INTRODUCTION OF INDIA

• Motto: "Satyameva jayate”

Truth alone triumph• Anthem: Jana Gana Mana

(Thou art the ruler of the minds of all people)

• National Song: Vande Mataram

I bow to thee, Mother

FLAG EMBLEM

• India officially, Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal on the east, India has a coastline of 7,517 kilometers (4,671 mi) It is bordered by Pakistan to the west People's Republic of China (PRC), Nepal, and Bhutan to the north; and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and Indonesia covered with Indian Ocean at its feet.

• India's coast is 7,517 kilometers (4,671 mi) long; of this distance, 5,423 kilometers (3,370 mi) belong to peninsular India, and 2,094 kilometers (1,301 mi) to the Andaman, Nicobar, and Lakshadweep Islands. The mainland coast consists of the following: 43% sandy beaches, 11% rocky coast including cliffs, and 46% mudflats or marshy coasts.

• Four major world religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism originated there, while Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam arrived in the first millennium CE and shaped the region's diverse culture. Gradually annexed by the British East India Company from the early eighteenth century and colonized by the United Kingdom from the mid-nineteenth century, India became an independent nation in 1947 after a struggle for independence that was marked by widespread nonviolent resistance.

• India is a republic consisting of 28 states and seven union territories with a parliamentary system of democracy. It has the world's twelfth largest economy at market exchange rates and the fourth largest in purchasing power.

DIVERSITIES

• India is a country of bewilderingly great diversities. We keep marveling at the incredibly harmonious co-existence of various religions & culture; its varied landscapes from Kashmir to Kannyakumari and from Gujarat to Arunachal Pradesh, the different cuisines, etc! India is also a place for Ayurveda, Yoga, learning, amazing arts & crafts, mountains, backwaters, nature, rivers, deserts, wildlife, etc. India is a jigsaw of people - of every faith and religion living together to create a unique and colorful mosaic. There is a festival for every reason and every season.

DRESSES• Traditional dresses of

India.Indian garments are traditionally unstiched.Men use the Dhoti and the AngavastraThe Dhoti is draped over the legs and the Angavastra is thrown across the shoulders.except that a part of the saree is pulled across the shoulders.Both Men and Women wear colourful garments

INDIA: A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME

THE COMING OF EUROPEAN COLONIALISM

• From the 15th century onwards the first European colonists had started visiting the shores of India.

• In the early 16th century, Portuguese rule was established on the West coast of India at Goa posts and later took advantage of internal conflicts to establish colonies in the country. But the Portuguese did not succeed in moving deep into the country, their domination remained confined to the coastal periphery. It was only the British who managed to take on the mantle of administering the country from the Mughals.

From the 15th century onwards the first European colonists had started visiting the shores of India

• Though the Mughal Empire did survive till 1857, its heyday can be considered to have come to an end in 1707, with the death of Aurangzeb.

The interior of the Govind palace at Datia. The opulence and grandeur of the medieval palaces was unparalleled. The reason for this was that there manor was a status symbol for the feudal lords.

Late 19th and early 20th century

1909 Prevailing Religions, Map of British Indian Empire, 1909, showing the prevailing majority religions of the population for different districts.

1909 Percentage of Muslims, Map of British Indian Empire, 1909, showing percentage of Muslims in different districts.

1909 Percentage of Hindus, Map of British Indian Empire, 1909, showing percentage of Hindus in different districts.

1909 Percentage of Buddhists, Sikhs, and Jains. Map of British Indian Empire, 1909, showing percentages in different districts.

THE REVOLUTIONARY CHANGE

• The Mutiny of 1857 created the first stirrings of a national movement for securing Independence from the British. But in its essence, the Sepoy mutiny was a war fought by the Indian kings and princes to preserve their privileges and rights of succession, which were being threatened by the British policy of the "Doctrine of Lapse". The Sepoy Mutiny was a war of the feudal princes against a new incoming imperialist power of the British. The freedom movement that came later under Tilak and Gandhi was a mass struggle in its real sense.

By 1856, most of India was under the control of the British East India Company. A year later, a nationwide insurrection of rebelling military units and kingdoms, known as India's First War of Independence or the Sepoy Mutiny, seriously challenged the Company's control but eventually failed. As a result of the instability, India was brought under the direct rule of the British Crown.

CANKERS OF A CALM WORLD: THE SEPOY REVOLT

• THE great Revolt of 1857 was a watershed in the history of modern India. It marked first national challenge to the English in India; it emboldened the growth of Indian nationalist politics; it presaged significant constitutional changes in British India. Today one hundred fifty years later as we commemorate the event, the rebellion provides us with a new source of inspiration to complete the nation-building project.

• The unique feature of the 1857 Revolt was the solidarity amongst the rebels cutting across religious and provincial lines. Leaders of the Revolt issued proclamations to stress the importance of communal amity amongst the rebels, emphasizing the need of Hindus and Muslims to join their hands to drive out the English and protect their own religious customs and rituals.

 • The Revolt failed, because of

the brutalities committed by the English on the rebels. But the Revolt generated new national ideas. Apart from laying stress on communal harmony the rebel leaders visualized a new national order. They sought to establish `a kind of elective military rule’, assured economic relief to the zamindars, peasants and artisans alike and promised better service conditions for the sepoys. The rebel leaders certainly deserve credit for nursing this national vision at a time when nationalism in the modern bourgeois sense was yet to develop.

STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE

Quit India Movement (Bharat Chhodo Andolan or the August Movement) was a civil disobedience movement launched in India in August 1942 in response to Mohandas Gandhi's call for immediate independence. Gandhi hoped to bring the British government to the negotiating table. Almost the entire Congress leadership, and not merely at the national level, was put into confinement less than twenty-four hours after Gandhi's speech, and the greater number of the Congress leaders were to spend the rest of the war in jail.

In the 20th century, a nationwide struggle for independence was launched by the Indian National Congress and other political organisations. Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi led millions of people in national campaigns of non-violent civil disobedience.

Gandhi wanted self-government for India but he believed that all Indians must work for it as one hand. Trying to overcome the urban-rural divide, he transformed the Indian National Congress, which was confined on the upper and middle class to a strong national organization thus joining large sections of the -till then- excluded groups as women, merchants, the peasantry and youth. Gandhi also promoted among his countrymen national self-respect and confidence in their ability to put an end to British rule.

MAHATAMA GANDHI

The independence movement also served as a major catalyst for similar movements in other parts of the world, leading to the eventual disintegration and dismantling of the British Empire Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolent resistance inspired the American Civil Rights Movement led by Martin Luther King, Jr, the quest for democracy in Myanmar led by Aung San Suu Kyi and the African National Congress's struggle against apartheid in South Africa led by Nelson Mandela. However not all these leaders adhered to Gandhi's strict principle of nonviolence and non-resistance.

PARTITION OF INDIA • The Partition of India was the partition of

British India that led to the creation, on August 14, 1947 and August 15, 1947, respectively, of the sovereign states of the Dominion of Pakistan (later Islamic Republic of Pakistan and People‘s Republic of Bangladesh) and the Union of India (later Republic of India). The partition of India included the geographical division of the Bengal province of British India into East Pakistan and West Bengal (India), and the similar partition of the Punjab province into West Punjab (later Punjab (Pakistan) and Islamabad Capital Territory) and East Punjab (India), and also the division of other assets, including the British Indian Army, the Indian Civil Service and other administrative services. The partition was promulgated in the Indian Independence Act 1947 and resulted in the dissolution of the British Indian Empire.

MAP OF INDIA AT THE TIME OF PARTITION

AT THE TIME OF PARTITION Two self governing countries legally came into

existence at the stroke of midnight on 15 August 1947. The ceremonies for the transfer of power were held a day earlier in Karachi, at the time the capital of the new state of Pakistan, so that the last British Viceroy, Louis Mountbatten, could attend both the ceremony in Karachi as well as the ceremony in Delhi.

However another reason for this arrangement was to avoid the appearance that Pakistan was seceding from a sovereign India. Therefore Pakistan celebrates Independence Day on August 14, while India celebrates it on August 15.

Another reason for Pakistan celebrating

independence on August 14 is the adoption of new standard time in Pakistan after partition. The new standard time of West Pakistan (modern 'Pakistan') was behind Indian standard time by 30 minutes and the new standard time of East Pakistan (modern 'Bangladesh') was ahead of Indian standard time by 30 minutes, so technically on the stroke of midnight falling between August 14 and 15, when India "got independence", it was still 11:30 PM on 14 August in West Pakistan.

PAKISTAN : HIGHLIGHTED

BEFORE PARTITON1920-1932THE EMERGENCE OF MUSLIM

LEAGUE

The All India Muslim League (AIML) was formed in Dhaka in 1906 by Muslims who were suspicious of the Hindu-majority Indian National Congress. They complained that they were not given same rights as a Muslim member compared to Hindu members. A number of different scenarios were proposed at various times. Among the first to make the demand for a separate state was the writer/philosopher Allama Iqbal, who, in his presidential address to the 1930 convention of the Muslim League said that he felt a separate nation for Muslims was essential in an otherwise Hindu-dominated subcontinent. The Sindh Assembly passed a resolution making it a demand in 1935. Iqbal, Jouhar and others then worked hard to draft Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who had till then worked for Hindu-Muslim unity, to lead the movement for this new nation. By 1930, Jinnah had begun to despair of the fate of minority communities in a united India and had begun to argue that mainstream parties such as the Congress, of which he was once a member, were insensitive to Muslim interests. The 1932 communal award which seemed to threaten the position of Muslims in Hindu-majority provinces catalysed the resurgence of the Muslim League, with Jinnah as its leader. However, the League did not do well in the 1937 provincial elections, demonstrating the hold of the conservative and local forces at the time

MOHD. ALI JINNAH

1932-1942

In 1940, Jinnah made a statement at the Lahore conference, which seemed to be calling for a separate Muslim 'nation'. However, the document was ambiguous and opaque, and did not evoke a Muslim nation in a territorial sense. This idea, though, was taken up by Muslims and particularly Hindus, and given a more territorial element. All Muslim political parties opposed the partition of India.Hindu organizations such as the Hindu Mahasabha, though against the division of the country, was also insisting on the same chasm between Hindus and Muslims. In 1937 at the 19th session of the Hindu Mahasabha held at Ahmedabad, Veer Savarkar in his presidential address asserted:

“India cannot be assumed today to be Unitarian and homogeneous nation, but on the contrary there are two nations in the main — the Hindus and the Muslims.”

Gandhi opposed the partition, saying,

“My whole soul rebels against the idea that Hinduism and Islam represent two antagonistic cultures and doctrines. To assent to such a doctrine is for me a denial of God.”

POLITICAL PARTIES AT THE TIME OF INDEPENDENCE

The Indian Political Parties were (alphabetically) All India Muslim League, Communist Party of India, Hindu Mahasabha, Indian National Congress Khaksar Tehrik, and the Unionist Muslim League (mainly in the Punjab).

The British Colonial Administration consisted of Secretary of State for India, the India Office, the Governor-General of India, and the Indian Civil Service.

On July 18, 1947, the British Parliament passed the Indian Independence Act that finalized the partition arrangement. The Government of India Act 1935 was adapted to provide a legal framework for the two new dominions. Following partition, Pakistan was added as a new member of the United Nations. The union formed from the combination of the Hindu states assumed the name India which automatically granted it the seat of British India (a UN member since 1945) as a successor state

ON THE DAY OF FREEDOM

On 15 August 1947, India gained independence from British rule, but at the same time Muslim-majority areas were partitioned to form a separate state of Pakistan.

The Partition of India was the partition of British India that led to the creation, on August 14, 1947 and August 15, 1947, respectively, of the sovereign states of the Dominion of Pakistan (later Islamic Republic of Pakistan and People's Republic of Bangladesh) and the Union of India (later Republic of India). The partition of India included the geographical division of the Bengal province of British India into East Pakistan and West Bengal (India).

On 26 January 1950, India became a republic and a new constitution came into effect.

AFTER PARTITION• Massive population exchanges occurred between the two newly-

formed states in the months immediately following Partition. Once the lines were established, about 14.5 million people crossed the borders to what they hoped was the relative safety of religious majority.

• Based on 1951 Census of displaced persons, 7,226,000 Muslims went to Pakistan from India while 7,249,000 Hindus and Sikhs moved to India from Pakistan immediately after partition. About 11.2 million or 78% of the population transfer took place in the west, with Punjab accounting for most of it; 5.3 million Muslims moved from India to West Punjab in Pakistan, 3.4 million Hindus and Sikhs moved from Pakistan to East Punjab in India; elsewhere in the west 1.2 million moved in each direction to and from Sind.

The Partition of British India in 1947, which created the twoindependent states of India and Pakistan, was followed by one of thecruelest and bloodiest migrations and ethnic cleansings in history. Thereligious fury and violence that it unleashed caused the deaths of some2 million Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. An estimated 12 to 15 millionpeople were forcibly transferred between the two countries. At least75,000 women were raped.Over 10 million people were uprooted from their homeland and traveled on foot, bullock carts and trains to their promised new home.

MESSAGES:

Nothing is Dearer than Her Service

There are times in a nation's history when Providence places before it one work, one aim, to which everything else, however high and noble in itself, has to be sacrificed. Such a time has now arrived for our Motherland when nothing is dearer than her service, when everything else is to be directed to that end. If you will study, study for her sake; train yourselves body and mind and soul for her sake. You will go abroad to foreign lands that you may bring back knowledge with which you may do service to her. Work that she may prosper. Suffer that she may rejoice. All is contained in that one single advice.

At the STROKE of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance... We end today a period of ill fortune, and India discovers herself again.

JAWARLAL NEHRU

PROUD INDIA

INDIAN ART

INDIAN DANCES

INDIAN CUISINES

INDIAN FLAVOURS

UNIQUE INDIA

ETHNIC INDIA

THAT IS INDIA AND HISTORY OF INDIA

PRESENTATION BY:

DHEERA LIKHI