Current map of India.
Credit: CIA.
Preface
This title discusses the history of India from European arrivals to the 1990s. It starts from the arrival of the Portuguese in the late 1400s and then the English and the Dutch in the 1600s. Many struggles occurred throughout the centuries until the British started to build its Empire there in the late 1700s and the early 1800s.
There were many instances of rebellions and skirmishes between different bodies (Hindus, Muslims and the British), including the major Indian Mutiny of 1857. This may have been the first Indian attempt at gaining independence.
From around 1900 onwards, independence became an important issue for all parties. World War I briefly united the British and the Indians, with the latter providing over one million soldiers for the war effort. After the Great War, the independence question arose again and relationships took a very bad turn when in April, 1919, a British military commander ordered his troops to fire on 10,000 unarmed Hindu men, women and children.
Mahatma Gandhi then became an influential figure in his desire for a peaceful solution to independence.
During World War II, Muslims more than Hindus assisted the British during this war. After peace was declared, India gained independence and was also partitioned to include a West and an East Pakistan (later Bangladesh). Jawaharlal Nehru became India’s first prime minister in 1947 and led India until he died in 1964. A daughter of Nehru, Indira Gandhi (no relation to Mahatma Gandhi), was Indian prime minister from 1966 to 1977, and then from 1980 to 1984, when her Sikh bodyguards assassinated her.
Indira’s son, Rajiv Gandhi, then became prime minister from 1984 to 1989. Sri Lankan terrorists assassinated him in 1991.
Credit: Federal Research Division Library of Congress.
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/intoc.html.
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