India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the world's seventh-largest country by area and the largest by population. 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; 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.
Modern humans had arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa by 55,000 years ago. Their long, isolated occupation as hunter-gatherers made the region highly diverse. Settled life emerged on the western margins of the Indus basin 9,000 years ago, evolving into the Indus Valley Civilisation by the third millennium BCE. By 1200 BCE, an archaic form of Sanskrit had diffused into India from the northwest, its earliest hymns recording the dawnings of Hinduism. India's pre-existing Dravidian languages were supplanted in the northern regions. By 400 BCE, social differentiation by caste had consolidated within Hinduism. Around the same time, Buddhism and Jainism had arisen, proclaiming social orders unlinked to heredity. The emergence of the loose-knit Maurya and Gupta Empires, gave rise to wide-ranging cultural and scientific creativity, but their eras also witnessed a steady erosion of women's rights, and, by the end, the rigid institutionalisation of untouchability. Across the first millennium CE, the Middle kingdoms of South India transmitted Dravidian language scripts and cultures to Southeast Asia. Well before the millennium's end, Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Zoroastrianism had become established on India's southern and western coasts.
Early in the 2nd millennium, Muslim armies from Central Asia intermittently overran India's northern plaints, eventually establishing the Delhi Sultanate, and drawing India into the cosmopolitan networks of medieval Islam. The Vijayanagara Empire created a long-lasting composite South Indian culture. The religion of Sikhism, founded by Guru Nanak, emerged in the Punjab. The Mughal Empire ushered in two centuries of economic expansion and relative peace, leaving a rich architectural legacy. Gradually expanding rule of the British East India Company turned India into a colonial economy, but by the end had consolidated its sovereignty. British Crown rule began in 1858. Although it granted promised rights to Indians slowly, it introduced technological changes while modern education and the public life took root. A nationalist movement emerged in India, the first in the non-European British Empire. Noted for nonviolent resistance after 1920, it became the primary factor in ending British rule. In 1947, the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two independent dominions, 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.
The Constitution of India was adopted in 1950. It declared India to be a federal republic governed through a democratic parliamentary system. Amendments enacted from 1951 onwards strengthened affirmative action programmes to reduce caste system inequality, with limited success so far. The States Reorganisation Act, 1956 along linguistic lines, institutionalised regional language pride, and led to the growth of local literature and cinema. In 1971, the creation of Bangladesh altered the regional power balance; the abolition of princely privileges removed the last vestiges of India’s feudal order. During this time, India's population was growing rapidly: it would grow from 361 million in 1951, to approximately 1.464 billion in 2025, surpassing China's in 2021. Economic reforms in the 1990s led to the rapid growth of an urban middle class. By the early 2010s, India had become a fast-growing economy and a hub for information technology. India's economic growth has been accompanied by widening income gaps and, lately, a political shift toward majoritarianism. India's socio-economic challenges include gender inequality and rising air pollution. India's megadiverse land features four biodiversity hotspots. Its wildlife is supported in protected habitats and traditionally viewed with cultural tolerance.
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