India
When Gandhi’s Salt March Rattled British Colonial Rule
Since the late-1910s, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi had been at the forefront of India’s quest to shake off the yoke of British colonial domination, otherwise known as the “Raj.” The thin and abstemious former lawyer had led civil disobedience against colonial policies, encouraged ...read more
The Ancient Origins of Diwali, India’s Biggest Holiday
Every year around October and November, Hindus around the world celebrate Diwali, or Deepavali—a festival of lights that stretches back more than 2,500 years. Diwali 2020 occurs on Saturday, November 14. In India, the five-day celebration traditionally marks the biggest holiday ...read more
Hinduism
Hinduism is the world’s oldest religion, according to many scholars, with roots and customs dating back more than 4,000 years. Today, with about 900 million followers, Hinduism is the third-largest religion behind Christianity and Islam. Roughly 95 percent of the world’s Hindus ...read more
The End of an Era: India Shutters its Telegraph System
Telegraph services in India date back to 1850, when the first experimental telegraph line was established between Calcutta and Diamond Harbour. The British East India Company started using the telegraph a year later, and by 1854—when the system opened to the public—telegraph ...read more
A Spot of Curry: Anglo-Indian Cuisine
When Americans think of English food, they might call to mind fish and chips, or perhaps a steaming shepherd’s pie with mushy peas on the side. But England’s most popular food isn’t chips, scones or crumpets—it’s chicken tikka masala. Indian cuisine has been at the heart of the ...read more
Taj Mahal
The Taj Mahal is an enormous mausoleum complex commissioned in 1632 by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan to house the remains of his beloved wife. Constructed over a 20-year period on the southern bank of the Yamuna River in Agra, India, the famed complex is one of the most ...read more
Mahatma Gandhi
Revered the world over for his nonviolent philosophy of passive resistance, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was known to his many followers as Mahatma, or “the great-souled one.” He began his activism as an Indian immigrant in South Africa in the early 1900s, and in the years ...read more
Gandhi’s first act of civil disobedience
In an event that would have dramatic repercussions for the people of India, Mohandas K. Gandhi, a young Indian lawyer working in South Africa, refuses to comply with racial segregation rules on a South African train and is forcibly ejected at Pietermaritzburg. Born in India and ...read more
Republic of India born
On January 26, 1950, the Indian constitution takes effect, making the Republic of India the most populous democracy in the world. Mohandas Gandhi struggled through decades of passive resistance before Britain finally accepted Indian independence. Self-rule had been promised ...read more
Salt March
The Salt March, which took place from March to April 1930 in India, was an act of civil disobedience led by Mohandas Gandhi to protest British rule in India. During the march, thousands of Indians followed Gandhi from his religious retreat near Ahmedabad to the Arabian Sea ...read more
Mughal victory assures Akbar’s ascension
Fifty miles north of Delhi, a Mughal army defeats the forces of Hemu, a Hindu general who was trying to usurp the Mughal throne from 14-year-old Akbar, the recently proclaimed emperor. The Mughals, whose culture blended Perso-Islamic and regional Indian elements, established an ...read more
British and Gurkha troops massacre hundreds of unarmed demonstrators in Amritsar Massacre
In Amritsar, India’s holy city of the Sikh religion, British and Gurkha troops massacre at least 379 unarmed demonstrators meeting at the Jallianwala Bagh, a city park. Most of those killed were Indian nationalists meeting to protest the British government’s forced conscription ...read more
Vasco da Gama reaches India
Portuguese explorer Vasco de Gama becomes the first European to reach India via the Atlantic Ocean when he arrives at Calicut on the Malabar Coast. Da Gama sailed from Lisbon, Portugal, in July 1497, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and anchored at Malindi on the east coast of ...read more
Indira Gandhi convicted of election fraud
Indira Gandhi, the prime minister of India, is found guilty of electoral corruption in her successful 1971 campaign. Despite calls for her resignation, Gandhi refused to give up India’s top office and later declared martial law in the country when public demonstrations threatened ...read more
Indian army storms Golden Temple
In a bloody climax to two years of fighting between the Indian government and Sikh separatists, Indian army troops fight their way into the besieged Golden Temple compound in Amritsar–the holiest shrine of Sikhism–and kill at least 500 Sikh rebels. More than 100 Indian soldiers ...read more
Indira Gandhi becomes Indian prime minister
Following the death of Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi becomes head of the Congress Party and thus prime minister of India. She was India’s first female head of government and by the time of her assassination in 1984 was one of its most controversial. ...read more
India and Pakistan win independence
The Indian Independence Bill, which carves the independent nations of India and Pakistan out of the former Mogul Empire, comes into force at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947. The long-awaited agreement ended 200 years of British rule and was hailed by Indian independence ...read more
India joins the nuclear club
In the Rajasthan Desert in the municipality of Pokhran, India successfully detonates its first nuclear weapon, a fission bomb similar in explosive power to the U.S. atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. The test fell on the traditional anniversary of the Buddha’s ...read more
Mohandas Gandhi begins 241-mile civil disobedience march
On March 12, 1930, Indian independence leader Mohandas Gandhi begins a defiant march to the sea in protest of the British monopoly on salt, his boldest act of civil disobedience yet against British rule in India. Britain’s Salt Acts prohibited Indians from collecting or selling ...read more
Gandhi assassinated
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the political and spiritual leader of the Indian independence movement, is assassinated in New Delhi by a Hindu extremist. Born the son of an Indian official in 1869, Gandhi’s Vaishnava mother was deeply religious and early on exposed her son to ...read more
Gandhi begins fast in protest of caste separation
On September 16, 1932, in his cell at Yerwada Jail in Pune, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi begins a hunger strike in protest of the British government’s decision to separate India’s electoral system by caste. A leader in the Indian campaign for home rule, Gandhi worked all his life ...read more
The prime minister of India is assassinated
Indira Gandhi, the prime minister of India, is assassinated in New Delhi by two of her own bodyguards. Beant Singh and Satwant Singh, both Sikhs, emptied their guns into Gandhi as she walked to her office from an adjoining bungalow. Although the two assailants immediately ...read more
Jawaharlal Nehru
An influential leader in the Indian independence movement and political heir of Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru became the nation’s first prime minister in 1947. Although faced with the challenge of uniting a vast population diverse in culture, language and religion, he ...read more
Indira Gandhi
The only daughter of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi was destined for politics. First appointed prime minister in 1966, she garnered widespread public support for agricultural improvements that led to India’s self-sufficiency in food grain production as well as ...read more