Towards a better India/Past and Present

Bronze Age
Historically, India had one of the oldest civilizations that dated back to 3500 BC. The Indus Valley Civilization had an extremely advanced town planning, architecture and pottery design for its age and it reached its zenith at around 1500 BC. Roughly around the same time, there was a parallel civilization in the south called the Dravidian Civilization.

Colonial Times
At the time Mughals, were establishing themselves in India, the other notable development was the arrival of the Europeans. Vasco da Gama, of Portugal, landed on the Western Indian coast in 1498. Initially the Europeans were interested in trade with India but subsequently started establishing settlements and cornering political power mainly by cleverly dividing the Indian Princes and turning them against each other and superior armed forces.

However, as European history has it, the major European powers like the UK, France, the Netherlands and Portugal were engaged in a major struggle to gain upper hand in political power as well as trade, they engaged in similar struggle in India too.

The UK displaced almost completely all others and the British Queen took over the Indian Government from the administration of the East India Company after 1857, following a revolt by Indians of assorted interests, including the last Mughal king, Bahadur Shah Jaffer. The British rule continued until 1947, when India gained independence after a prolonged struggle for independence lead by Mahatma Gandhi.

Free India Post-Liberalization
--Chirax (talk) 12:09, 15 July 2008 (UTC)