CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCING INDIA LAND OF CONTRASTS CLIMATE India is the seventh largest country in the world It covers 1 2 square million acres 3 million sq km of south Asia and is a land of huge contrasts The world's highest mountain range the Himalayas lies in the far north In the south the flat fertile Indo Gangetic Plain stretches from Pakistan in the west to Bangladesh in the east The plain is made up largely of the Ganga or Ganges River basin The Great Indian or Thar Desert forms a southern extension of the plain that stretches into Pakistan Peninsular India juts out into the Indian Ocean and has a landscape of mountain ranges and hills India's climate varies from region to region The mountainous north has freezing winters while the Thar desert is very dry and the tropical south is lush and wet India is described as having a monsoon climate which means the seasons depend on the direction of the wind From mid June to early October winds from the Indian Ocean carry moisture across India and bring rain Between November and February dry winds blow in from the interior of Asia From March to June and in October there is le wind A CHANGING COUNTRY The population of India is growing rapidly It reached 1 2 billion in 2012 By contrast when India achieved independence from colonial rule in 1947 the population was just 350 million Once poor and undeveloped India has been one of the fastest growing economies in the world Since the 1990s it produces more goods and services every year However while some people have become very wealthy poverty remains a great problem An estimated quarter of population live on less than 67 a day The town of Darjiling formerly Darjeeling is in the Himalayas The highest mountain in India Kanch mjunga can be the background
IAJIKISTAN CHIN A AFGHANISTAN AM MU KASHMIR PAKISTAN 1 genocide POPULATION GROWTH 2000 2012 New Delhi NEPALAST Kanchenjunga Darjiling BHUTAN HAR DESERT 1 166 1 189 1 130 Varanasi BANGLADESH IN D A I Kolkata 1 014 1 046 1 080 1 22 L 030 050 1148 095 1 173 BURMA MYANMAR Mumbai DCCAN PLATA L 065 1 0 Hyderabad as Ray of Bengal Antbian Sea Goa POPULATION BILLIONS Chennai Bangal lore NEW AND OLD INDIAN ONCEAN SRI LANKA Rapid development has brought better schools and medical care for many but it also has resulted in pollution overcrowding and great ies between people However the traditional values of Indian family life and religion remain important SPOTLIGHT ON INDIA India s population growth is mostly taking place in its cities which are growing by about 1 1 percent each year AREA 1 3 million square miles 3 3 million sq km POPULATION approx 1 2 billion CAPITAL New Delhi LARGEST CITIES Mumbai 20 5 million New Delhi 22 million LONGEST RIVER The Ganga 1 560 miles 2 510 km HIGHEST MOUNTAIN Kanchenjunga 28 170 feet 8 585 m MAIN LANGUAGES Hindi 41 Bengali 8 1 Telugu 7 2 Marathi 7 Tamil 5 9 Urdu 5 MAIN RELIGIONS Hindu 80 5 Muslim 13 4 Christian 2 3 Sikh 1 9 NATURAL RESOURCES petroleum coal natural gas iron ore copper bauxite ceramic clays diamonds
PAST INTO PRESENT ON 0 I A o n e I ANCIENT INDIA continued to campaign for independence The first cities on the Indian subcontinent From 1885 this struggle was led by the grew over 4 000 years ago in present day Indian National Congress which is still a Pakistan India s main religion now called major political party today Hinduism developed about 3 000 years ago and possibly after settlers arrived from INDEPENDENCE AND Central Asia AFTERWARD India won independence in 1947 with the FOREIGN INVADERS partition of the country into predominantly The Presidential House Approximately between 320 and 1000 AD Hindu India and the largely Muslim in New Delhi designed after centuries of being small kingdoms Pakistan As people from both communities by British architect larger Indian empires grew In 1526 Muslim fled across the new borders violence left Edwin Landseer Lutyens invaders set up the Mughal Empire in India approximately a million people dead Until shows the British legacy The British traded with the Mughals through 1972 Pakistan was divided into two parts India the privately owned East India Company West Pakistan and East Pakistan with India Eventually this became more powerful than located between them In 1972 following the Mughals and even had its own army In a war between India and both parts of 1857 Indian soldiers in this army rebelled Pakistan East Pakistan became independent Following this the British government took Bangladesh with India s support West direct control of India although Indians Pakistan simply remained
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCING INDIA An Indian soldier duty in Kashn Tensions between India and Pakistan which date back to the partition are especially acute in this region TENSIONS Although they live in one of the world s fastest growing economies many Indians remain poor This wealth gap dates partly from British rule when development designed more to make money for the rulers than the mass of the people Many Indians also blame governments since independence for mismanaging the economy Poverty and tensions between Hindus and Muslims have made Indian politics volatile Occasional outbreaks of rioting and violence occur Relations between India and Pakistan are strained War has broken out several times mostly over the region of Kashmir which is claimed by both countries This is especially dangerous as both countries are nuclear powers now MAHATMA GANDHI PEACEFUL PROTESTOR Mahatma Gandhi is the most famous campaigner for Indian independence Born in 1869 in Gujarat Gandhi trained as a lawyer in London As leader of the Indian National Congress he led the campaign for independence and was imprisoned as a dangerous rebel although he always rejected violence Gandhi opposed the partition of India and was assassinated by a Hindu extremist in 1948 Gandhi s belief in the importance of nonviolent protest lives on today and he is honored by peace movements all over the
