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There is evidence of a civilized, urban society in the Indus Valley dating back over 5,000 years. Around 1500 BC, a group of Aryan peoples invaded India from the north. Over the next 2,000 years, many other groups from both Africa and Asia migrated into the area. The Aryans brought with them a religion called Vedism, which was based on a rigid social hierarchy, or caste system. Vedism eventually combined with local religions and evolved into Hinduism.
In 321 BC, the warrior Chandragupta united most of North India through military conquest and established the Maurya Dynasty. The third Mauryan king, Asoka, conquered the southern portion of India, uniting the entire continent into one kingdom. Asoka, who was a Buddhist, sought to diminish the influence of Hinduism in India. The influence of Buddhism can still be seen in many of India’s stupas (shrines), including the Great Stupa at Sanchi. Maurya kings ruled India for nearly 600 years. However, by the dawn of the fourth century AD, their kingdom had once again split into many small states.
From approximately 450 AD to 530 AD, a group known as the White Huns periodically attacked, effectively destroying the Indian kingdom. Over the next thousand years, India was repeatedly invaded and conquered by Huns. In 1200, Genghis Khan led a series of successful raids against Punjab, making India the center of the largest land empire in history. Khan let the Muslims maintain a Sultanate in Delhi and allowed them to rule with relative autonomy. However, in 1526, Babur, a descendent of Khan, seized the throne from the Sultan and established the great Mughal Empire, which remained in power until the early 1800s.
Although Britain did not declare India a colony, the British East India Company came to be the dominant political force in the country by using Indian soldiers to assert its will over the government and other European trade companies. By the 1850s, Indian nationalists had grown wary of this arrangement. They fomented a revolt among the Indian soldiers employed by the company. In 1857, the soldiers struck out, effectively ending the 100-year monopoly of the British East India Company.
Despite many advances under British rule, including the construction of railways, canals, irrigation works, schools, mills and factories, Indian resentment continued to increase, and nationalism had reached a fever pitch by the onset of the First World War. Led by Mohandas Gandhi, Indian nationalists gained control of Congress and began a campaign of non-cooperation with the British.
During World War II, the Indian Congress agreed to serve with the British only one condition—that India would be granted independence at the close of the war. The British rejected the proposal. Nevertheless, 2.5 million Indians did fight with Britain against the Japanese; what’s more, the British granted independence to India in 1947. The new nation was marred by internal rioting between Hindus and Muslims. Gandhi’s attempts to end the strife and create unity were cut short when he was shot dead in 1948.