Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • Around 70,000 years ago humans left

  • Africa for the first time and arrived in

  • India via the great coastal migration.

  • Their direct descendants can be found in

  • the Andaman Islands even today.

  • The next people to populate India were a small

  • group so successful that their numbers

  • quickly multiplied and soon swamped all

  • traces of the previous coastal migration.

  • They domesticated the cow and grew wheat

  • barley and jujubes. The next wave of

  • settlers came from Central Asia and

  • between four to two thousand years ago

  • the two groups began to mix. Today's

  • Indians are the descendants of this

  • prehistoric intermingling.

  • In 1921archaeologists discovered the ruins of a

  • lost Bronze Age civilization in the Indus Valley

  • They found great cities with

  • careful town planning and drainage systems

  • This was the Indus Valley Civilization

  • older than the great pyramids

  • and at its peak home to up to

  • five million people. Most of the people

  • were craftsmen and merchants whose trade

  • network stretched all the way to Sumer in today's Iraq.

  • Hundreds of seals used

  • by these traders to stamp their goods

  • have been found. The seals contain a form

  • of writing but the Indus script has not

  • been deciphered so far

  • Eventually the civilization went into decline perhaps

  • because of climate change the Indus

  • Valley cities were abandoned and their

  • existence vanished out of memory

  • then around 1500 BC a new society emerged.

  • The people cleared forests to

  • graze cattle and made tools out of iron

  • Their kings road horse-drawn chariot

  • called Rathas to battle while the

  • priests or Brahmins appeased the gods

  • through ritual sacrifices at fire altars

  • The sages of this period composed the

  • Vedas, hymns to ancient gods. Many of these

  • hymns are attributed to women scholars

  • Three and a half thousand years later

  • the Vedas are still in use today

  • The language of the Vedas is Sanskrit,

  • mother to the languages of northern India and

  • itself related to the languages of Europe

  • Vedic india stretched from the Hindu Kush

  • to the plains of the Ganges and

  • was divided into many kingdoms and republics

  • One kingdom the kuru witnessed

  • a dynastic struggle that culminated in

  • a legendary war. This war would be the

  • inspiration for the Mahabharata, an epic

  • poem as gods and heroes that continues

  • to influence India even today.

  • In the 5thcentury BC a host of thinkers arose with

  • new ideas that challenged the authority

  • of the priests and their rituals

  • One of them was a young prince who had

  • renounced his kingdom to seek out the truth

  • He discovered that desire is the

  • cause of suffering and letting go of

  • desire was the path to inner peace

  • He became known as the Buddha

  • the enlightened one and his message spread across India

  • in 326 bc the undefeated

  • army of Alexander the Great reached

  • India's doorstep. They won a fierce

  • battle against King Porus in the Punjab

  • but to the east, a young adventurer

  • Chandragupta Maurya had seized power

  • He drove Alexander's successors out of

  • India and established the Mauryan empire

  • His grandson Ashoka expanded the empire

  • from the Khyber to Bengal. Shaken by his

  • brutally destructive victory against the

  • kingdom of Kalinga he became a Buddhist

  • and dedicated his life to the welfare of

  • his subjects. Ashoka issued edicts

  • bearing the message of peace, compassion

  • and justice all across his empire

  • These edicts were written in Brahmi,

  • the ancestor of all the writing systems used

  • in India today. By this time the general

  • population spoke various Prakrit languages

  • that would evolve into the

  • modern languages of India but in the

  • deep south the Tamil language had

  • already developed classical literature

  • The three kingdoms of the Tamil country

  • traded extensively with the Roman Empire

  • exchanging Indian spices for gold

  • After the fall of the Mauryan Empire

  • a nomadic tribe expanded from Central Asia into

  • northern India forming the Kushan empire

  • Under emperor Kanishka they embraced

  • Buddhism and exported it to China via

  • the famed Silk Road.

  • The decline of theKushan Empire was followed by

  • the rise of the Gupta dynasty and a period of

  • peace and prosperity followed.

  • This was the Golden Age of India. The Gupta period

  • produced cultural high points such as

  • the classical Sanskrit plays of kalidasa

  • Chaturanga - the precursor to the game of chess

  • and the world's first manual on sex

  • the Kama Sutra

  • the mathematician-astronomer Aryabhata proposed that the

  • Earth revolves around the Sun and

  • accurately calculated the circumference

  • of the earth but India's greatest

  • contribution to the world was the Hindu

  • number system and the use of zero

  • - The foundation of all modern science

  • A renewed Hinduism based on devotion

  • rather than ritual emerged under the Guptas

  • The cults of Shiva and

  • Vishnu became prominent

  • The Gupta Empireeventually declined and broke up into

  • many kingdoms that waged war against

  • each other no ruler of this period was

  • able to create and control a great empire.

  • in the tenth century the chola

  • dynasty under Raja raja broke the deadlock

  • and conquered all of southern India

  • The Cholan Navy dominated the Bay of Bengal

  • and invaded Sri Lanka and parts of

  • Southeast Asia. The chola kings built

  • great temples to Shiva that also became

  • the centres of economic and cultural life

  • Around the same time the temple towns of

  • the north were under attack by Turkic

  • Raiders led by Mahmud of Ghazni

  • 150 years later another Muslim ruler

  • Mohammed Ghori raised vast armies that

  • over ran the Northern Plains

  • His defeat of the Rajput King pretty Rajan 1192

  • laid the foundations of Muslim rule in India

  • Qutub ud-din Aybak a former slave

  • of Ghori became the first Sultan of Delhi

  • the Delhi Sultanate would give India the

  • tradition of sufi saints, the Urdu

  • language, music and poetry and for a

  • brief period - its first female Empress

  • under Alauddin Khilji they repulsed the Mongol empire

  • and under the Tughlaq dynasty

  • the Sultanate expanded into

  • southern India

  • The weakening of the southern kingdoms

  • paved the way for the rise of Vijayanagara

  • the last great empire of the south

  • the Vijaynagara rulers built monumental

  • temples were patrons of carnatic music

  • as well as literature in the Kannada

  • Telugu and Tamil languages

  • In the North the nomadic warlord Timur sacked belly and

  • massacred its people. This attack

  • severely weakened the Sultanate and many

  • regional Sultanates, Rajput Princedoms

  • and the Ahom kingdom of the

  • Northeast emerged. In the Punjab

  • Guru nanak

  • founded the sikh religion

  • The final blow for the Sultanate came

  • when Babur a descendant of Timur and

  • Genghis khan defeated the last sultan of

  • delhi at Panipat

  • Although outnumbered five-to-one Babur had the

  • advantage of gunpowder and cannons

  • This battle marked the beginning of a new era

  • the Mughal empire

  • Babur's grandson Akbar was a great ruler

  • who united his subjects both by conquest

  • and by tolerance. He started an

  • experimental religion Din-i-Ilahi by

  • blending ideas from all religions

  • He reorganized the administrative

  • departments and abolished the sectarian

  • tax on Hindus. By the time of his death

  • India had the largest GDP in the world

  • the Mughals embarked on great building

  • projects constructing magnificent Gardens

  • forts and tombs including the Taj Mahal

  • built by the Emperor Shah Jahan in

  • memory of his beloved Queen Mumtaz

  • incidentally it was Shah Jahan's third son with Mumtaz

  • - Aurangzeb, who imprisoned Shah Jahan

  • and seized the throne

  • Aurangzeb ruled with an iron fist

  • The empirereached its greatest extent but was

  • plagued with revolts and religious the empire

  • Aurangzeb's greatest

  • enemy was Shivaji Bhonsle, a leader of

  • the Hindu Maratha people who broke away

  • from Mughal rule and established the

  • Maratha Empire

  • After Aurangzeb's death the Mughal

  • emperors became vassals of the Maratha

  • prime minister or Peshwa

  • Provincial governors or nawabs declared

  • independence as did the Sikhs and the

  • kingdoms of Mysore and Hyderabad but

  • waiting patiently on the sidelines were

  • the European powers

  • It was the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama who

  • first landed in India in 1498, almost 30

  • years before the Mughals

  • The Dutch, Danish French and British trading

  • companies soon followed

  • Wary of the growing influence of the British East India Company

  • the nawab of Bengal had

  • 146 british prisoners locked up in a

  • small cell. Only 23 survived the night

  • This incident led to the battle of

  • Plassey where company troops led by

  • Robert Clive defeated the Nawabs forces

  • The emboldened East India Company went on to

  • defeat the Mysore kingdom, the Sikhs

  • the Marathas and the French to emerge as

  • the dominant power in India

  • The company troops were mostly made up

  • of Indian soldiers called Sepoys

  • In 1857 the company issued cartridges

  • greased with the fat of cows and pigs

  • This infuriated both Hindu and Muslim

  • sepoys causing a mutiny. They were

  • joined by local rulers including the

  • last Mughal emperor and the rebels

  • almost succeeded in driving the british

  • out of india. The rebellion however lacked

  • a central leadership and was brutally

  • suppressed a year later

  • the East IndiaCompany was dissolved and India was

  • directly governed by the crown

  • Independent local kingdoms became

  • British protectorates called princely states

  • The British Raj had begun

  • Indian social reformers campaigned for women's

  • education and the abolishment of widow immolation

  • and child marriages

  • The british-built universities, schools and

  • hospitals and a network of railways that

  • connected the country. This brought the

  • different regions of India together and

  • the sense of a common national identity emerged.

  • But all of this came at a heavy price

  • India was made to grow cash crops

  • like indigo, tea and cotton which were

  • processed into finished goods in Britain

  • only to be dumped back into Indian markets

  • Millions died in famines as food was

  • diverted to supply Britain's war efforts

  • in Europe. India's share of world gdp

  • fell from almost twenty-three percent in

  • 1700 less than four percent

  • The Indian National Congress was first formed to

  • obtain a greater share in the government

  • for Indians but faced with opposition

  • from the British the party began

  • campaigning for total independence in

  • 1919 British troops opened fire on a

  • peaceful gathering at jallianwala bagh

  • in the Punjab killing at least 379 men,

  • women and children. This event triggered a

  • nationwide movement for independence

  • although there were attempts at armed

  • revolution India's freedom struggle

  • would be marked by the nonviolent

  • resistance led by Mahatma Gandhi

  • When World War 2 broke out, Britain declared

  • war on India's behalf and sent two million

  • Indians to battle. Subhas Chandra Bose's

  • army of Indian prisoners of war raised

  • with German and Japanese help

  • unsuccessfully tried to challenge

  • Britain's hold on India but the war in

  • Europe had diminished Britain's economic

  • and military strength to control India

  • and India finally became independent on

  • the fifteenth of August 1947 owing to

  • vociferous demands for a separate Muslim homeland

  • india was partitioned into a Hindu

  • majority India and a Muslim Pakistan

  • 14 million Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims were

  • displaced in what was to be the largest

  • mass migration in human history

  • Thousands would die in violent riots

  • along the way. Under Jawaharlal Nehru

  • the first Prime Minister India adopted a

  • mixed socialist economy and chose to

  • remain non-aligned in the cold war

  • Dr ambedkar wrote India's Constitution

  • the longest in the world which declared

  • India to be a secular Democratic Republic

  • Sardar Patel led the

  • integration of 565 princely states into

  • the Union of India. Disputes over the

  • Himalayan border escalated into a war

  • with China in which the ill prepared Indian forces

  • were defeated

  • India and Pakistan went to war over the Kashmir region in

  • 1965 this time India prevailed

  • Pakistan launched another attack on India in 1971

  • but was defeated again and forced to

  • grant independence to Bangladesh

  • Nehru's daughter and India's first woman

  • Prime Minister Indira Gandhi authorized

  • the country's successful nuclear weapons program

  • The Green Revolution allowed

  • India to feed a population of 500 million

  • ending two decades of food imports

  • India's highly regulated economy

  • however remained sluggish with rampant corruption

  • This changed with the

  • liberalisation reforms of 1991 that

  • created a large urban middle class and

  • transformed India into one of the

  • world's fastest growing economies

  • tHE 90s were also a decade of strife

  • A militant insurgency started in the

  • muslim-majority Kashmir region

  • Comunal violence erupted across India when a

  • Hindu mob demolished a mosque built by

  • Babur on the site believed to be the

  • birthplace of the Hindu god Rama

  • In 1998 both India and Pakistan conducted

  • nuclear weapons tests. The next year

  • India repulsed Pakistan's attempt to

  • infiltrate Kashmir in the Kargil war

  • - the only instance of direct conventional

  • warfare between nuclear States

  • Peace still continues to elude the two nations

  • India welcomed its billionth baby in May 2000

  • and is expected to become

  • the world's most populous nation by 2022

  • in December 2016 India's GDP surpassed

  • that of Britain for the first time in

  • 150 years making it the sixth largest in the world

  • However problems like the black market

  • economy, domestic insurgencies and

  • economic inequality still persist

  • Today India is a member of the g20 and BRICS and

  • is campaigning for a permanent seat on

  • the UN Security Council

  • India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi has launched a

  • crackdown on corruption and red tape and

  • seeks to increase India's geo political clout.

  • Indian movies food and spiritual

  • teachings reflect India's growing soft power

  • as does a large and prominent Indian diaspora population

  • So this was

  • the history of India. If you liked this

  • video please check out the other videos we made.

  • Click the subscribe button if

  • you want to see more videos on

  • history, languages and cultures

  • Thanks for watching brief histories

Around 70,000 years ago humans left

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it