed to have begun around 1500 BCE. It should not be thought that this Aryan emergence (though it implies some migration) necessarily meant either a sudden invasion of new peoples, or a complete break with earlier traditions. It comprises a set of cultural ideas and practices, upheld by a Sanskrit-speaking elite, or Aryans. The features of this society are recorded in the Vedas."</ref> Its hymns recorded the dawning of Hinduism in India.<ref name="Combined-3">(a) Template:Citation;
(b) Template:Citation;
(c) Template:Cite book
(d) Template:Cite book</ref> India's pre-existing Dravidian languages were supplanted in the northern regions.<ref name="Combined-4">Template:Harvnb</ref> By Template:BCE, caste had emerged within Hinduism,<ref name="Dyson2018-16a">Template:Harvnb</ref> and Buddhism and Jainism had arisen, proclaiming social orders unlinked to heredity.<ref name="Fisher2018-59">Template:Harvnb</ref> Early political consolidations gave rise to the loose-knit Maurya and Gupta Empires.<ref name="Combined-5">(a) Template:Harvnb;
(b) Template:Harvnb;
(c) Template:Harvnb;
(d) Template:Harvnb.</ref> Widespread creativity suffused this era,<ref name="Combined-6">(a) Template:Harvnb;
(b) Template:Citation</ref> but the status of women declined,<ref name="Combined-7">(a) Template:Harvnb;
(b) Template:Harvnb;
(c) Template:Citation</ref> and untouchability became an organized belief.Template:EfnTemplate:Sfn In South India, the Middle kingdoms exported Dravidian language scripts and religious cultures to the kingdoms of Southeast Asia.<ref name="AsherAsher2006-17">Template:Harvnb</ref>

In the early medieval era, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism became established on India's southern and western coasts.<ref name="Combined-8">(a) Template:Harvnb;
(b) Template:Harvnb;
(c) Template:Harvnb</ref> Muslim armies from Central Asia intermittently overran India's northern plains.<ref name="Combined-13">(a) Template:Harvnb;
(b) Template:Harvnb</ref> The resulting Delhi Sultanate drew northern India into the cosmopolitan networks of medieval Islam.<ref name="Combined-10">(a) Template:Harvnb;
(b) Template:Harvnb</ref> In south India, the Vijayanagara Empire created a long-lasting composite Hindu culture.<ref name="AsherAsher2006-74">Template:Harvnb</ref> In the Punjab, Sikhism emerged, rejecting institutionalised religion.<ref name="AsherAsher2006-267">Template:Harvnb</ref> The Mughal Empire, in 1526, ushered in two centuries of relative peace,<ref name="AsherAsher2006-152">Template:Harvnb</ref> leaving a legacy of luminous architecture.Template:Efn<ref name="Fisher2018-106">Template:Harvnb</ref> Gradually expanding rule of the British East India Company turned India into a colonial economy but consolidated its sovereignty.<ref name="Combined-11">(a) Template:Harvnb
(b) Template:Harvnb</ref> British Crown rule began in 1858. The rights promised to Indians were granted slowly,<ref name="Combined-12">Template:Citation</ref>Template:Sfn but technological changes were introduced, and modern ideas of education and public life took root.<ref name="EmbreeHay1988">Template:Citation</ref> A pioneering and influential nationalist movement, noted for nonviolent resistance, became the major factor in ending British rule.<ref name="Marshall2001">Template:Citation</ref><ref name="Chiriyankandath2016">Template:Citation</ref> In 1947, the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two independent dominions,<ref name="fisher-partition">Template:Harvnb: "The partition of South Asia that produced India and West and East Pakistan resulted from years of bitter negotiations and recriminations ... The departing British also decreed that the hundreds of princes, who ruled one-third of the subcontinent and a quarter of its population, became legally independent, their status to be settled later. Geographical location, personal and popular sentiment, and substantial pressure and incentives from the new governments led almost all princes eventually to merge their domains into either Pakistan or India. ... Each new government asserted its exclusive sovereignty within its borders, realigning all territories, animals, plants, minerals, and all other natural and human-made resources as either Pakistani or Indian property, to be used for its national development... Simultaneously, the central civil and military services and judiciary split roughly along religious 'communal' lines, even as they divided movable government assets according to a negotiated formula: 22.7 percent for Pakistan and 77.3 percent for India."</ref><ref name="chatterji-partition">Template:Citation</ref><ref name="talbot-sing">Template:Citation</ref><ref name="khan-great-partition">Template:Citation</ref> a Hindu-majority dominion of India and a Muslim-majority dominion of Pakistan. A large-scale loss of life and an unprecedented migration accompanied the partition.<ref>(a) Template:Harvnb;
(b) Template:Harvnb.</ref>

India has been a federal republic since 1950, governed through a democratic parliamentary system. It is a pluralistic, multilingual and multi-ethnic society. India's population grew from 361 million in 1951 to over 1.4 billion in 2023.<ref name="Dyson2018-219">Template:Harvnb</ref> During this time, its nominal per capita income increased from US$64 annually to US$2,601, and its literacy rate from 16.6% to 74%. A comparatively destitute country in 1951,<ref name="Fisher2018-8">Template:Harvnb</ref> India has become a fast-growing major economy and hub for information technology services; it has an expanding middle class.<ref name="MetcalfMetcalf2012-265">Template:Harvnb</ref> Indian movies and music increasingly influence global culture.<ref name="MetcalfMetcalf2012-266">Template:Harvnb</ref> India has reduced its poverty rate, though at the cost of increasing economic inequality.<ref name="Dyson2018-216-a">Template:Harvnb</ref> It is a nuclear-weapon state that ranks high in military expenditure. It has disputes over Kashmir with its neighbours, Pakistan and China, unresolved since the mid-20th century.<ref name="kashmir-disputes">(a) Template:Citation;
(b) Template:Citation;
(c) Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> Among the socio-economic challenges India faces are gender inequality, child malnutrition,<ref name="NarayanJohn2018-lead">Template:Cite journal</ref> and rising levels of air pollution.<ref name="BalakrishnanDey2019-lead">Template:Cite journal</ref> India's land is megadiverse with four biodiversity hotspots.<ref name="IUCN-India">Template:Citation</ref> India's wildlife, which has traditionally been viewed with tolerance in its culture,Template:Sfn is supported in protected habitats.

Etymology

Template:Main According to the Oxford English Dictionary (2009), the name "India" is derived from the Classical Latin India, a reference to South Asia and an uncertain region to its east. In turn "India" derived successively from Hellenistic Greek Template:Tlit (Template:Lang), Ancient Greek Template:Tlit (Template:Lang), Old Persian Template:Tlit (an eastern province of the Achaemenid Empire), and ultimately its cognate, the Sanskrit Template:Tlit, or 'river'—specifically the Indus River, and by extension its well-settled southern basin.<ref>Template:Citation (subscription required)</ref>Template:Sfn The Ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Template:Tlit, 'the people of the Indus'.Template:Sfn

The term Bharat (Template:Transliteration; Template:IPA), mentioned in both Indian epic poetry and the Constitution of India,Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Citation</ref> is used in its variations by many Indian languages. A modern rendering of the historical name Template:Tlit, which applied originally to North India,<ref name="Jha2014">Template:Citation</ref>Template:Sfn Bharat gained increased currency from the mid-19th century as a native name for India.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Hindustan (Template:IPA) is a Middle Persian name for India that became popular by the 13th century,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and was used widely since the era of the Mughal Empire. The meaning of Hindustan has varied, referring to a region encompassing the northern Indian subcontinent (present-day northern India and Pakistan) or to India in its near entirety.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn<ref>Template:Citation</ref>

History

Ancient India

File:Battle at Lanka, Ramayana, Udaipur, 1649-53.jpg

Manuscript illustration, Template:Circa, of the Sanskrit epic Ramayana, composed in story-telling fashion Template:Circa<ref name="Lowe2017-epic">Template:Cite book</ref>

By 55,000 years ago, the first modern humans, or Homo sapiens, had arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa.<ref name="PetragliaAllchin" /><ref name="Dyson2018p1" /><ref name="Fisher2018p23" /> The earliest known modern human remains in South Asia date to about 30,000 years ago.<ref name="PetragliaAllchin" /> After Template:BCE, evidence for domestication of food crops and animals, construction of permanent structures, and storage of agricultural surplus appeared in Mehrgarh and other sites in Balochistan, Pakistan.Template:Sfn These gradually developed into the Indus Valley Civilisation,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn the first urban culture in South Asia,Template:Sfn which flourished during Template:BCE in Pakistan and western India.Template:Sfn Centred around cities such as Mohenjo-daro, Harappa, Dholavira, and Kalibangan, and relying on varied forms of subsistence, the civilisation engaged robustly in crafts production and wide-ranging trade.Template:Sfn

During the period Template:BCE, many regions of the subcontinent transitioned from the Chalcolithic cultures to the Iron Age ones.Template:Sfn The Vedas, the oldest scriptures associated with Hinduism,Template:Sfn were composed during this period,Template:Sfn and historians have analysed these to posit a Vedic culture in the Punjab region and the upper Gangetic Plain.Template:Sfn Most historians also consider this period to have encompassed several waves of Indo-Aryan migration into the subcontinent from the north-west.Template:Sfn The caste system, which created a hierarchy of priests, warriors, and free peasants, but which excluded indigenous peoples by labelling their occupations impure, arose during this period.Template:Sfn On the Deccan Plateau, archaeological evidence from this period suggests the existence of a chiefdom stage of political organisation.Template:Sfn In South India, a progression to sedentary life is indicated by the large number of megalithic monuments dating from this period,Template:Sfn as well as by nearby traces of agriculture, irrigation tanks, and craft traditions.Template:Sfn

File:Cave 26, Ajanta.jpg

Cave 26 of the rock-cut Ajanta Caves

In the late Vedic period, around the 6th century BCE, the small states and chiefdoms of the Ganges Plain and the north-western regions had consolidated into 16 major oligarchies and monarchies that were known as the mahajanapadas.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The emerging urbanisation gave rise to non-Vedic religious movements, two of which became independent religions. Jainism came into prominence during the life of its exemplar, Mahavira.Template:Sfn Buddhism, based on the teachings of Gautama Buddha, attracted followers from all social classes excepting the middle class; chronicling the life of the Buddha was central to the beginnings of recorded history in India.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn In an age of increasing urban wealth, both religions held up renunciation as an ideal,Template:Sfn and both established long-lasting monastic traditions. Politically, by the 3rd century BCE, the kingdom of Magadha had annexed or reduced other states to emerge as the Maurya Empire.Template:Sfn The empire was once thought to have controlled most of the subcontinent except the far south, but its core regions are now thought to have been separated by large autonomous areas.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The Mauryan kings are known as much for their empire-building and determined management of public life as for Ashoka's renunciation of militarism and far-flung advocacy of the Buddhist dhamma.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

The Sangam literature of the Tamil language reveals that, between Template:BCE and Template:CE, the southern peninsula was ruled by the Cheras, the Cholas, and the Pandyas, dynasties that traded extensively with the Roman Empire and with West and Southeast Asia.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn In North India, Hinduism asserted patriarchal control within the family, leading to increased subordination of women.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn By the 4th and 5th centuries, the Gupta Empire had created a complex system of administration and taxation in the greater Ganges Plain; this system became a model for later Indian kingdoms.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Under the Guptas, a renewed Hinduism based on devotion, rather than the management of ritual, began to assert itself.Template:Sfn This renewal was reflected in a flowering of sculpture and architecture, which found patrons among an urban elite.Template:Sfn Classical Sanskrit literature flowered as well, and Indian science, astronomy, medicine, and mathematics made significant advances.Template:Sfn

Medieval India

Template:Main Template:Multiple image The Indian early medieval age, from Template:CE, is defined by regional kingdoms and cultural diversity.Template:Sfn When Harsha of Kannauj, who ruled much of the Indo-Gangetic Plain from Template:CE, attempted to expand southwards, he was defeated by the Chalukya ruler of the Deccan.Template:Sfn When his successor attempted to expand eastwards, he was defeated by the Pala king of Bengal.Template:Sfn When the Chalukyas attempted to expand southwards, they were defeated by the Pallavas from farther south, who in turn were opposed by the Pandyas and the Cholas from still farther south.Template:Sfn No ruler of this period was able to create an empire and consistently control lands much beyond their core region.Template:Sfn During this time, pastoral peoples, whose land had been cleared to make way for the growing agricultural economy, were accommodated within caste society, as were new non-traditional ruling classes.Template:Sfn The caste system consequently began to show regional differences.Template:Sfn

In the 6th and 7th centuries, the first devotional hymns were created in the Tamil language.Template:Sfn They were imitated all over India and led to both the resurgence of Hinduism and the development of all modern languages of the subcontinent.Template:Sfn Indian royalty, big and small, and the temples they patronised drew citizens in great numbers to the capital cities, which became economic hubs as well.Template:Sfn Temple towns of various sizes began to appear everywhere as India underwent another urbanisation.Template:Sfn By the 8th and 9th centuries, the effects were felt in Southeast Asia, as South Indian culture and political systems were exported to lands that became part of modern-day Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Brunei, Cambodia, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia.Template:Sfn Indian merchants, scholars, and sometimes armies were involved in this transmission; Southeast Asians took the initiative as well, with many sojourning in Indian seminaries and translating Buddhist and Hindu texts into their languages.Template:Sfn

After the 10th century, Muslim Central Asian nomadic clans, using swift-horse cavalry and raising vast armies united by ethnicity and religion, repeatedly overran South Asia's north-western plains, leading eventually to the establishment of the Islamic Delhi Sultanate in 1206.Template:Sfn The sultanate was to control much of North India and to make many forays into South India. Although at first disruptive for the Indian elites, the sultanate largely left its vast non-Muslim subject population to its own laws and customs.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn By repeatedly repulsing Mongol raiders in the 13th century, the sultanate saved India from the devastation visited on West and Central Asia, setting the scene for centuries of migration of fleeing soldiers, learned men, mystics, traders, artists, and artisans from that region into the subcontinent, thereby creating a syncretic Indo-Islamic culture in the north.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The sultanate's raiding and weakening of the regional kingdoms of South India paved the way for the indigenous Vijayanagara Empire.Template:Sfn Embracing a strong Shaivite tradition and building upon the military technology of the sultanate, the empire came to control much of peninsular India,Template:Sfn and was to influence South Indian society for long afterwards.Template:Sfn

Early modern India

In the early 16th century, northern India, then under mainly Muslim rulers,Template:Sfn fell again to the superior mobility and firepower of a new generation of Central Asian warriors.Template:Sfn The resulting Mughal Empire did not stamp out the local societies it came to rule. Instead, it balanced and pacified them through new administrative practicesTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn and diverse and inclusive ruling elites,Template:Sfn leading to more systematic, centralised, and uniform rule.Template:Sfn Eschewing tribal bonds and Islamic identity, especially under Akbar, the Mughals united their far-flung realms through loyalty, expressed through a Persianised culture, to an emperor who had near-divine status.Template:Sfn The Mughal state's economic policies, deriving most revenues from agricultureTemplate:Sfn and mandating that taxes be paid in the well-regulated silver currency,Template:Sfn caused peasants and artisans to enter larger markets.Template:Sfn The relative peace maintained by the empire during much of the 17th century was a factor in India's economic expansion,Template:Sfn resulting in greater patronage of painting, literary forms, textiles, and architecture.Template:Sfn Newly coherent social groups in northern and western India, such as the Marathas, the Rajputs, and the Sikhs, gained military and governing ambitions during Mughal rule, which, through collaboration or adversity, gave them both recognition and military experience.Template:Sfn Expanding commerce during Mughal rule gave rise to new Indian commercial and political elites along the coasts of southern and eastern India.Template:Sfn As the empire disintegrated, many among these elites were able to seek and control their own affairs.Template:Sfn

By the early 18th century, with the lines between commercial and political dominance being increasingly blurred, a number of European trading companies, including the English East India Company, had established coastal outposts.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The East India Company's control of the seas, greater resources, and more advanced military training and technology led it to increasingly assert its military strength and caused it to become attractive to a portion of the Indian elite; these factors were crucial in allowing the company to gain control over the Bengal region by 1765 and sideline the other European companies.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn Its further access to the riches of Bengal and the subsequent increased strength and size of its army enabled it to annex or subdue most of India by the 1820s.Template:Sfn India was then no longer exporting manufactured goods as it long had, but was instead supplying the British Empire with raw materials. Many historians consider this to be the onset of India's colonial period.Template:Sfn By this time, with its economic power severely curtailed by the British parliament and having effectively been made an arm of British administration, the East India Company began more consciously to enter non-economic arenas, including education, social reform, and culture.Template:Sfn

Modern India

Template:Main Historians consider India's modern age to have begun sometime between 1848 and 1885. The appointment in 1848 of Lord Dalhousie as Governor General of the East India Company set the stage for changes essential to a modern state. These included the consolidation and demarcation of sovereignty, the surveillance of the population, and the education of citizens. Technological changes—among them, railways, canals, and the telegraph—were introduced not long after their introduction in Europe.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn However, disaffection with the company also grew during this time and set off the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Fed by diverse resentments and perceptions, including invasive British-style social reforms, harsh land taxes, and summary treatment of some rich landowners and princes, the rebellion rocked many regions of northern and central India and shook the foundations of Company rule.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Although the rebellion was suppressed by 1858, it led to the dissolution of the East India Company and the direct administration of India by the British government. Proclaiming a unitary state and a gradual but limited British-style parliamentary system, the new rulers also protected princes and landed gentry as a feudal safeguard against future unrest.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn In the decades following, public life gradually emerged all over India, leading eventually to the founding of the Indian National Congress in 1885.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn

The rush of technology and the commercialisation of agriculture in the second half of the 19th century was marked by economic setbacks, and many small farmers became dependent on the whims of far-away markets.Template:Sfn There was an increase in the number of large-scale famines,Template:Sfn and, despite the risks of infrastructure development borne by Indian taxpayers, little industrial employment was generated for Indians.Template:Sfn There were also salutary effects: commercial cropping, especially in the newly canalled Punjab, led to increased food production for internal consumption.Template:Sfn The railway network provided critical famine relief,Template:Sfn notably reduced the cost of moving goods,Template:Sfn and helped nascent Indian-owned industry.Template:Sfn

After World War I, in which approximately one million Indians served,Template:Sfn a new period began. It was marked by British reforms but also repressive legislation, by more strident Indian calls for self-rule, and by the beginnings of a nonviolent movement of non-co-operation, of which Mahatma Gandhi would become the leader and enduring symbol.Template:Sfn During the 1930s, slow legislative reform was enacted by the British; the Indian National Congress won victories in the resulting elections.Template:Sfn The next decade was beset with crises: Indian participation in World War II, the Congress's final push for non-co-operation, and an upsurge of Muslim nationalism. All were capped by the advent of independence in 1947, but tempered by the partition of India into two states: India and Pakistan.Template:Sfn

Vital to India's self-image as an independent nation was its constitution, completed in 1950, which put in place a secular and democratic republic.Template:Sfn Economic liberalisation, which began in the 1980s and the collaboration with Soviet Union for technical know-how,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> has created a large urban middle class, transformed India into one of the world's fastest-growing economies,<ref>Template:Citation</ref> and increased its geopolitical clout. Yet, India is also shaped by seemingly unyielding poverty, both rural and urban;Template:Sfn by religious and caste-related violence;Template:Sfn by Maoist-inspired Naxalite insurgencies;Template:Sfn and by separatism in Jammu and Kashmir and in Northeast India.Template:Sfn It has unresolved territorial disputes with ChinaTemplate:Sfn and with Pakistan.Template:Sfn India's sustained democratic freedoms are unique among the world's newer nations; however, in spite of its recent economic successes, freedom from want for its disadvantaged population remains a goal yet to be achieved.Template:Sfn

Geography

Template:Main India accounts for the bulk of the Indian subcontinent, lying atop the Indian tectonic plate, a part of the Indo-Australian Plate.Template:Sfn India's defining geological processes began 75 million years ago when the Indian Plate, then part of the southern supercontinent Gondwana, began a north-eastward drift caused by seafloor spreading to its south-west, and later, south and south-east.Template:Sfn Simultaneously, the vast Tethyan oceanic crust, to its northeast, began to subduct under the Eurasian Plate.Template:Sfn These dual processes, driven by convection in the Earth's mantle, both created the Indian Ocean and caused the Indian continental crust eventually to under-thrust Eurasia and to uplift the Himalayas.Template:Sfn Immediately south of the emerging Himalayas, plate movement created a vast crescent-shaped trough that rapidly filled with river-borne sedimentTemplate:Sfn and now constitutes the Indo-Gangetic Plain.Template:Sfn The original Indian plate makes its first appearance above the sediment in the ancient Aravalli range, which extends from the Delhi Ridge in a southwesterly direction. To the west lies the Thar Desert, the eastern spread of which is checked by the Aravallis.<ref name="aravalli">Template:Harvnb, " The Aravalli range boldy defines the eastern limit of the arid and semi-arid zone. Probably the more humid conditions that prevail near the Aravallis prevented the extension of aridity towards the east and the Ganges Valley. It is noteworthy that, wherever there are gaps in this range, sand has advanced to the east of it."</ref><ref name="prasad-aravalli">Template:Harvnb, " The topography of the Indian Desert is dominated by the Aravalli Ranges on its eastern border, which consist largely of tightly folded and highly metamorphosed Archaean rocks."</ref><ref name="fisher-aravalli">Template:Harvnb, " East of the lower Indus lay the inhospitable Rann of Kutch and Thar Desert. East of the upper Indus lay the more promising but narrow corridor between the Himalayan foothills on the north and the Thar Desert and Aravalli Mountains on the south. At the strategic choke point, just before reaching the fertile, well-watered Gangetic plain, sat Delhi. On this site, where life giving streams running off the most northern spur of the rocky Aravalli ridge flowed into the Jumna river, and where the war-horse and war-elephant trade intersected, a series of dynasties built fortified capitals."</ref>

The remaining Indian Plate survives as peninsular India, the oldest and geologically most stable part of India. It extends as far north as the Satpura and Vindhya ranges in central India. These parallel chains run from the Arabian Sea coast in Gujarat in the west to the coal-rich Chota Nagpur Plateau in Jharkhand in the east.Template:Sfn To the south, the remaining peninsular landmass, the Deccan Plateau, is flanked on the west and east by coastal ranges known as the Western and Eastern Ghats;Template:Sfn the plateau contains the country's oldest rock formations, some over one billion years old. Constituted in such fashion, India lies to the north of the equator between 6° 44′ and 35° 30′ north latitudeTemplate:Efn and 68° 7′ and 97° 25′ east longitude.Template:Sfn

India's coastline measures Template:Convert in length; of this distance, Template:Convert belong to peninsular India and Template:Convert to the Andaman, Nicobar, and Lakshadweep island chains.Template:Sfn According to the Indian naval hydrographic charts, the mainland coastline consists of the following: 43% sandy beaches; 11% rocky shores, including cliffs; and 46% mudflats or marshy shores.Template:Sfn

Major Himalayan-origin rivers that substantially flow through India include the Ganges and the Brahmaputra, both of which drain into the Bay of Bengal.Template:Sfn Important tributaries of the Ganges include the Yamuna and the Kosi; the latter's extremely low gradient, caused by long-term silt deposition, leads to severe floods and course changes.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Major peninsular rivers, whose steeper gradients prevent their waters from flooding, include the Godavari, the Mahanadi, the Kaveri, and the Krishna, which also drain into the Bay of Bengal;Template:Sfn and the Narmada and the Tapti, which drain into the Arabian Sea.Template:Sfn Coastal features include the marshy Rann of Kutch of western India and the alluvial Sundarbans delta of eastern India; the latter is shared with Bangladesh.Template:Sfn India has two archipelagos: the Lakshadweep, coral atolls off India's south-western coast; and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a volcanic chain in the Andaman Sea.Template:Sfn

Indian climate is strongly influenced by the Himalayas and the Thar Desert, both of which drive the economically and culturally pivotal summer and winter monsoons.Template:Sfn The Himalayas prevent cold Central Asian katabatic winds from blowing in, keeping the bulk of the Indian subcontinent warmer than most locations at similar latitudes.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The Thar Desert plays a crucial role in attracting the moisture-laden south-west summer monsoon winds that, between June and October, provide the majority of India's rainfall.Template:Sfn Four major climatic groupings predominate in India: tropical wet, tropical dry, subtropical humid, and montane.Template:Sfn

Temperatures in India have risen by Template:Convert between 1901 and 2018.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Climate change in India is often thought to be the cause. The retreat of Himalayan glaciers has adversely affected the flow rate of the major Himalayan rivers, including the Ganges and the Brahmaputra.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> According to some current projections, the number and severity of droughts in India will have markedly increased by the end of the present century.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Biodiversity

India is a megadiverse country, a term employed for 17 countries that display high biological diversity and contain many species exclusively indigenous, or endemic, to them.<ref>Template:Citation</ref> India is the habitat for 8.6% of all mammals, 13.7% of bird species, 7.9% of reptile species, 6% of amphibian species, 12.2% of fish species, and 6.0% of all flowering plant species.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Puri">Template:Citation</ref> Fully a third of Indian plant species are endemic.Template:Sfn India also contains four of the world's 34 biodiversity hotspots,<ref name="IUCN-India" /> or regions that display significant habitat loss in the presence of high endemism.Template:Efn<ref name="SivaperumanVenkataraman2018">Template:Citation</ref>

India's most dense forests, such as the tropical moist forest of the Andaman Islands, the Western Ghats, and Northeast India, occupy approximately 3% of its land area.<ref name="Jha2018">Template:Citation</ref><ref name="indiaforest">Template:Cite web</ref> Moderately dense forest, whose canopy density is between 40% and 70%, occupies 9.39% of India's land area.<ref name="Jha2018" /><ref name="indiaforest" /> It predominates in the temperate coniferous forest of the Himalayas, the moist deciduous sal forest of eastern India, and the dry deciduous teak forest of central and southern India.Template:Sfn India has two natural zones of thorn forest, one in the Deccan Plateau, immediately east of the Western Ghats, and the other in the western part of the Indo-Gangetic plain, now turned into rich agricultural land by irrigation, its features no longer visible.Template:Sfn

Among the Indian subcontinent's notable indigenous trees are the astringent Azadirachta indica, or neem, which is widely used in rural Indian herbal medicine,<ref name="Goyal2006">Template:Citation Quote: "The Indian government successfully argued that the medicinal neem tree is part of traditional Indian knowledge. (page 295)"</ref> and the luxuriant Ficus religiosa, or peepul,<ref name="Hughes2013">Template:Citation</ref> which is displayed on the ancient seals of Mohenjo-daro,<ref name="AmeriCostello2018">Template:Citation Quote: "The last of the centaurs has the long, wavy, horizontal horns of a markhor, a human face, a heavy-set body that appears bovine, and a goat tail ... This figure is often depicted by itself, but it is also consistently represented in scenes that seem to reflect the adoration of a figure in a pipal tree or arbour and which may be termed ritual. These include fully detailed scenes like that visible in the large 'divine adoration' seal from Mohenjo-daro."</ref> and under which the Buddha is recorded in the Pali canon to have sought enlightenment.<ref name="Gwynne2011">Template:Citation</ref>

Many Indian species have descended from those of Gondwana, the southern supercontinent from which India separated more than 100 million years ago.Template:Sfn India's subsequent collision with Eurasia set off a mass exchange of species. However, volcanism and climatic changes later caused the extinction of many endemic Indian forms.Template:Sfn Still later, mammals entered India from Asia through two zoogeographic passes flanking the Himalayas.Template:Sfn This had the effect of lowering endemism among India's mammals, which stands at 12.6%, contrasting with 45.8% among reptiles and 55.8% among amphibians.<ref name="Puri" /> Among endemics are the vulnerable<ref>Template:Cite iucn</ref> hooded leaf monkey<ref name="itis">Template:Cite web</ref> and the threatened Beddome's toad<ref name="IUCN">Template:Cite iucn</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> of the Western Ghats.

India contains 172 IUCN-designated threatened animal species, or 2.9% of endangered forms.Template:Sfn These include the endangered Bengal tiger and the Ganges river dolphin. Critically endangered species include the gharial, a crocodilian; the great Indian bustard; and the Indian white-rumped vulture, which has become nearly extinct by having ingested the carrion of diclofenac-treated cattle.<ref name="LovetteFitzpatrick2016">Template:Citation</ref> Before they were extensively used for agriculture and cleared for human settlement, the thorn forests of Punjab were mingled at intervals with open grasslands that were grazed by large herds of blackbuck preyed on by the Asiatic cheetah; the blackbuck, no longer extant in Punjab, is now severely endangered in India, and the cheetah is extinct.Template:Sfn The pervasive and ecologically devastating human encroachment of recent decades has critically endangered Indian wildlife. In response, the system of national parks and protected areas, first established in 1935, was expanded substantially. In 1972, India enacted the Wildlife Protection ActTemplate:Sfn and Project Tiger to safeguard crucial wilderness; the Forest Conservation Act was enacted in 1980 and amendments added in 1988.Template:Sfn India hosts more than five hundred wildlife sanctuaries and [[Biosphere reserves of India|eighteenTemplate:Nbspbiosphere reserves]],<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> four of which are part of the World Network of Biosphere Reserves; its eighty-nine wetlands are registered under the Ramsar Convention.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

• India has the majority of the world's wild tigers, approximately 3,170 in 2022.<ref>Template:Citation</ref>
  India has the majority of the world's wild tigers, approximately 3,170 in 2022.<ref>Template:Citation</ref>
• A chital (Axis axis) stag in the Nagarhole National Park in a region covered by a moderately denseTemplate:Efn forest.
  A chital (Axis axis) stag in the Nagarhole National Park in a region covered by a moderately denseTemplate:Efn forest.
• Three of the last Asiatic cheetahs in India were shot dead in 1948 in Surguja district, Madhya Pradesh, Central India by Maharajah Ramanuj Pratap Singh Deo. The young male cheetahs, all from the same litter, were sitting together when they were shot at night.
  Three of the last Asiatic cheetahs in India were shot dead in 1948 in Surguja district, Madhya Pradesh, Central India by Maharajah Ramanuj Pratap Singh Deo. The young male cheetahs, all from the same litter, were sitting together when they were shot at night.

Politics and government

Politics

A parliamentary republic with a multi-party system,Template:Sfn India has sixTemplate:Nbsprecognised national parties, including the Indian National Congress (INC) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and more than 50Template:Nbspregional parties.Template:Sfn The Congress is considered center in Indian political culture,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> and the BJP right-wing.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> For most of the period between 1950—when India first became a republic—and the late 1980s, the Congress held a majority in the Parliament. Since then, however, it has increasingly shared the political stage with the BJP,Template:Sfn as well as with powerful regional parties which have often forced the creation of multi-party coalition governments at the center.Template:Sfn

In the Republic of India's first three general elections, in 1951, 1957, and 1962, the Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru-led Congress won easy victories. On Nehru's death in 1964, Lal Bahadur Shastri briefly became prime minister; he was succeeded, after his own unexpected death in 1966, by Nehru's daughter Indira Gandhi, who went on to lead the Congress to election victories in 1967 and 1971. Following public discontent with the state of emergency she declared in 1975, the Congress was voted out of power in 1977; the then-new Janata Party, which had opposed the emergency, was voted in. Its government lasted just over two years. There were two prime ministers during this period; Morarji Desai and Charan Singh. Voted back into power in 1980, the Congress saw a change in leadership in 1984, when Indira Gandhi was assassinated; she was succeeded by her son Rajiv Gandhi, who won an easy victory in the general elections later that year. The Congress was voted out again in 1989 when a National Front coalition, led by the newly formed Janata Dal in alliance with the Left Front, won the elections; that government too proved relatively short-lived, lasting just under two years. There were two prime ministers during this period; V.P. Singh and Chandra Shekhar.Template:Sfn Elections were held again in 1991; no party won an absolute majority. The Congress, as the largest single party, was able to form a minority government led by P. V. Narasimha Rao.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

A two-year period of political turmoil followed the general election of 1996. Several short-lived alliances shared power at the centre. The BJP formed a government briefly in 1996; it was followed by two comparatively long-lasting United Front coalitions, which depended on external support. There were two prime ministers during this period; H.D. Deve Gowda and I.K. Gujral. In 1998, the BJP was able to form a successful coalition, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the NDA became the first non-Congress, coalition government to complete a five-year term.Template:Sfn Again in the 2004 Indian general elections, no party won an absolute majority, but the Congress emerged as the largest single party, forming another successful coalition: the United Progressive Alliance (UPA). It had the support of left-leaning parties and MPs who opposed the BJP. The UPA returned to power in the 2009 general election with increased numbers, and it no longer required external support from India's communist parties.Template:Sfn That year, Manmohan Singh became the first prime minister since Jawaharlal Nehru in 1957 and 1962 to be re-elected to a consecutive five-year term.Template:Sfn In the 2014 general election, the BJP became the first political party since 1984 to win a majority and govern without the support of other parties.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In the 2019 general election, the BJP was victorious again with majority. In the 2024 general election, the BJP failed to achieve majority and the BJP-led NDA coalition formed the government. Narendra Modi, a former chief minister of Gujarat, is serving as the prime minister of India in his third term since May 26, 2014.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Government

India is a federation with a parliamentary system governed under the Constitution of India—the country's supreme legal document. It is a constitutional republic. Federalism in India defines the power distribution between the union and the states. The Constitution of India, which came into effect on 26 January 1950,Template:Sfn originally stated India to be a "democratic republic;" this characterisation was amended in 1971 to a "socialist, secular, democratic republic".Template:Sfn India's form of government, traditionally described as "quasi-federal" with a strong centre and weak states,Template:Sfn has grown increasingly federal since the late 1990s as a result of political, economic, and social changes.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

The Government of India comprises three branches: the Executive, Legislature, and Judiciary.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The President of India is the ceremonial head of state,Template:Sfn who is elected indirectly for a five-year term by an electoral college comprising members of national and state legislatures.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The Prime Minister of India is the head of government and exercises most executive power.Template:Sfn Appointed by the president,Template:Sfn the prime minister is by convention supported by the party or political alliance having a majority of seats in the lower house of parliament.Template:Sfn The executive of the Indian government consists of the president, the vice-president, and the Union Council of Ministers—with the cabinet being its executive committee—headed by the prime minister. Any minister holding a portfolio must be a member of one of the houses of parliament.Template:Sfn In the Indian parliamentary system, the executive is subordinate to the legislature; the prime minister and their council are directly responsible to the lower house of the parliament. Civil servants act as permanent executives and all decisions of the executive are implemented by them.Template:Sfn

The legislature of India is the bicameral parliament. Operating under a Westminster-style parliamentary system, it comprises an upper house called the Rajya Sabha (Council of States) and a lower house called the Lok Sabha (House of the People).Template:Sfn The Rajya Sabha is a permanent body of 245Template:Nbspmembers who serve staggered six-year terms with elections every 2 years.Template:Sfn Most are elected indirectly by the state and union territorial legislatures in numbers proportional to their state's share of the national population.Template:Sfn The Lok Sabha's 543Template:Nbspmembers are elected directly by popular vote among citizens aged at least 18;Template:Sfn they represent single-member constituencies for five-yearTemplate:Nbspterms.Template:Sfn The Indian constitution historically allowed for the nomination of Anglo-Indians to two seats in the Lok Sabha; this provision was removed in 2019.Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> A number of seats from each state are reserved for candidates from Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in proportion to their population within that state.Template:Sfn

India has a three-tierTemplate:Nbspunitary independent judiciaryTemplate:Sfn comprising the supreme court, headed by the Chief Justice of India, 25Template:Nbsphigh courts, and a large number of trial courts.Template:Sfn The supreme court has original jurisdiction over cases involving fundamental rights and over disputes between states and the centre and has appellate jurisdiction over the high courts.Template:Sfn It has the power to both strike down union or state laws which contravene the constitutionTemplate:Sfn and invalidate any government action it deems unconstitutional.Template:Sfn

Administrative divisions

Template:Main Template:See also Template:Indian states and territories image map India is a federal union comprising 28 states and 8 union territories.Template:Sfn All states, as well as the union territories of Jammu and Kashmir, Puducherry and the National Capital Territory of Delhi, have elected legislatures and governments following the Westminster system. The remaining five union territories are directly ruled by the central government through appointed administrators. In 1956, under the States Reorganisation Act, states were reorganised on a linguistic basis.Template:Sfn There are over a quarter of a million local government bodies at city, town, block, district and village levels.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Foreign, economic, and strategic relations

Template:Main Template:Multiple image India became a republic in 1950 and chose to stay in the Commonwealth of Nations.<ref name="storm-india-commonwealth">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Throughout the decade, India strongly supported decolonisation in Africa and Asia and played a leading role in the Non-Aligned Movement.Template:Sfn After initially cordial relations with neighbouring China, India went to war with China in 1962 and was widely thought to have been humiliated.<ref name=62-humiliation>(a) Template:Citation
(b) Template:Citation
(c) Template:Citation
(d) Template:Citation
(e) Template:Citation
(f) Template:Citation</ref> This was followed by another military conflict in 1967 in which India successfully repelled Chinese attack.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> India has had tense relations with neighbouring Pakistan. The two have gone to war four times: in 1947, 1965, 1971, and 1999. Three of these wars were fought over the disputed territory of Kashmir, while the third, the 1971 war, followed from India's support for the independence of Bangladesh.Template:Sfn In the late 1980s, the Indian military twice intervened abroad at the invitation of the host country: a peace-keeping operation in Sri Lanka between 1987 and 1990; and an armed intervention to prevent a 1988 coup d'état attempt in the Maldives. After the 1965 war with Pakistan, India began to pursue close military and economic ties with the Soviet Union; by the late 1960s, the Soviet Union was its largest arms supplier.Template:Sfn

Aside from its ongoing special relationship with Russia,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> India has wide-ranging defence relations with Israel and France. In recent years, it has played key roles in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation and the World Trade Organization. The nation has provided 100,000 military and police personnel to serve in 35 UN peacekeeping operations across four continents. It participates in the East Asia Summit, the G8+5, and other multilateral forums.Template:Sfn India has close economic ties with countries in South America,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Asia, and Africa; it pursues a "Look East" policy that seeks to strengthen partnerships with the ASEAN nations, Japan, and South Korea that revolve around many issues, but especially those involving economic investment and regional security.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

China's nuclear test of 1964, as well as its repeated threats to intervene in support of Pakistan in the 1965 war, convinced India to develop nuclear weapons.Template:Sfn India conducted its first nuclear weapons test in 1974 and carried out additional underground testing in 1998. Despite criticism and military sanctions, India has signed neither the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty nor the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, considering both to be flawed and discriminatory.Template:Sfn India maintains a "no first use" nuclear policy and is developing a nuclear triad capability as a part of its "Minimum Credible Deterrence" doctrine.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn It is developing a ballistic missile defence shield and, a fifth-generation fighter jet.Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Other indigenous military projects involve the design and implementation of Vikrant-class aircraft carriers and Arihant-class nuclear submarines.<ref name="Hindu 2011">Template:Cite news</ref>

India is estimated to possess up to 172 nuclear warheads, and is considered to be producing both highly enriched uranium (HEU) and weapons-grade plutonium, with its HEU production assumed to be focused on its growing number of nuclear-powered vessels' and submarines' fuels.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Kristensen et al. of Nuclear Information Project with the Federation of American Scientists estimate that India is operating eight nuclear-capable systems as of 2024, including aircraft, land-based and sea-based ballistic missile systems, with most of its programs in development thought to be nearing "completion and to be fielded with the armed forces soon".<ref name=":0" />

Since the end of the Cold War, India has increased its economic, strategic, and military co-operation with the United States and the European Union.Template:Sfn In 2008, a civilian nuclear agreement was signed between India and the United States. Although India possessed nuclear weapons at the time and was not a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, it received waivers from the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Suppliers Group, ending earlier restrictions on India's nuclear technology and commerce. As a consequence, India became the sixth de facto nuclear weapons state.Template:Sfn India subsequently signed co-operation agreements involving civilian nuclear energy with Russia,Template:Sfn France,Template:Sfn the United Kingdom,Template:Sfn and Canada.Template:Sfn

Template:Multiple image The President of India is the supreme commander of the nation's armed forces; with 1.45 million active troops, they compose the world's second-largest military. It comprises the Indian Army, the Indian Navy, the Indian Air Force, and the Indian Coast Guard.Template:Sfn The official Indian defence budget for 2011 was US$36.03 billion, or 1.83% of GDP.Template:Sfn Defence expenditure was pegged at US$70.12 billion for fiscal year 2022–23 and, increased 9.8% than previous fiscal year.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Sfn India is the world's second-largest arms importer; between 2016 and 2020, it accounted for 9.5% of the total global arms imports.Template:Sfn Much of the military expenditure was focused on defence against Pakistan and countering growing Chinese influence in the Indian Ocean.Template:Sfn In May 2017, the Indian Space Research Organisation launched the South Asia Satellite, a gift from India to its neighbouring SAARC countries.<ref name="Deccan Herald">Template:Cite news</ref> In October 2018, India signed a US$5.43 billion (over Template:INR400 billion) agreement with Russia to procure four S-400 Triumf surface-to-air missile defence systems, Russia's most advanced long-range missile defence system.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Economy

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Indian economy in 2024 was nominally worth $3.94 trillion; it was the fifth-largest economy by market exchange rates and is, at around $15.0 trillion, the third-largest by purchasing power parity (PPP).<ref name="IMFWEO.IN" /> With its average annual GDP growth rate of 5.8% over the past two decades, and reaching 6.1% during 2011–2012,Template:Sfn India is one of the world's fastest-growing economies.Template:Sfn However, due to its low GDP per capita—which ranks 136th in the world in nominal per capita income and 125th in per capita income adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP)—the vast majority of Indians fall into the low-income group.Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Until 1991, all Indian governments followed protectionist policies that were influenced by socialist economics. Widespread state intervention and regulation largely walled the economy off from the outside world. An acute balance of payments crisis in 1991 forced the nation to liberalise its economy;Template:Sfn since then, it has moved increasingly towards a free-market systemTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn by emphasising both foreign trade and direct investment inflows.Template:Sfn India has been a member of World Trade Organization since 1 January 1995.Template:Sfn

The 522-million-worker Indian labour force is the world's second largest, Template:As of.Template:Sfn The service sector makes up 55.6% of GDP, the industrial sector 26.3% and the agricultural sector 18.1%. India's foreign exchange remittances of US$100 billion in 2022,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> highest in the world, were contributed to its economy by 32 million Indians working in foreign countries.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Major agricultural products include rice, wheat, oilseed, cotton, jute, tea, sugarcane, and potatoes.Template:Sfn Major industries include textiles, telecommunications, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, food processing, steel, transport equipment, cement, mining, petroleum, machinery, and software.Template:Sfn In 2006, the share of external trade in India's GDP stood at 24%, up from 6% in 1985.Template:Sfn In 2008, India's share of world trade was 1.7%;<ref>Template:Citation</ref> In 2021, India was the world's ninth-largest importer and the sixteenth-largest exporter.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Major exports include petroleum products, textile goods, jewellery, software, engineering goods, chemicals, and manufactured leather goods.Template:Sfn Major imports include crude oil, machinery, gems, fertiliser, and chemicals.Template:Sfn Between 2001 and 2011, the contribution of petrochemical and engineering goods to total exports grew from 14% to 42%.Template:Sfn India was the world's second-largest textile exporter after China in the 2013 calendar year.Template:Sfn

Averaging an economic growth rate of 7.5% for several years prior to 2007,Template:Sfn India has more than doubled its hourly wage rates during the first decade of the 21st century.Template:Sfn Some 431 million Indians have left poverty since 1985; India's middle classes are projected to number around 580 million by 2030.Template:Sfn Though ranking 68th in global competitiveness,<ref name="rank 2019">Template:Cite web</ref> Template:As of, India ranks 17th in financial market sophistication, 24th in the banking sector, 44th in business sophistication, and 39th in innovation, ahead of several advanced economies.Template:Sfn With seven of the world's top 15 information technology outsourcing companies based in India, Template:As of, the country is viewed as the second-most favourable outsourcing destination after the United States.Template:Sfn India is ranked 39th in the Global Innovation Index in 2024.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2023, India's consumer market was the world's fifth largest.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Driven by growth, India's nominal GDP per capita increased steadily from US$308 in 1991, when economic liberalisation began, to US$1,380 in 2010, to an estimated US$2,731 in 2024. It is expected to grow to US$3,264 by 2026.<ref name="IMFWEO.IN" /> However, it has remained lower than those of other Asian developing countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, and is expected to remain so in the near future.

According to a 2011 PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report, India's GDP at purchasing power parity could overtake that of the United States by 2045.Template:Sfn During the next four decades, Indian GDP is expected to grow at an annualised average of 8%, making it potentially the world's fastest-growing major economy until 2050.Template:Sfn The report highlights key growth factors: a young and rapidly growing working-age population; growth in the manufacturing sector because of rising education and engineering skill levels; and sustained growth of the consumer market driven by a rapidly growing middle-class.Template:Sfn The World Bank cautions that, for India to achieve its economic potential, it must continue to focus on public sector reform, transport infrastructure, agricultural and rural development, education, energy security, and public health and nutrition.<ref>Template:Citation</ref>

According to the Worldwide Cost of Living Report released by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) in 2017, which compared more than 400 individual prices across 160 products and services, four of the cheapest cities were in India: Bengaluru (3rd), Mumbai (5th), Chennai (5th) and New Delhi (8th).Template:Sfn

Industries

India's telecommunication industry is the second-largest in the world with over 1.2 billion subscribers. It contributes 6.5% to India's GDP.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> After the third quarter of 2017, India surpassed the US to become the second-largest smartphone market in the world after China.<ref>Template:Citation</ref>

The Indian automotive industry, the world's second-fastest growing, increased domestic sales by 26% during 2009–2010,Template:Sfn and exports by 36% during 2008–2009.Template:Sfn In 2022, India became the world's third-largest vehicle market after China and the United States, surpassing Japan.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> At the end of 2011, the Indian IT industry employed 2.8 million professionals, generated revenues close to US$100 billion equalling 7.5% of Indian GDP, and contributed 26% of India's merchandise exports.Template:Sfn

The pharmaceutical industry in India emerged as a global player. As of 2021, with 3000 pharmaceutical companies and 10,500 manufacturing units, India is the world's third-largest pharmaceutical producer, largest producer of generic medicines and supply up to 50–60% of global vaccines demand, these all contribute up to Template:USD24.44 billions in exports and India's local pharmaceutical market is estimated up to Template:USD42 billion.<ref name="Phamra1">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Pharma2">Template:Cite web</ref> India is among the top 12 biotech destinations in the world.<ref>Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Sector in India: sector briefing by the UK Trade and Investment 2011, utki.gov.uk</ref>Template:Sfn The Indian biotech industry grew by 15.1% in 2012–2013, increasing its revenues from Template:INR204.4 billion (Indian rupees) to Template:INR235.24 billion (US$3.94 billion at June 2013 exchange rates).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Energy

Template:Main India's capacity to generate electrical power is 300 gigawatts, of which 42 gigawatts is renewable.<ref name="Par">Template:Cite web</ref> The country's usage of coal is a major cause of greenhouse gas emissions by India but its renewable energy is competing strongly.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> India emits about 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions. This equates to about 2.5 tons of carbon dioxide per person per year, which is half the world average.<ref name="USAID2018">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="UNEP2019">Template:Cite web</ref> Increasing access to electricity and clean cooking with liquefied petroleum gas have been priorities for energy in India.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Socio-economic challenges

Template:Multiple image Despite economic growth during recent decades, India continues to face socio-economic challenges. In 2006, India contained the largest number of people living below the World Bank's international poverty line of US$1.25 per day.<ref>Template:Citation</ref> The proportion decreased from 60% in 1981 to 42% in 2005.<ref>Template:Citation</ref> Under the World Bank's later revised poverty line, it was 21% in 2011.Template:Efn<ref name="WB2015">Template:Cite web</ref> 30.7% of India's children under the age of five are underweight.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> According to a Food and Agriculture Organization report in 2015, 15% of the population is undernourished.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The Midday Meal Scheme attempts to lower these rates.Template:Sfn

A 2018 Walk Free Foundation report estimated that nearly 8 million people in India were living in different forms of modern slavery, such as bonded labour, child labour, human trafficking, and forced begging.<ref name="Pandit 2018">Template:Cite web</ref> According to the 2011 census, there were 10.1 million child labourers in the country, a decline of 2.6 million from 12.6 million in 2001.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Since 1991, economic inequality between India's states has consistently grown: the per-capita net state domestic product of the richest states in 2007 was 3.2 times that of the poorest.Template:Sfn Corruption in India is perceived to have decreased. According to the Corruption Perceptions Index, India ranked 78th out of 180 countries in 2018, an improvement from 85th in 2014.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Demographics, languages, and religion

With an estimated 1,428,627,663 residents in 2023, India is the world's most populous country.<ref name="WPP UN" /> 1,210,193,422 residents were reported in the 2011 provisional census report.Template:Sfn Its population grew by 17.64% from 2001 to 2011,Template:Sfn compared to 21.54% growth in the previous decade (1991–2001).Template:Sfn The human sex ratio, according to the 2011 census, is 940 females per 1,000 males.Template:Sfn The median age was 28.7 in 2020.Template:Sfn The first post-colonial census, conducted in 1951, counted 361 million people.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Medical advances made in the last 50 years as well as increased agricultural productivity brought about by the "Green Revolution" have caused India's population to grow rapidly.Template:Sfn

The life expectancy in India is at 70 years—71.5 years for women, 68.7 years for men.Template:Sfn There are around 93 physicians per 100,000 people.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Migration from rural to urban areas has been an important dynamic in India's recent history. The number of people living in urban areas grew by 31.2% between 1991 and 2001.Template:Sfn Yet, in 2001, over 70% still lived in rural areas.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The level of urbanisation increased further from 27.81% in the 2001 Census to 31.16% in the 2011 Census. The slowing down of the overall population growth rate was due to the sharp decline in the growth rate in rural areas since 1991.Template:Sfn According to the 2011 census, there are 53 million-plus urban agglomerations in India; among them Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad, in decreasing order by population.<ref name="censusindia 2011">Template:Cite web</ref> The literacy rate in 2011 was 74.04%: 65.46% among females and 82.14% among males.Template:Sfn The rural-urban literacy gap, which was 21.2 percentage points in 2001, dropped to 16.1 percentage points in 2011. The improvement in the rural literacy rate is twice that of urban areas.Template:Sfn Kerala is the most literate state with 93.91% literacy; while Bihar the least with 63.82%.Template:Sfn

Template:Multiple image Among speakers of the Indian languages, 74% speak Indo-Aryan languages, the easternmost branch of the Indo-European languages; 24% speak Dravidian languages, indigenous to South Asia and spoken widely before the spread of Indo-Aryan languages and 2% speak Austroasiatic languages or the Sino-Tibetan languages. India has no national language.Template:Sfn Hindi, with the largest number of speakers, is the official language of the government.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn English is used extensively in business and administration and has the status of a "subsidiary official language";Template:Sfn it is important in education, especially as a medium of higher education. Each state and union territory has one or more official languages, and the constitution recognises in particular 22 "scheduled languages".

The 2011 census reported the religion in India with the largest number of followers was Hinduism (79.80% of the population), followed by Islam (14.23%); the remaining were Christianity (2.30%), Sikhism (1.72%), Buddhism (0.70%), Jainism (0.36%) and othersTemplate:Efn (0.9%).<ref name="Census2011religion">Template:Cite web</ref> India has the third-largest Muslim population—the largest for a non-Muslim majority country.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Culture

Indian cultural history spans more than Template:Nowrap.Template:Sfn During the Vedic period (Template:Circa), the foundations of Hindu philosophy, mythology, theology and literature were laid, and many beliefs and practices which still exist today, such as dhárma, kárma, yóga, and mokṣa, were established.Template:Sfn India is notable for its religious diversity, with Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Islam, Christianity, and Jainism among the nation's major religions.Template:Sfn The predominant religion, Hinduism, has been shaped by various historical schools of thought, including those of the Upanishads,Template:Sfn the Yoga Sutras, the Bhakti movement,Template:Sfn and by Buddhist philosophy.Template:Sfn

Visual art

Template:Main India has a very ancient tradition of art, which has exchanged many influences with the rest of Eurasia, especially in the first millennium, when Buddhist art spread with Indian religions to Central, East and Southeast Asia, the last also greatly influenced by Hindu art.<ref>Rowland, 185–198, 252, 385–466</ref> Thousands of seals from the Indus Valley Civilization of the third millennium BCE have been found, usually carved with animals, but a few with human figures. The "Pashupati" seal, excavated in Mohenjo-daro, Pakistan, in 1928–29, is the best known.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn After this there is a long period with virtually nothing surviving.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Almost all surviving ancient Indian art thereafter is in various forms of religious sculpture in durable materials, or coins. There was probably originally far more in wood, which is lost. In north India Mauryan art is the first imperial movement.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn In the first millennium CE, Buddhist art spread with Indian religions to Central, East and Southeast Asia, the last also greatly influenced by Hindu art.Template:Sfn Over the following centuries a distinctly Indian style of sculpting the human figure developed, with less interest in articulating precise anatomy than ancient Greek sculpture but showing smoothly flowing forms expressing prana ("breath" or life-force).Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn This is often complicated by the need to give figures multiple arms or heads, or represent different genders on the left and right of figures, as with the Ardhanarishvara form of Shiva and Parvati.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Most of the earliest large sculpture is Buddhist, either excavated from Buddhist stupas such as Sanchi, Sarnath and Amaravati,Template:Sfn or is rock cut reliefs at sites such as Ajanta, Karla and Ellora. Hindu and Jain sites appear rather later.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn In spite of this complex mixture of religious traditions, generally, the prevailing artistic style at any time and place has been shared by the major religious groups, and sculptors probably usually served all communities.Template:Sfn Gupta art, at its peak Template:Circa, is often regarded as a classical period whose influence lingered for many centuries after; it saw a new dominance of Hindu sculpture, as at the Elephanta Caves.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Across the north, this became rather stiff and formulaic after Template:Circa, though rich with finely carved detail in the surrounds of statues.Template:Sfn But in the South, under the Pallava and Chola dynasties, sculpture in both stone and bronze had a sustained period of great achievement; the large bronzes with Shiva as Nataraja have become an iconic symbol of India.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Ancient painting has only survived at a few sites, of which the crowded scenes of court life in the Ajanta Caves are by far the most important, but it was evidently highly developed, and is mentioned as a courtly accomplishment in Gupta times.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Painted manuscripts of religious texts survive from Eastern India about the 10th century onwards, most of the earliest being Buddhist and later Jain. No doubt the style of these was used in larger paintings.Template:Sfn The Persian-derived Deccan painting, starting just before the Mughal miniature, between them give the first large body of secular painting, with an emphasis on portraits, and the recording of princely pleasures and wars.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The style spread to Hindu courts, especially among the Rajputs, and developed a variety of styles, with the smaller courts often the most innovative, with figures such as Nihâl Chand and Nainsukh.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn As a market developed among European residents, it was supplied by Company painting by Indian artists with considerable Western influence.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn In the 19th century, cheap Kalighat paintings of gods and everyday life, done on paper, were urban folk art from Calcutta, which later saw the Bengal School of Art, reflecting the art colleges founded by the British, the first movement in modern Indian painting.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

• Bhutesvara Yakshis, Buddhist reliefs from Mathura, Template:CE
  Bhutesvara Yakshis, Buddhist reliefs from Mathura, Template:CE
• Gupta terracotta relief, Krishna Killing the Horse Demon Keshi, 5th century
  Gupta terracotta relief, Krishna Killing the Horse Demon Keshi, 5th century
• Elephanta Caves, triple-bust (trimurti) of Shiva, Template:Convert tall, Template:Circa
  Elephanta Caves, triple-bust (trimurti) of Shiva, Template:Convert tall, Template:Circa
• Chola bronze of Shiva as Nataraja ("Lord of Dance"), Tamil Nadu, 10th or 11th century
  Chola bronze of Shiva as Nataraja ("Lord of Dance"), Tamil Nadu, 10th or 11th century
• Jahangir Receives Prince Khurram at Ajmer on His Return from the Mewar Campaign, Balchand, Template:Circa
  Jahangir Receives Prince Khurram at Ajmer on His Return from the Mewar Campaign, Balchand, Template:Circa
• Krishna Fluting to the Milkmaids, Kangra painting, 1775–1785
  Krishna Fluting to the Milkmaids, Kangra painting, 1775–1785

Architecture

Much of Indian architecture, including the Taj Mahal, other works of Indo-Islamic Mughal architecture, and South Indian architecture, blends ancient local traditions with imported styles.Template:Sfn Vernacular architecture is also regional in its flavours. Vastu shastra, literally "science of construction" or "architecture" and ascribed to Mamuni Mayan,Template:Sfn explores how the laws of nature affect human dwellings;Template:Sfn it employs precise geometry and directional alignments to reflect perceived cosmic constructs.Template:Sfn As applied in Hindu temple architecture, it is influenced by the Shilpa Shastras, a series of foundational texts whose basic mythological form is the Vastu-Purusha mandala, a square that embodied the "absolute".Template:Sfn The Taj Mahal, built in Agra between 1631 and 1648 by orders of Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his wife, has been described in the UNESCO World Heritage List as "the jewel of Muslim art in India and one of the universally admired masterpieces of the world's heritage".Template:Sfn Indo-Saracenic Revival architecture, developed by the British in the late 19th century, drew on Indo-Islamic architecture.Template:Sfn

Literature

Template:Main The earliest literature in India, composed between Template:BCE and Template:CE, was in the Sanskrit language.Template:Sfn Major works of Sanskrit literature include the Rigveda (Template:Circa), the epics: Mahābhārata (Template:Circa) and the Ramayana (Template:Circa and later); Abhijñānaśākuntalam (The Recognition of Śakuntalā, and other dramas of Kālidāsa (Template:Circa) and Mahākāvya poetry.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn In Tamil literature, the Sangam literature (Template:Circa) consisting of 2,381 poems, composed by 473 poets, is the earliest work.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn<ref>Template:Citation</ref> From the 14th to the 18th centuries, India's literary traditions went through a period of drastic change because of the emergence of devotional poets like Kabīr, Tulsīdās, and Guru Nānak. This period was characterised by a varied and wide spectrum of thought and expression; as a consequence, medieval Indian literary works differed significantly from classical traditions.Template:Sfn In the 19th century, Indian writers took a new interest in social questions and psychological descriptions. In the 20th century, Indian literature was influenced by the works of Rabindranath Tagore,Template:Sfn who was a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Performing arts and media

Template:Main Template:Multiple image Indian music ranges over various traditions and regional styles. Classical music encompasses two genres and their various folk offshoots: the northern Hindustani and the southern Carnatic schools.Template:Sfn Regionalised popular forms include filmi and folk music; the syncretic tradition of the bauls is a well-known form of the latter. Indian dance also features diverse folk and classical forms. Among the better-known folk dances are: bhangra of Punjab, bihu of Assam, Jhumair and chhau of Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal, garba and dandiya of Gujarat, ghoomar of Rajasthan, and lavani of Maharashtra. Eight dance forms, many with narrative forms and mythological elements, have been accorded classical dance status by India's National Academy of Music, Dance, and Drama. These are: bharatanatyam of the state of Tamil Nadu, kathak of Uttar Pradesh, kathakali and mohiniyattam of Kerala, kuchipudi of Andhra Pradesh, manipuri of Manipur, odissi of Odisha, and the sattriya of Assam.<ref>Template:Citation</ref>

Theatre in India melds music, dance, and improvised or written dialogue.Template:Sfn Often based on Hindu mythology, but also borrowing from medieval romances or social and political events, Indian theatre includes: the bhavai of Gujarat, the jatra of West Bengal, the nautanki and ramlila of North India, tamasha of Maharashtra, burrakatha of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, terukkuttu of Tamil Nadu, and the yakshagana of Karnataka.Template:Sfn India has a theatre training institute, the National School of Drama (NSD), in New Delhi.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The Indian film industry produces the world's most-watched cinema.Template:Sfn Established regional cinematic traditions exist in the Assamese, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Punjabi, Gujarati, Marathi, Odia, Tamil, and Telugu languages.Template:Sfn The Hindi language film industry (Bollywood) is the largest sector representing 43% of box office revenue, followed by the South Indian Telugu and Tamil film industries which represent 36% combined.<ref name="deloitte">Template:Cite web</ref>

Television broadcasting began in India in 1959 as a state-run medium of communication and expanded slowly for more than two decades.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The state monopoly on television broadcast ended in the 1990s. Since then, satellite channels have increasingly shaped the popular culture of Indian society.Template:Sfn Today, television is the most penetrative media in India; industry estimates indicate that Template:As of there are over 554 million TV consumers, 462 million with satellite or cable connections compared to other forms of mass media such as the press (350 million), radio (156 million) or internet (37 million).Template:Sfn

Society

Template:Multiple image Traditional Indian society is sometimes defined by social hierarchy. The Indian caste system embodies much of the social stratification and many of the social restrictions found on the Indian subcontinent. Social classes are defined by thousands of endogamous hereditary groups, often termed as jātis, or "castes".Template:Sfn India abolished untouchability in 1950 with the adoption of the constitution and has since enacted other anti-discriminatory laws and social welfare initiatives.

Family values are important in the Indian tradition, and multi-generational patrilineal joint families have been the norm in India, though nuclear families are becoming common in urban areas.Template:Sfn An overwhelming majority of Indians, with their consent, have their marriages arranged by their parents or other family elders.Template:Sfn Marriage is thought to be for life,Template:Sfn and the divorce rate is extremely low,Template:Sfn with less than one in a thousand marriages ending in divorce.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Child marriages are common, especially in rural areas; many women wed before reaching 18, which is their legal marriageable age.Template:Sfn Female infanticide in India, and lately female foeticide, have created skewed gender ratios; the number of missing women in the country quadrupled from 15 million to 63 million in the 50-year period ending in 2014, faster than the population growth during the same period.<ref name="The Hindu_November_17_2019c">Template:Cite news</ref> According to an Indian government study, an additional 21 million girls are unwanted and do not receive adequate care.<ref name="The_Guardian_November_17_2019c">Template:Cite web Quote: "More than 63 million women are "missing" statistically across India, and more than 21 million girls are unwanted by their families, government officials say. The skewed ratio of men to women is largely the result of sex-selective abortions, and better nutrition and medical care for boys, according to the government's annual economic survey, which was released on Monday. In addition, the survey found that "families where a son is born are more likely to stop having children than families where a girl is born".</ref> Despite a government ban on sex-selective foeticide, the practice remains commonplace in India, the result of a preference for boys in a patriarchal society.<ref name="Foreign_Policy_November_17_2019c">Template:Cite web Quote: "Although it has been illegal nationwide for doctors to disclose the sex of a fetus since the 1994 Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, the ease of ordering cheap and portable ultrasound machines, especially online, has kept the practice of sex-selective abortions alive."</ref> The payment of dowry, although illegal, remains widespread across class lines.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Deaths resulting from dowry, mostly from bride burning, are on the rise, despite stringent anti-dowry laws.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Many Indian festivals are religious in origin. The best known include Diwali, Ganesh Chaturthi, Thai Pongal, Holi, Durga Puja, Eid ul-Fitr, Bakr-Id, Christmas, and Vaisakhi.<ref>Template:Citation</ref><ref>Template:Citation</ref>

Education

File:47 Raika School - eating together (3384824242).jpg

Children awaiting school lunch in Rayka (also Raika), a village in rural Gujarat. The salutation Jai Bhim written on the blackboard honours the jurist, social reformer, and Dalit leader B. R. Ambedkar.

In the 2011 census, about 73% of the population was literate, with 81% for men and 65% for women. This compares to 1981 when the respective rates were 41%, 53% and 29%. In 1951 the rates were 18%, 27% and 9%. In 1921 the rates 7%, 12% and 2%. In 1891 they were 5%, 9% and 1%,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> According to Latika Chaudhary, in 1911 there were under three primary schools for every ten villages. Statistically, more caste and religious diversity reduced private spending. Primary schools taught literacy, so local diversity limited its growth.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

The education system of India is the world's second-largest.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> India has over 900 universities, 40,000 colleges<ref name="highered1">Template:Cite web</ref> and 1.5 million schools.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In India's higher education system, a significant number of seats are reserved under affirmative action policies for the historically disadvantaged. In recent decades India's improved education system is often cited as one of the main contributors to its economic development.<ref name=Sify>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Clothing

Template:Main Template:Multiple image From ancient times until the advent of the modern, the most widely worn traditional dress in India was draped.<ref name="Tarlo1996-26">Template:Harvnb</ref> For women it took the form of a sari, a single piece of cloth many yards long.<ref name="Tarlo1996-26" /> The sari was traditionally wrapped around the lower body and the shoulder.<ref name="Tarlo1996-26" /> In its modern form, it is combined with an underskirt, or Indian petticoat, and tucked in the waist band for more secure fastening. It is also commonly worn with an Indian blouse, or choli, which serves as the primary upper-body garment, the sari's end—passing over the shoulder—covering the midriff and obscuring the upper body's contours.<ref name="Tarlo1996-26" /> For men, a similar but shorter length of cloth, the dhoti, has served as a lower-body garment.<ref name="Tarlo1996-26-28">Template:Harvnb</ref>

The use of stitched clothes became widespread after Muslim rule was established at first by the Delhi sultanate (Template:Circa) and then continued by the Mughal Empire (Template:Circa).<ref name="Rahman-Alkazi2002">Template:Citation</ref> Among the garments introduced during this time and still commonly worn are: the shalwars and pyjamas, both styles of trousers, and the tunics kurta and kameez.<ref name="Rahman-Alkazi2002" /> In southern India, the traditional draped garments were to see much longer continuous use.<ref name="Rahman-Alkazi2002" />

Salwars are atypically wide at the waist but narrow to a cuffed bottom. They are held up by a drawstring, which causes them to become pleated around the waist.<ref name="StevensonWaite2011">Template:Citation</ref> The pants can be wide and baggy, or they can be cut quite narrow, on the bias, in which case they are called churidars. When they are ordinarily wide at the waist and their bottoms are hemmed but not cuffed, they are called pyjamas. The kameez is a long shirt or tunic,<ref name="StevensonWaite2011-b">Template:Citation</ref> its side seams left open below the waistline.<ref>Template:Citation (online; updated February 2015)</ref> The kurta is traditionally collarless and made of cotton or silk; it is worn plain or with embroidered decoration, such as chikan; and typically falls to either just above or just below the wearer's knees.<ref name="Shukla2015">Template:Citation</ref>

In the last 50 years, fashions have changed a great deal in India. Increasingly, in urban northern India, the sari is no longer the apparel of everyday wear, though they remain popular on formal occasions.<ref name="Dwyer2014">Template:Citation</ref> The traditional shalwar kameez is rarely worn by younger urban women, who favour churidars or jeans.<ref name="Dwyer2014" /> In office settings, ubiquitous air conditioning allows men to wear sports jackets year-round.<ref name="Dwyer2014" /> For weddings and formal occasions, men in the middle- and upper classes often wear bandgala, or short Nehru jackets, with pants, with the groom and his groomsmen sporting sherwanis and churidars.<ref name="Dwyer2014" /> The dhoti, once the universal garment of Hindu males, the wearing of which in the homespun and handwoven khadi allowed Gandhi to bring Indian nationalism to the millions,<ref name="BruzziGibson2013">Template:Citation</ref> is seldom seen in the cities.<ref name="Dwyer2014" />

Cuisine

Template:Main Template:Multiple image The foundation of a typical Indian meal is a cereal cooked in a plain fashion and complemented with flavourful savoury dishes.<ref name="Davidson2014-p409">Template:Citation</ref> The cooked cereal could be steamed rice; chapati, a thin unleavened bread;<ref name="Davidson2014-p161">Template:Citation</ref> the idli, a steamed breakfast cake; or dosa, a griddled pancake.<ref name=tamang-yeast-idlidosa>Template:Citation</ref> The savoury dishes might include lentils, pulses and vegetables commonly spiced with ginger and garlic, but also with a combination of spices that may include coriander, cumin, turmeric, cinnamon, cardamon and others.<ref name="Davidson2014-p409" /> They might also include poultry, fish, or meat dishes. In some instances, the ingredients might be mixed during the process of cooking.<ref name=jhala-princely-biryani>Template:Citation</ref>

A platter, or thali, used for eating usually has a central place reserved for the cooked cereal, and peripheral ones for the flavourful accompaniments. The cereal and its accompaniments are eaten simultaneously rather than a piecemeal manner. This is accomplished by mixing—for example of rice and lentils—or folding, wrapping, scooping or dipping—such as chapati and cooked vegetables.<ref name="Davidson2014-p409" />

File:Making Khameeri Roti in Tandoor in Turkman Gate Old Delhi.webm

A tandoor chef in the Turkman Gate, Old Delhi, makes Khameeri roti (a Muslim-influenced style of leavened bread).<ref name="Panjabi1995">Template:Citation</ref>

India has distinctive vegetarian cuisines, each a feature of the geographical and cultural histories of its adherents.<ref name="Davidson2014-p410">Template:Citation</ref> The appearance of ahimsa, or the avoidance of violence toward all forms of life in many religious orders early in Indian history, especially Upanishadic Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, is thought to have contributed to the predominance of vegetarianism among a large segment of India's Hindu population, especially in southern India, Gujarat, the Hindi-speaking belt of north-central India, as well as among Jains.<ref name="Davidson2014-p410" /> Although meat is eaten widely in India, the proportional consumption of meat in the overall diet is low.<ref name="SahakianSaloma2016-50">Template:Citation</ref> Unlike China, which has increased its per capita meat consumption substantially in its years of increased economic growth, in India the strong dietary traditions have contributed to dairy, rather than meat, becoming the preferred form of animal protein consumption.<ref name="OECDNations2018">Template:Citation</ref>

The most significant import of cooking techniques into India during the last millennium occurred during the Mughal Empire. Dishes such as the pilaf,Template:Sfn developed in the Abbasid caliphate,<ref name=sengupta-74>Template:Citation</ref> and cooking techniques such as the marinating of meat in yogurt, spread into northern India from regions to its northwest.<ref name="CollinghamCollingham2007">Template:Citation</ref> To the simple yogurt marinade of Persia, onions, garlic, almonds, and spices began to be added in India.<ref name="CollinghamCollingham2007" /> Rice was partially cooked and layered alternately with the sauteed meat, the pot sealed tightly, and slow cooked according to another Persian cooking technique, to produce what has today become biryani,<ref name="CollinghamCollingham2007" /> a feature of festive dining in many parts of India.<ref name=nandy2004>Template:Citation</ref> In the food served in Indian restaurants worldwide the diversity of Indian food has been partially concealed by the dominance of Punjabi cuisine. The popularity of tandoori chicken—cooked in the tandoor oven, which had traditionally been used for baking bread in the rural Punjab and the Delhi region, especially among Muslims, but which is originally from Central Asia—dates to the 1950s, and was caused in large part by an entrepreneurial response among people from the Punjab who had been displaced by the 1947 partition.<ref name="Davidson2014-p410" />

Sports and recreation

Template:Main Template:See alsoTemplate:Multiple image Several traditional sports—such as kabaddi, kho kho, pehlwani, gilli-danda, hopscotch and martial arts such as Kalarippayattu and marma adi—remain popular. Chess is commonly held to have originated in India as chaturaṅga;Template:Sfn in recent years, there has been a rise in the number of Indian grandmasters,Template:Sfn and world champions.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Parcheesi is derived from Pachisi, another traditional Indian pastime, which in early modern times was played on a giant marble court by Mughal emperor Akbar the Great.Template:Sfn

Cricket is the most popular sport in India.<ref>Template:Citation</ref> India has won two Cricket World Cups, the 1983 edition and the 2011 edition. India has won eight field hockey gold medals in the summer Olympics.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> India has participated in shooting sports and has won several medals at the Olympics, the World Shooting Championships, and the Commonwealth Games.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Other sports in which Indians have succeeded internationally include badminton,Template:Sfn boxing,Template:Sfn and wrestling.Template:Sfn Football is popular in West Bengal, Goa, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and the north-eastern states. The major domestic league is the Indian Premier League. Professional leagues in other sports include the Indian Super League (football) and the Pro Kabaddi League.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

See also

• Administrative divisions of India
• Outline of India

Bibliography

Overview

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• Robinson, Francis, ed. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives (1989)
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Etymology

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History

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Geography

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Biodiversity

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Politics

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Foreign relations and military

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Economy

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Demographics

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Art

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Culture

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External links

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• Official website of the Government of India
• Government of India Web Directory

General information

• India. The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency.
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• India from BBC News
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• Key Development Forecasts for India from International Futures