India: Difference between revisions

{{Short description|Country in the Indian subcontinent}}

 

| native_name            = <!-- Do not remove this from the infobox as infobox translations and transliterations do not fall under [[WP:Manual of Style/India-related articles#Indic scripts in leads and infoboxes]].--> {{transliteration|hi|ISO|Bhārata Gaṇarājya}}

| other_symbol_type      = National song: {{nobold|{{native phrase|sa|[[Vande Mataram]]|italics=off}}{{efn|Written in a mixture of Sanskrit and [[Sadhu bhasha|Sanskritised Bengali]]}}}}

| national_motto        = {{native phrase|sa|[[Satyameva Jayate]]|italics=off}}

| national_anthem        = {{native phrase|hi|[[Jana Gana Mana]]|italics=off}}{{efn|Originally written in [[Sadhu bhasha|Sanskritised Bengali]] and adopted as the national anthem in its Hindi translation}}<ref name="india.gov.in">{{Cite web |title=National Symbols &#124; National Portal of India |url=https://india.gov.in/india-glance/national-symbols |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170204121208/https://india.gov.in/india-glance/national-symbols |archive-date=4 February 2017 |access-date=1 March 2017 |publisher=[[India.gov.in]] |quote=The National Anthem of India Jana Gana Mana, composed originally in Bengali by Rabindranath Tagore, was adopted in its Hindi version by the Constituent Assembly as the National Anthem of India on 24 January 1950.}}</ref><ref name="tatsama">{{Cite news |date=14 August 2012 |title=National anthem of India: a brief on 'Jana Gana Mana' |publisher=[[News18 India|News18]] |url=https://www.news18.com/news/india/national-anthem-of-india-a-brief-on-jana-gana-mana-498576.html |access-date=7 June 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190417194530/https://www.news18.com/news/india/national-anthem-of-india-a-brief-on-jana-gana-mana-498576.html |archive-date=17 April 2019}}</ref><br />"Thou Art the Ruler of the Minds of All People"{{lower|0.2em|{{sfn|Wolpert|2003|p=1}}<ref name="india.gov.in" />}}<br />

| map_caption            = {{Legend|#336830|Territory controlled by India}}{{Legend|#61E760|[[Disputed territories of India|Territory claimed but not controlled]]}}

| admin_center           = [[Mumbai]]

| admin_center_type      = Largest city {{normal|by [[List of cities in India by population|city proper population]]}}

| largest_settlement    = [[Delhi]]

| largest_settlement_type = city {{normal|by metropolitan area population}}

  |titlestyle = background:transparent;color: inherit; text-align:left;

  |1= Eighth Schedule {{hlist

  | all the 8th scheduled languages – except [[Sindhi language|Sindhi]], [[Kashmiri language|Kashmiri]] and [[Dogri language|Dogri]]{{efn|[[Kashmiri language|Kashmiri]] and [[Dogri language]] are the official languages of [[Jammu and Kashmir (union territory)|Jammu and Kashmir]] which is currently a [[union territory]] and no longer the [[Jammu and Kashmir (state)|former state]].}}

| languages              = [[List of languages by number of native speakers in India|424 languages]]{{efn|

* According to [[Ethnologue]], there are 424 living indigenous languages in India, in contrast to 11 extinct indigenous languages. In addition, there are also 29 living non-indigenous languages.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Eberhard |first1=David M. |last2=Simons |first2=Gary F. |last3=Fennig |first3=Charles D. |year=2024 |title=India |url=https://www.ethnologue.com/country/IN/ |website=[[Ethnologue|Ethnologue: Languages of the World]] |edition=27}}</ref>  

| religion_ref          = <ref name="Census2011religion" />

| leader_title2          = [[Prime Minister of India|Prime Minister]]

| leader_name2           = [[Narendra Modi]]

| area_km2              = 3,287,263

| area_footnote          = <ref name="india.gov.in" />{{efn|"The country's exact size is subject to debate because some borders are disputed. The Indian government lists the total area as {{convert|3287260|km2|sqmi|abbr=on}} and the total land area as {{convert|3060500|km2|sqmi|abbr=on}}; the United Nations lists the total area as {{convert|3287263|km2|sqmi|abbr=on}} and total land area as {{convert|2973190|km2|sqmi|abbr=on}}."{{sfn|Library of Congress|2004}} }}

| population_estimate    = {{increaseNeutral}} 1,428,627,663<ref name="WPP UN">{{Cite web |title=World Population Prospects |url=https://population.un.org/wpp/ |access-date=2 July 2023 |website=Population Division – United Nations }}</ref>

| GDP_PPP                = {{increase}} {{nowrap|$16.020 trillion}}<ref name="IMFWEO.IN">{{cite web |url=https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/weo-database/2024/October/weo-report?c=534,&s=NGDPD,PPPGDP,NGDPDPC,PPPPC,&sy=2022&ey=2024&ssm=0&scsm=1&scc=0&ssd=1&ssc=0&sic=0&sort=country&ds=.&br=1 |title=World Economic Outlook Database, October 2024 Edition. (India) |publisher=[[International Monetary Fund]] |website=www.imf.org |date=22 October 2024 |access-date=22 October 2024}}</ref>

| GDP_PPP_year          = 2024

| GDP_PPP_per_capita    = {{increase}} $11,112<ref name="IMFWEO.IN" />

| GDP_PPP_per_capita_rank = 122nd

| GDP_nominal            = {{increase}} {{nowrap|$3.94 trillion}}<ref name="IMFWEO.IN" />

| GDP_nominal_year      = 2024

| GDP_nominal_per_capita = {{increase}} $2,698<ref name="IMFWEO.IN" />

| GDP_nominal_per_capita_rank = 141st

| Gini                  = 32.8 <!--number only-->

| Gini_year              = 2021

| Gini_change            = decrease<!--increase/decrease/steady-->

| Gini_ref              = <ref>{{Cite web |title=Gini index (World Bank estimate) – India |url=https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI?locations=IN |publisher=[[World Bank]]}}</ref>

| HDI                    = 0.644 <!--number only-->

| HDI_year              = 2022 <!--Please use the year to which the HDI [[Human Development Index]] data refers, not the publication year-->

| HDI_ref                = <ref name="UNHDR">{{cite web|url=https://hdr.undp.org/system/files/documents/global-report-document/hdr2023-24reporten.pdf|title=Human Development Report 2023/24|language=en|publisher=[[United Nations Development Programme]]|date=13 March 2024|access-date=13 March 2024}}</ref>

| HDI_rank              = {{ordinal|134}}

| currency              = [[Indian rupee]] ([[₹]])

| utc_offset_DST        =  

| time_zone_DST          =  

| englishmotto           = "Truth Alone Triumphs"{{lower|0.2em|{{sfn|National Informatics Centre|2005}}}}

  | 0.65% [[Religion in India|other]]

| today                  =  

}}

<!--Overly detailed information or infobox data duplication such as listing random examples, numbered statistics or naming individuals should be reserved for the body of the article-->

 

'''India''', officially the '''Republic of India''',{{efn|[[ISO 15919|ISO]]: {{transliteration|hi|ISO|Bhārata Gaṇarājya भारत गणराज्य}}}}<ref>

* {{citation|title=The Essential Desk Reference |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yjcOAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA76|year=2002|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=978-0-19-512873-4|page=76}} "Official name: Republic of India.";

* {{citation|author=John Da Graça|title=Heads of State and Government|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M0YfDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA421 |year=2017|publisher=[[Macmillan Publishers|Macmillan]] |location=London |isbn=978-1-349-65771-1|page=421}} "Official name: Republic of India; Bharat Ganarajya (Hindi)";

* {{citation|author=Graham Rhind |title=Global Sourcebook of Address Data Management: A Guide to Address Formats and Data in 194 Countries |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iGdQDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA302|year=2017|publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]] |isbn=978-1-351-93326-1|page=302}} "Official name: Republic of India; Bharat.";

* {{citation|last=Bradnock|first=Robert W.|title=The Routledge Atlas of South Asian Affairs |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zzjbCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA108|year=2015|publisher=[[Routledge]]|isbn=978-1-317-40511-5|page=108}} "Official name: English: Republic of India; Hindi:Bharat Ganarajya";

* {{citation|title=Penguin Compact Atlas of the World|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pLw-ReHIgvQC&pg=PA140|year=2012|publisher=[[Penguin Group|Penguin]] |isbn=978-0-7566-9859-1|page=140}} "Official name: Republic of India";

* {{citation|title=Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Co_VIPIJerIC&pg=PA515|year=1997|isbn=978-0-87779-546-9 |edition=3rd |publisher=[[Merriam-Webster]]|pages=515–516}} "Officially, Republic of India";

* {{citation|title=Complete Atlas of the World: The Definitive View of the Earth |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O5moCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA54-IA10 |edition=3rd|year=2016|publisher=[[DK Publishing]] |isbn=978-1-4654-5528-4|page=54}} "Official name: Republic of India";

* {{citation|title=Worldwide Government Directory with Intergovernmental Organizations 2013|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CQWhAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA726|year= 2013|publisher=[[CQ Press]]|isbn=978-1-4522-9937-2|page=726}}</ref> is a country in the [[Indian subcontinent]]. It is the [[List of countries by population (United Nations)|most populous country]] in the world and the [[List of countries and dependencies by area|seventh-largest by area]]. Bounded by the [[Indian Ocean]] on the south, the [[Arabian Sea]] on the southwest, and the [[Bay of Bengal]] on the southeast, it shares land borders with [[Afghanistan]] to the west<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20250129055114/https://www.jagranjosh.com/general-knowledge/list-of-indias-neighbouring-countries-1400669307-1</ref>; [[China]], [[Nepal]], and [[Bhutan]] to the north; and [[Bangladesh]] and [[Myanmar]] to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of [[Sri Lanka]] and the [[Maldives]]; its [[Andaman and Nicobar Islands]] share a maritime border with [[Thailand]], Myanmar, and [[Indonesia]].

[[Modern humans]] arrived on the [[Indian subcontinent]] from Africa no later than 55,000 years ago.<ref name="PetragliaAllchin">{{harvnb|Petraglia|Allchin|2007|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=Qm9GfjNlnRwC&pg=PA10 10]}}, "Y-Chromosome and Mt-DNA data support the colonisation of the Indian subcontinent by modern humans originating in Africa. ... Coalescence dates for most non-European populations average to between 73 and 55 ka."</ref><ref name="Dyson2018p1">{{harvnb|Dyson|2018|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=3TRtDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA1 1]}}, "Modern human beings—''Homo sapiens''—originated in Africa. Then, intermittently, sometime between 60,000 and 80,000 years ago, tiny groups of them began to enter the north-west of the Indian subcontinent. It seems likely that initially they came by way of the coast. ... it is virtually certain that there were ''Homo sapiens'' in the subcontinent 55,000 years ago, even though the earliest fossils that have been found of them date to only about 30,000 years before the present."</ref><ref name="Fisher2018p23">{{harvnb|Fisher|2018|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=kZVuDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA23 23]}}, "Scholars estimate that the first successful expansion of the ''Homo sapiens'' range beyond Africa and across the Arabian Peninsula occurred from as early as 80,000 years ago to as late as 40,000 years ago, although there may have been prior unsuccessful emigrations. Some of their descendants extended the human range ever further in each generation, spreading into each habitable land they encountered. One human channel was along the warm and productive coastal lands of the Persian Gulf and northern Indian Ocean. Eventually, various bands entered India between 75,000 years ago and 35,000 years ago."</ref> Their long occupation, initially in varying forms of isolation as hunter-gatherers, has made the region highly diverse, second only to Africa in human [[genetic diversity]].<ref name="Dyson2018-28a">{{harvnb|Dyson|2018|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=3TRtDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA28 28]}}</ref> [[Neolithic|Settled life]] emerged on the subcontinent in the western margins of the [[Indus River|Indus]] [[river basin]] 9,000 years ago, evolving gradually into the [[Indus Valley Civilisation]] of the third millennium BCE.<ref name="Combined-2">(a) {{harvnb|Dyson|2018|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=3TRtDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA4 4–5]}};<br />(b) {{harvnb|Fisher|2018|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=kZVuDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA23 33]}}</ref> By at least {{BCE|1200}}, an [[Proto-language|archaic form]] of [[Sanskrit]], an [[Indo-European language]], had [[Trans-cultural diffusion|diffused]] into India from the northwest.<ref>{{Harvnb|Lowe|2015|p=|pp=1–2}}, "[[Rigveda|It]] consists of 1,028 hymns (''sūktas''), highly crafted poetic compositions originally intended for recital during rituals and for the invocation of and communication with the Indo-Aryan gods. Modern scholarly opinion largely agrees that these hymns were composed between around 1500 BCE and 1200 BCE, during the eastward migration of the Indo-Aryan tribes from the mountains of what is today northern Afghanistan across the Punjab into north India."</ref><ref name="Combined-4-Rigveda">(a) {{harvnb|Witzel|2003|p=|pp=68–70}}, "It is known from internal evidence that the Vedic texts were orally composed in northern India, at first in the Greater Punjab and later on also in more eastern areas, including northern Bihar, between ca. 1500 BCE and ca. 500–400 BCE. The oldest text, the Rgveda, must have been more or less contemporary with the Mitanni texts of northern Syria/Iraq (1450–1350 BCE); [...] The Vedic texts were orally composed and transmitted, without the use of script, in an unbroken line of transmission from teacher to student that was formalised early on. This ensured an impeccable textual transmission superior to the classical texts of other cultures; it is in fact something of a ''tape-recording'' of ca. 1500–500 BCE. Not just the actual words, but even the long-lost musical (tonal) accent (as in old Greek or in Japanese) has been preserved up to the present. [...] The RV text was composed before the introduction and massive use of iron, that is before ca. 1200–1000 BCE.";<br />(b) {{Harvnb|Doniger|2014|pp=xviii, 10}}, "A Chronology of Hinduism: ca. 1500–1000 BCE Rig Veda; ca. 1200–900 BCE Yajur Veda, Sama Veda and Atharva Veda [...] Hindu texts began with the ''Rig Veda'' ('Knowledge of Verses'), composed in northwest India around 1500 BCE; the first of the three Vedas, it is the earliest extant text composed in Sanskrit, the language of ancient India.";<br />(c) {{harvnb|Ludden|2014|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=pBq9DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA19 19]}}, "In Punjab, a dry region with grasslands watered by five rivers (hence 'panch' and 'ab') draining the western Himalayas, one prehistoric culture left no material remains, but some of its ritual texts were preserved orally over the millennia. The culture is called Aryan, and evidence in its texts indicates that it spread slowly south-east, following the course of the Yamuna and Ganga Rivers. Its elite called itself Arya (pure) and distinguished themselves sharply from others. Aryans led kin groups organized as nomadic horse-herding tribes. Their ritual texts are called Vedas, composed in Sanskrit. [[Vedic Sanskrit]] is recorded only in hymns that were part of Vedic rituals to Aryan gods. To be Aryan apparently meant to belong to the elite among pastoral tribes. Texts that record Aryan culture are not precisely datable, but they seem to begin around 1200 BCE with four collections of Vedic hymns (Rg, Sama, Yajur, and Artharva).";<br />(d) {{harvnb|Dyson|2018|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=3TRtDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA14 14–15]}}, "Although the collapse of the Indus valley civilization is no longer believed to have been due to an 'Aryan invasion' it is widely thought that, at roughly the same time, or perhaps a few centuries later, new Indo-Aryan-speaking people and influences began to enter the subcontinent from the north-west. Detailed evidence is lacking. Nevertheless, a predecessor of the language that would eventually be called Sanskrit was probably introduced into the north-west sometime between 3,900 and 3,000 years ago. This language was related to one then spoken in eastern Iran; and both of these languages belonged to the Indo-European language family. [...] It seems likely that various small-scale migrations were involved in the gradual introduction of the predecessor language and associated cultural characteristics. However, there may not have been a tight relationship between movements of people on the one hand, and changes in language and culture on the other. Moreover, the process whereby a dynamic new force gradually arose—a people with a distinct ideology who eventually seem to have referred to themselves as 'Arya'—was certainly two-way. That is, it involved a blending of new features which came from outside with other features—probably including some surviving Harappan influences—that were already present. Anyhow, it would be quite a few centuries before Sanskrit was written down. And the hymns and stories of the Arya people—especially the Vedas and the later Mahabharata and Ramayana epics—are poor guides as to historical events. Of course, the emerging Arya were to have a huge impact on the history of the subcontinent. Nevertheless, little is known about their early presence."; <br /> (e) {{harvnb|Robb|2011|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=GQ-2VH1LO_EC&pg=PA46 46–]}}, "The expansion of Aryan culture is supposed to have begun around 1500 BCE. It should not be thought that this Aryan emergence (though it implies some migration) necessarily meant either a sudden invasion of new peoples, or a complete break with earlier traditions. It comprises a set of cultural ideas and practices, upheld by a Sanskrit-speaking elite, or Aryans. The features of this society are recorded in the Vedas."</ref> Its evidence today is found in the hymns of the ''[[Rigveda]]''. Preserved by an [[oral tradition]] that was [[Indian mathematics#Styles of memorisation|resolutely vigilant]], the ''Rigveda'' records the dawning of [[Hinduism]] in India.<ref name="Combined-3">(a) {{citation|last1=Jamison|first1=Stephanie|author-link1=Stephanie W. Jamison|last2=Brereton|first2=Joel |title=The Rigveda|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1LTRDwAAQBAJ|year=2020|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=978-0-19-063339-4|pages=2, 4|quote=The RgVeda is one of the four Vedas, which together constitute the oldest texts in Sanskrit and the earliest evidence for what will become Hinduism. (p. 2)  Although Vedic religion is very different in many regards from what is known as Classical Hinduism, the seeds are there. Gods like Visnu and Siva (under the name Rudra), who will become so dominant later, are already present in the Rgveda, though in roles both lesser than and different from those they will later play, and the principal Rgvedic gods like Indra remain in later Hinduism, though in diminished capacity (p. 4).}};<br />(b) {{citation|last=Flood|first=Gavin|author-link=Gavin Flood|editor=Gavin Flood|title=The Oxford History of Hinduism: Hindu Practice: Hindu Practice|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4yT3DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA4|year= 2020|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|isbn=978-0-19-105322-1|pages=4–|chapter=Introduction|quote=I take the term 'Hinduism to meaningfully denote a range and history of practice characterised by a number of features, particularly reference to Vedic textual and sacrificial origins, belonging to endogamous social units (jati/varna), participating in practices that involve making an offering to a deity and receiving a blessing (puja), and a first-level cultural polytheism (although many Hindus adhere to a second-level monotheism in which many gods are regarded as emanations or manifestations of the one, supreme being).}};<br />(c) {{cite book|last=Michaels|first=Axel|author-link=Axel Michaels|editor=Patrick Olivelle, Donald R. Davis|title=The Oxford History of Hinduism: Hindu Law: A New History of Dharmaśāstra|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QAJCDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA86|year=2017|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|location=Oxford |isbn=978-0-19-100709-5|pages=86–97|quote=Almost all traditional Hindu families observe until today at least three ''samskaras'' (initiation, marriage, and death ritual).  Most other rituals have lost their popularity, are combined with other rites of passage, or are drastically shortened.  Although ''samskaras'' vary from region to region, from class (''varna'') to class, and from caste to caste, their core elements remain the same owing to the common source, the Veda, and a common priestly tradition preserved by the ''Brahmin'' priests. (p 86)}}<br />(d) {{cite book|last=Flood|first=Gavin D.|title=An Introduction to Hinduism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KpIWhKnYmF0C&pg=PA35|year=1996|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|isbn=978-0-521-43878-0|page=35|quote=It is this Sansrit, vedic, tradition which has maintained a continuity into modern times and which has provided the most important resource and inspiration for Hindu traditions and individuals.  The Veda is the foundation for most later developments in what is known as Hinduism.}}</ref> The [[Dravidian languages]] of India were supplanted in the northern and western regions.<ref name="Combined-4">{{harvnb|Dyson|2018|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=3TRtDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA16 16], [https://books.google.com/books?id=3TRtDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA25 25]}}</ref> By {{BCE|400}}, [[social stratification|stratification]] and [[social exclusion|exclusion]] by [[caste]] had emerged within Hinduism,<ref name="Dyson2018-16a">{{harvnb|Dyson|2018|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=3TRtDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA16 16]}}</ref> and [[History of Buddhism in India|Buddhism]] and [[History of Jainism|Jainism]] had arisen, proclaiming [[social order]]s unlinked to heredity.<ref name="Fisher2018-59">{{harvnb|Fisher|2018|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=kZVuDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA59 59]}}</ref> Early political consolidations gave rise to the loose-knit [[Maurya Empire|Maurya]] and [[Gupta Empire]]s based in the [[Ganges Basin]].<ref name="Combined-5">(a) {{harvnb|Dyson|2018|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=3TRtDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA16 16–17]}};<br />(b) {{harvnb|Fisher|2018|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=kZVuDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA67 67]}};<br />(c) {{harvnb|Robb|2011|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=GQ-2VH1LO_EC&pg=PA56 56–57]}};<br />(d) {{harvnb|Ludden|2014|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=pBq9DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA29 29–30]}}.</ref> Their collective [[era]] was suffused with wide-ranging creativity,<ref name="Combined-6">(a) {{harvnb|Ludden|2014|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=pBq9DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA28 28–29]}};

<br />(b) {{citation|author=Glenn Van Brummelen |editor=Thomas F. Glick |editor2=Steven Livesey |editor3=Faith Wallis |title=Medieval Science, Technology, and Medicine: An Encyclopedia|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=77y2AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA46|year=2014|publisher=[[Routledge]]|isbn=978-1-135-45932-1|pages=46–48|chapter=Arithmetic}}</ref> but also marked by the declining status of women,<ref name="Combined-7">(a) {{harvnb|Dyson|2018|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=3TRtDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA20 20]}};<br />(b) {{harvnb|Stein|2010|p=90}};<br />(c) {{citation |last=Ramusack|first=Barbara N.|editor1=Barbara N. Ramusack |editor2=Sharon L. Sievers |title=Women in Asia: Restoring Women to History|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CNi9Jc22OHsC&pg=PA27|year=1999 |publisher=[[Indiana University Press]]|isbn=0-253-21267-7|pages=27–29|chapter=Women in South Asia}}</ref> and the incorporation of [[untouchability]] into an organised system of belief.{{efn|"A Chinese pilgrim also recorded evidence of the caste system as he could observe it. According to this evidence the treatment meted out to untouchables such as the Chandalas was very similar to that which they experienced in later periods. This would contradict assertions that this rigid form of the caste system emerged in India only as a reaction to the Islamic conquest."{{sfn|Kulke|Rothermund|2004|p = 93}}}}{{sfn|Kulke|Rothermund|2004|p=93}} In [[South India]], the [[Middle kingdoms of India#The Deccan plateau and South|Middle kingdoms]] exported Dravidian-languages scripts and religious cultures to the kingdoms of [[Southeast Asia]].<ref name="AsherAsher2006-17">{{harvnb|Asher|Talbot|2006|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=ZvaGuaJIJgoC&pg=PA17 17]}}</ref>

In the early mediaeval era, [[Christianity]], [[Islam]], [[Judaism]], and [[Zoroastrianism]] became established on India's southern and western coasts.<ref name="Combined-8">(a) {{harvnb|Ludden|2014|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=pBq9DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA54 54]}};

<br />(c) {{harvnb|Fisher|2018|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=kZVuDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA76 76]}}</ref> Muslim armies from [[Central Asia]] intermittently overran India's northern plains,<ref name="Combined-13">(a) {{harvnb|Ludden|2014|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=pBq9DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA68 68–70]}};<br />(b) {{harvnb|Asher|Talbot|2006|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=ZvaGuaJIJgoC&pg=PA19 19], 24}}</ref> eventually founding the [[Delhi Sultanate]] at the turn of the 13th century and drawing northern India into the cosmopolitan [[Islamic Golden Age|networks of mediaeval Islam]].<ref name="Combined-10">(a) {{harvnb|Dyson|2018|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=3TRtDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA48 48]}};

<br />(b) {{harvnb|Asher|Talbot|2006|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=ZvaGuaJIJgoC&pg=PA53 52]}}</ref> In the 15th century, the [[Vijayanagara Empire]] created a long-lasting composite Hindu culture in south India.<ref name="AsherAsher2006-74">{{harvnb|Asher|Talbot|2006|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=ZvaGuaJIJgoC&pg=PA74 74]}}</ref> In the [[Punjab]], [[Sikhism]] emerged, rejecting institutionalised religion.<ref name="AsherAsher2006-267">{{harvnb|Asher|Talbot|2006|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=ZvaGuaJIJgoC&pg=PA267 267]}}</ref> The [[Mughal Empire]], in 1526, ushered in two centuries of relative peace,<ref name="AsherAsher2006-152">{{harvnb|Asher|Talbot|2006|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=ZvaGuaJIJgoC&pg=PA152 152]}}</ref> leaving a legacy of [[Mughal architecture|luminous architecture]].{{efn|"Shah Jahan eventually sent her body 800&nbsp;km (500 mi) to Agra for burial in the Rauza-i Munauwara ("Illuminated Tomb") – a personal tribute and a stone manifestation of his imperial power. This tomb has been celebrated globally as the Taj Mahal."<ref name="Fisher2018-106" />}}<ref name="Fisher2018-106">{{harvnb|Fisher|2018|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=kZVuDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA106 106]}}</ref> Gradually expanding [[Company rule in India|rule of the British East India Company]] followed, turning India into a colonial economy but also consolidating its [[sovereignty]].<ref name="Combined-11">(a) {{harvnb|Asher|Talbot|2006|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=ZvaGuaJIJgoC&pg=PA289 289]}}

<br />(b) {{harvnb|Fisher|2018|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=kZVuDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA120 120]}}</ref> [[British Raj|British Crown rule]] began in 1858. The rights promised to Indians were granted slowly,<ref name="Combined-12">{{Citation |last=Taylor |first=Miles |title=Crowns and Colonies: European Monarchies and Overseas Empires |pages=38–39 |year=2016 |editor-last=Aldrish, Robert |chapter=The British royal family and the colonial empire from the Georgians to Prince George |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iR3GDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA39 |publisher=[[Manchester University Press]] |isbn=978-1-5261-0088-7 |editor2-last=McCreery, Cindy}}</ref>{{sfn|Peers|2013|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=dyQuAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA76 76]}} but [[Industrial Revolution|technological changes]] were introduced, and modern ideas of education and public life took root.<ref name="EmbreeHay1988">{{Citation |last1=Embree |first1=Ainslie Thomas |title=Sources of Indian Tradition: Modern India and Pakistan |page=85 |year=1988 |chapter=Nationalism Takes Root: The Moderates |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XoMRuiSpBp4C&pg=PA85 |publisher=[[Columbia University Press]] |isbn=978-0-231-06414-9 |last2=Hay |first2=Stephen N. |last3=Bary |first3=William Theodore De}}</ref> A pioneering and influential [[Indian independence movement|nationalist movement]] emerged, which was noted for nonviolent resistance and became the major factor in ending British rule.<ref name="Marshall2001">{{Citation |last=Marshall |first=P. J. |title=The Cambridge Illustrated History of the British Empire |url={{Google books|S2EXN8JTwAEC|page=PA179|keywords=|text=|plainurl=yes}} |page=179 |year=2001 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-00254-7 |quote=The first modern nationalist movement to arise in the non-European empire, and one that became an inspiration for many others, was the Indian Congress.}}</ref><ref name="Chiriyankandath2016">{{Citation |last=Chiriyankandath |first=James |title=Parties and Political Change in South Asia |url={{Google books|c4n7CwAAQBAJ|page=PA2|keywords=|text=|plainurl=yes}} |page=2 |year=2016 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-58620-3 |quote=South Asian parties include several of the oldest in the post-colonial world, foremost among them the 129-year-old Indian National Congress that led India to independence in 1947}}</ref> In 1947, the British Indian Empire was [[Partition of India|partitioned]] into two independent [[Dominion#India and Pakistan|dominions]],<ref name="fisher-partition">{{harvnb|Fisher|2018|pp=173–174}}: "The partition of South Asia that produced India and West and East Pakistan resulted from years of bitter negotiations and recriminations ... The departing British also decreed that the hundreds of princes, who ruled one-third of the subcontinent and a quarter of its population, became legally independent, their status to be settled later. Geographical location, personal and popular sentiment, and substantial pressure and incentives from the new governments led almost all princes eventually to merge their domains into either Pakistan or India.  ...  Each new government asserted its exclusive sovereignty within its borders, realigning all territories, animals, plants, minerals, and all other natural and human-made resources as either Pakistani or Indian property, to be used for its national development... Simultaneously, the central civil and military services and judiciary split roughly along religious 'communal' lines, even as they divided movable government assets according to a negotiated formula: 22.7 percent for Pakistan and 77.3 percent for India."</ref><ref name="chatterji-partition">{{Citation |last1=Chatterji |first1=Joya |title=Routledge Handbook of the South Asian Diaspora |year=2013 |editor-last=Chatterji |editor-first=Joya |chapter=Introduction: Concepts and Questions |place=London and New York |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-48010-9 |quote=[[Joya Chatterji]]  describes how the partition of the British Indian empire into the new nation states of India and Pakistan produced new diaspora on a vast, and hitherto unprecedented, scale, but hints that the sheer magnitude of refugee movements in South Asia after 1947 must be understood in the context of pre-existing migratory flows within the partitioned regions (see also Chatterji 2013). She also demonstrates that the new national states of India and Pakistan were quickly drawn into trying to stem this migration. As they put into place laws designed to restrict the return of partition emigrants, this produced new dilemmas for both new nations in their treatment of 'overseas Indians'; and many of them lost their right to return to their places of origin in the subcontinent, and also their claims to full citizenship in host countries. |last2=Washbrook |first2=David |editor2-last=Washbrook |editor2-first=David}}</ref><ref name="talbot-sing">{{Citation |last1=Talbot |first1=Ian |title=The Partition of India |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=utKmPQAACAAJ |year=2009 |access-date=15 November 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161213073754/https://books.google.com/books?id=utKmPQAACAAJ |url-status=live |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-85661-4 |quote=When the British divided and quit India in August 1947, they not only partitioned the subcontinent with the emergence of the two nations of India and Pakistan but also the provinces of Punjab and Bengal. ... Indeed for many the Indian subcontinent's division in August 1947 is seen as a unique event which defies comparative historical and conceptual analysis |archive-date=13 December 2016 |last2=Singh |first2=Gurharpal}}</ref><ref name="khan-great-partition">{{Citation |last=Khan |first=Yasmin |title=The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan |page=1 |year=2017 |orig-date=2007 |edition=2nd |place=New Haven and London |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-23032-1 |quote=South Asians learned that the British Indian empire would be partitioned on 3 June 1947.  They heard about it on the radio, from relations and friends, by reading newspapers and, later, through government pamphlets.  Among a population of almost four hundred million, where the vast majority live in the countryside, ploughing the land as landless peasants or sharecroppers, it is hardly surprising that many thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, did not hear the news for many weeks afterwards. For some, the butchery and forced relocation of the summer months of 1947 may have been the first that they knew about the creation of the two new states rising from the fragmentary and terminally weakened British empire in India |author-link=Yasmin Khan}}</ref> a Hindu-majority [[dominion of India]] and a Muslim-majority [[dominion of Pakistan]], amid large-scale loss of life and an unprecedented migration.<ref>(a) {{harvnb|Copland|2001|pp=71–78}};<br />(b) {{harvnb|Metcalf|Metcalf|2006|p=222}}.</ref>

India has been a [[federal republic]] since 1950, governed through a democratic [[parliamentary system]], and has been the world's most populous democracy since the time of its independence in 1947.{{sfn|Metcalf|Metcalf|2012|p=327|ps=: "Even though much remains to be done, especially in regard to eradicating poverty and securing effective structures of governance, India's achievements since independence in sustaining freedom and democracy have been singular among the world's new nations."}}<ref name="stein-arnold">{{Citation |last=Stein |first=Burton |title=A History of India |year=2012 |editor-last=Arnold |editor-first=David |series=The Blackwell History of the World Series |edition=2 |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |quote=One of these is the idea of India as 'the world's largest democracy', but a democracy forged less by the creation of representative institutions and expanding electorate under British rule than by the endeavours of India's founding fathers – Gandhi, Nehru, Patel and Ambedkar – and the labours of the Constituent Assembly between 1946 and 1949, embodied in the Indian constitution of 1950. This democratic order, reinforced by the regular holding of nationwide elections and polling for the state assemblies, has, it can be argued, consistently underpinned a fundamentally democratic state structure – despite the anomaly of the Emergency and the apparent durability of the Gandhi-Nehru dynasty. |author-link=Burton Stein |editor-link=David Arnold (historian)}}</ref>{{sfn|Fisher|2018|pp=184–185|ps=: "Since 1947, India's internal disputes over its national identity, while periodically bitter and occasionally punctuated by violence, have been largely managed with remarkable and sustained commitment to national unity and democracy."}} It is a [[Pluralism (political philosophy)|pluralistic]], [[Multilingualism|multilingual]] and [[Multiculturalism|multi-ethnic society]]. India's nominal [[per capita income]] increased from US$64 annually in 1951 to US$2,601 in 2022, and its literacy rate from 16.6% to 74%. During the same time, its population grew from 361 million to almost 1.4 billion,<ref name="Dyson2018-219">{{harvnb|Dyson|2018|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=3TRtDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA219 219], 262}}</ref> and India became the most populous country in 2023.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Biswas |first=Soutik |date=1 May 2023 |title=Most populous nation: Should India rejoice or panic? |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-65322706 |access-date=3 May 2023 |website=[[BBC News]] |publisher=[[British Broadcasting Corporation]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.development.desa.pd/files/wpp2022_summary_of_results.pdf |title=World Population Prospects 2022: Summary of Results |publisher=United Nations Department of Social and Economic Affairs |year=2022 |location=New York |pages=i}}</ref> From being a comparatively destitute country in 1951,<ref name="Fisher2018-8">{{harvnb|Fisher|2018|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=kZVuDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA8 8]}}</ref> India has become a [[List of countries by real GDP growth rate|fast-growing]] [[G20|major economy]] and [[Information technology in India|a hub for information technology services]], with an expanding middle class.<ref name="MetcalfMetcalf2012-265">{{harvnb|Metcalf|Metcalf|2012|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=mjIfqyY7jlsC&pg=PA265 265–266]}}</ref> India has [[ISRO|a space programme]] with several planned or completed [[List of Solar System probes|extraterrestrial missions]]. [[Cinema of India|Indian movies]], [[Music of India|music]], and spiritual teachings play an increasing role in global culture.<ref name="MetcalfMetcalf2012-266">{{harvnb|Metcalf|Metcalf|2012|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=mjIfqyY7jlsC&pg=PA266 266]}}</ref> India has substantially reduced [[Poverty in India|its rate of poverty]], though at the cost of increasing economic inequality.<ref name="Dyson2018-216-a">{{harvnb|Dyson|2018|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=3TRtDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA216 216]}}</ref> India is a [[List of states with nuclear weapons|nuclear-weapon state]], which [[List of countries by military expenditures|ranks high in military expenditure]]. It [[Kashmir conflict|has disputes]] over [[Kashmir]] with its neighbours, Pakistan and China, unresolved since the mid-20th century.<ref name="kashmir-disputes">(a) {{citation |title=Kashmir, region Indian subcontinent |url=https://www.britannica.com/place/Kashmir-region-Indian-subcontinent |access-date=15 August 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190813203817/https://www.britannica.com/place/Kashmir-region-Indian-subcontinent |archive-date=13 August 2019 |url-status=live |quote=Kashmir, region of the northwestern Indian subcontinent{{nbsp}}... has been the subject of dispute between India and Pakistan since the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947. |url-access= |encyclopedia=[[Encyclopaedia Britannica]]}};<br />(b) {{citation |last1=Pletcher |first1=Kenneth |title=Aksai Chin, Plateau Region, Asia |url=https://www.britannica.com/place/Aksai-Chin |access-date=16 August 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190402090308/https://www.britannica.com/place/Aksai-Chin |archive-date=2 April 2019 |url-status=live |quote=Aksai Chin, Chinese (Pinyin) Aksayqin, portion of the Kashmir region, ... constitutes nearly all the territory of the Chinese-administered sector of Kashmir that is claimed by India |url-access= |encyclopedia=[[Encyclopaedia Britannica]]}};<br />(c) {{cite encyclopedia |year=2006 |title=Kashmir |encyclopedia=[[Encyclopedia Americana]]: Jefferson to Latin |publisher=[[Scholastic Library Publishing]] |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l_cWAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA328 |last=Bosworth |first=C. E |page=328 |isbn=978-0-7172-0139-6 |quote=KASHMIR, kash'mer, the northernmost region of the Indian subcontinent, administered partly by India, partly by Pakistan, and partly by China. The region has been the subject of a bitter dispute between India and Pakistan since they became independent in 1947}}</ref> Among the socio-economic challenges India faces are [[Gender inequality in India|gender inequality]], [[Malnutrition in India|child malnutrition]],<ref name="NarayanJohn2018-lead">{{Cite journal |last1=Narayan |first1=Jitendra |last2=John |first2=Denny |last3=Ramadas |first3=Nirupama |year=2018 |title=Malnutrition in India: status and government initiatives |journal=[[Journal of Public Health Policy]] |volume=40 |issue=1 |pages=126–141 |doi=10.1057/s41271-018-0149-5 |issn=0197-5897 |pmid=30353132 |s2cid=53032234}}</ref> and rising levels of [[Air pollution in India|air pollution]].<ref name="BalakrishnanDey2019-lead">{{Cite journal |last1=Balakrishnan |first1=Kalpana |author-link=Kalpana Balakrishnan |last2=Dey |first2=Sagnik |display-authors=etal |year=2019 |title=The impact of air pollution on deaths, disease burden, and life expectancy across the states of India: the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017 |journal=[[The Lancet Planetary Health]] |volume=3 |issue=1 |pages=e26–e39 |doi=10.1016/S2542-5196(18)30261-4 |issn=2542-5196 |pmc=6358127 |pmid=30528905}}</ref> India's land is [[megadiverse country|megadiverse]], with four [[biodiversity hotspots]].<ref name="IUCN-India">{{Citation |title=India |url=https://www.iucn.org/asia/countries/india |year=2019 |access-date=21 May 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201101033802/https://www.iucn.org/asia/countries/india |url-status=dead |publisher=[[International Union for Conservation of Nature]] (IUCN) |archive-date=1 November 2020}}</ref> Its forest cover comprises 21.7% of its area.<ref name="ISFR" /> [[Wildlife of India|India's wildlife]], which has traditionally been viewed with tolerance in [[Culture of India|India's culture]],{{sfn|Karanth|Gopal|2005|p=374}} is supported among these forests, and elsewhere, in [[Protected areas of India|protected habitats]].

According to the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'' (third edition 2009), the name "India" is derived from the [[Classical Latin]] ''India'', a reference to Ancient India or [[India]] and an uncertain region to its east. In turn the name "India" derived successively from [[Hellenistic Greek]] ''India'' ('' Ἰνδία''), [[ancient Greek]] ''Indos'' ('' Ἰνδός''), [[Old Persian]] ''[[Hindush]]'' (an eastern province of the [[Achaemenid Empire]]), and ultimately its [[cognate]], the [[Sanskrit]] ''Sindhu'', or "river", specifically the [[Indus River]] and, by implication, its well-settled southern basin.<ref>{{Citation |title=India (noun) |url=https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/94384#eid677811 |work=[[Oxford English Dictionary]] |year=2009 |edition=3rd}} (subscription required)</ref>{{sfn|Thieme|1970|pp=447–450}} The [[Ancient Greece|ancient Greeks]] referred to the Indians as ''Indoi'' (''{{ISO 639-2|GRC|Ἰνδοί}}''), which translates as "The people of the Indus".{{sfn|Kuiper|2010|p = 86}}

The term ''[[Names for India#Bharat|Bharat]]'' ({{transliteration|hi|ISO|Bhārat}}; {{IPA-hns|ˈbʱaːɾət|pron|hi-Bharat.ogg}}), mentioned in both [[Indian epic poetry]] and the [[Constitution of India]],{{sfn|Clémentin-Ojha|2014}}<ref>{{Citation |title=The Constitution of India |date=1 December 2007 |url=https://lawmin.nic.in/coi/coiason29july08.pdf |access-date=3 March 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140909230437/https://lawmin.nic.in/coi/coiason29july08.pdf |url-status=dead |publisher=[[Ministry of Law and Justice (India)|Ministry of Law and Justice]] |quote=Article 1(1): India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States. |archive-date=9 September 2014}}</ref> is used in its variations by [[Names for India|many Indian languages]]. A modern rendering of the historical name ''Bhāratavarṣa'',<ref name="Jha2014">{{Citation |last=Jha |first=Dwijendra Narayan |title=Rethinking Hindu Identity |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dqDgBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA11 |page=11 |year=2014 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-1-317-49034-0}}</ref>{{sfn|Singh|2017|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=dYM4DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA253 253]}}

''[[Hindustan]]'' ({{IPA-hns|ɦɪndʊˈstaːn||Hindustan.ogg}}) is a [[Middle Persian]] name for India that became popular by the 13th century,<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Paturi |first1=Joseph |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oCo5DAAAQBAJ |title=World Religions & Cults Volume 2: Moralistic, Mythical and Mysticism Religions |last2=Patterson |first2=Roger |date=2016 |publisher=New Leaf Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-89051-922-6 |editor-last=Hodge |editor-first=Bodie |location=United States |pages=59–60 |chapter=Hinduism (with Hare Krishna) |quote=The actual term Hindu first occurs as a Persian geographical term for the people who lived beyond the Indus River. The term Hindu originated as a geographical term and did not refer to a religion. Later, Hindu was taken by European languages from the Arabic term al-Hind, which referred to the people who lived across the Indus River. This Arabic term was itself taken from the Persian term Hindū, which refers to all Indians. By the 13th century, Hindustan emerged as a popular alternative name for India, meaning the "land of Hindus." |editor-last2=Patterson |editor-first2=Roger}}</ref> and was used widely since the era of the [[Mughal Empire]]. The meaning of ''Hindustan'' has varied, referring to a region encompassing the northern [[Indian subcontinent]] (present-day northern India and [[Pakistan]]) or to India in its near entirety.{{sfn|Clémentin-Ojha|2014}}{{sfn|Barrow|2003}}<ref>{{Citation |title=Hindustan |url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/266465/Hindustan |encyclopedia=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]] |access-date=17 July 2011}}</ref>

In the late Vedic period, around the 6th century BCE, the small states and chiefdoms of the Ganges Plain and the north-western regions had consolidated into 16 major oligarchies and monarchies that were known as the ''[[mahajanapadas]]''.{{sfn|Singh|2009|pp = 260–265}}{{sfn|Kulke|Rothermund|2004|pp = 53–54}} The emerging urbanisation gave rise to non-Vedic religious movements, two of which became independent religions. [[Jainism]] came into prominence during the life of its exemplar, [[Mahavira]].{{sfn|Singh|2009|pp = 312–313}} [[Buddhism]], based on the teachings of [[Gautama Buddha]], attracted followers from all social classes excepting the middle class; chronicling the life of the Buddha was central to the beginnings of recorded history in India.{{sfn|Kulke|Rothermund|2004|pp = 54–56}}{{sfn|Stein|1998|p = 21}}{{sfn|Stein|1998|pp = 67–68}} In an age of increasing urban wealth, both religions held up [[Nekkhamma|renunciation]] as an ideal,{{sfn|Singh|2009|p = 300}} and both established long-lasting monastic traditions. Politically, by the 3rd century BCE, the kingdom of [[Magadha (Mahajanapada)|Magadha]] had annexed or reduced other states to emerge as the [[Maurya Empire]].{{sfn|Singh|2009|p = 319}} The empire was once thought to have controlled most of the subcontinent except the far south, but its core regions are now thought to have been separated by large autonomous areas.{{sfn|Stein|1998|pp = 78–79}}{{sfn|Kulke|Rothermund|2004|p = 70}} The Mauryan kings are known as much for their empire-building and determined management of public life as for [[Ashoka]]'s renunciation of militarism and far-flung advocacy of the Buddhist ''[[Dharma (Buddhism)|dhamma]]''.{{sfn|Singh|2009|p = 367}}{{sfn|Kulke|Rothermund|2004|p = 63}}

In the 6th and 7th centuries, the first [[Bhakti|devotional hymns]] were created in the Tamil language.{{sfn|Stein|1998|p = 123}} They were imitated all over India and led to both the resurgence of Hinduism and the development of all [[Languages of India|modern languages of the subcontinent]].{{sfn|Stein|1998|p = 123}} Indian royalty, big and small, and the temples they patronised drew citizens in great numbers to the capital cities, which became economic hubs as well.{{sfn|Stein|1998|p = 124}} Temple towns of various sizes began to appear everywhere as India underwent another urbanisation.{{sfn|Stein|1998|p = 124}} By the 8th and 9th centuries, the effects were felt in Southeast Asia, as South Indian culture and political systems were exported to lands that became part of modern-day [[Myanmar]], [[Thailand]], [[Laos]], [[Brunei]], [[Cambodia]], [[Vietnam]], [[Philippines]], [[Malaysia]], and [[Indonesia]].{{sfn|Stein|1998|pp = 127–128}} Indian merchants, scholars, and sometimes armies were involved in this transmission; Southeast Asians took the initiative as well, with many sojourning in Indian seminaries and translating Buddhist and Hindu texts into their languages.{{sfn|Stein|1998|pp = 127–128}}

| caption2          = A two [[mohur]] Company gold coin, issued in 1835, the [[Obverse and reverse|obverse]] inscribed "[[William IV|William IIII]], King"

{{Main|History of India (1947–present)}}

 

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| image1           = British Indian Empire 1909 Imperial Gazetteer of India.jpg

| caption1         = 1909 map of the British Indian Empire

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| caption2         = [[Jawaharlal Nehru]] sharing a light moment with [[Mahatma Gandhi]], Mumbai, 6 July 1946

 

Vital to India's self-image as an independent nation was its constitution, completed in 1950, which put in place a secular and democratic republic.{{sfn|Metcalf|Metcalf|2006|p = 231}} Per the [[London Declaration]], India retained its membership of the [[Commonwealth of Nations|Commonwealth]], becoming the first republic within it.<ref>{{Cite web |title=London Declaration, 1949 |url=https://thecommonwealth.org/london-declaration-1949 |access-date=11 October 2022 |website=Commonwealth |language=en}}</ref> Economic liberalisation, which [[Economic liberalisation in India|began in the 1980s]] and the collaboration with Soviet Union for technical know-how,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Role of Soviet Union in India's industrialisation: a comparative assessment with the West |url=http://ijrar.com/upload_issue/ijrar_issue_20544196.pdf |website=ijrar.com}}</ref> has created a large urban middle class, transformed India into [[List of countries by GDP (real) growth rate|one of the world's fastest-growing economies]],<ref>{{Citation |title=Briefing Rooms: India |url=https://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/India/ |work=[[Economic Research Service]] |year=2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110520002800/https://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/India/ |url-status=dead |publisher=[[United States Department of Agriculture]] |archive-date=20 May 2011}}</ref> and increased its geopolitical clout. Yet, India is also shaped by seemingly unyielding poverty, both rural and urban;{{sfn|Metcalf|Metcalf|2006 |pp=265–266}} by [[Religious violence in India|religious]] and [[Caste-related violence in India|caste-related violence]];{{sfn|Metcalf|Metcalf|2006|pp = 266–270}} by [[Naxalite|Maoist-inspired Naxalite insurgencies]];{{sfn|Metcalf|Metcalf|2006|p = 253}} and by [[Insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir|separatism in Jammu and Kashmir]] and [[insurgency in Northeast India|in Northeast India]].{{sfn|Metcalf|Metcalf|2006|p = 274}} It has unresolved territorial disputes with [[China–India relations#1960s|China]]{{Broken anchor|date=2025-01-04|bot=User:Cewbot/log/20201008/configuration|target_link=China–India relations#1960s|reason= The anchor (1960s) [[Special:Diff/1267295950|has been deleted]].}}{{sfn|Metcalf|Metcalf|2006|pp = 247–248}} and with [[Indo-Pakistani wars and conflicts|Pakistan]].{{sfn|Metcalf|Metcalf|2006|pp = 247–248}} India's sustained democratic freedoms are unique among the world's newer nations; however, in spite of its recent economic successes, freedom from want for its disadvantaged population remains a goal yet to be achieved.{{sfn|Metcalf|Metcalf|2006|p = 304}}

| caption1          = The [[Tungabhadra River|Tungabhadra]], with rocky outcrops, flows into the peninsular [[Krishna River]].{{sfn|Mcgrail|Blue|Kentley|Palmer|2003|p=257}}

Temperatures in India have risen by {{convert|0.7|C-change|1|abbr=on}} between 1901 and 2018.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Sharma |first=Vibha |date=15 June 2020 |title=Average temperature over India projected to rise by 4.4 degrees Celsius: Govt report on impact of climate change in country |url=https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/nation/average-temperature-over-india-projected-to-rise-by-4-4-degrees-celsius-govt-report-on-impact-of-climate-change-in-country-99583 |access-date=30 November 2020 |website=[[The Tribune]]}}</ref> [[Climate change in India]] is often thought to be the cause. The [[Retreat of glaciers since 1850|retreat of Himalayan glaciers]] has adversely affected the [[Volumetric flow rate|flow rate]] of the major Himalayan rivers, including the [[Ganges]] and the [[Brahmaputra]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Sethi |first=Nitin |date=3 February 2007 |title=Global warming: Mumbai to face the heat |url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/global-warming-mumbai-to-face-the-heat/articleshow/1556662.cms |access-date=11 March 2021 |website=[[The Times of India]]}}</ref> According to some current projections, the number and severity of droughts in India will have markedly increased by the end of the present century.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Gupta |first1=Vivek |last2=Jain |first2=Manoj Kumar |year=2018 |title=Investigation of multi-model spatiotemporal mesoscale drought projections over India under climate change scenario |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002216941830773X |journal=[[Journal of Hydrology]] |volume=567 |pages=489–509 |bibcode=2018JHyd..567..489G |doi=10.1016/j.jhydrol.2018.10.012 |issn=0022-1694 |s2cid=135053362}}</ref>

India is a [[megadiverse country]], a term employed for 17 countries that display high [[biological diversity]] and contain many species exclusively [[indigenous (ecology)|indigenous]], or [[endemic]], to them.<ref>{{Citation |title=Megadiverse Countries |url=https://www.biodiversitya-z.org/content/megadiverse-countries |access-date=17 October 2021 |publisher=Biodiversity A–Z, [[World Conservation Monitoring Centre|UN Environment World Conservation Monitoring Centre]]}}</ref> India is the [[habitat]] for 8.6% of all [[mammal]]s, 13.7% of [[bird]] species, 7.9% of [[reptile]] species, 6% of [[amphibian]] species, 12.2% of [[fish]] species, and 6.0% of all [[flowering plant]] species.<ref>{{Cite web |year=2012 |title=Animal Discoveries 2011: New Species and New Records |url=https://zsi.gov.in/right_menu/Animal_disc/Animal%20Discovery%202011.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130116214754/https://zsi.gov.in/right_menu/Animal_disc/Animal%20Discovery%202011.pdf |archive-date=16 January 2013 |access-date=20 July 2012 |publisher=[[Zoological Survey of India]]}}</ref><ref name="Puri">{{Citation |last=Puri |first=S. K. |title=Biodiversity Profile of India |url=https://ces.iisc.ernet.in/hpg/cesmg/indiabio.html |work=ces.iisc.ernet.in |access-date=20 June 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111121153614/https://ces.iisc.ernet.in/hpg/cesmg/indiabio.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=21 November 2011}}</ref> Fully a third of Indian plant species are endemic.{{sfn|Basak|1983|p = 24}} India also contains four of the world's 34 [[biodiversity hotspot]]s,<ref name="IUCN-India" /> or regions that display significant habitat loss in the presence of high endemism.{{efn|A biodiversity hotspot is a [[biogeography|biogeographical]] region which has more than 1,500 [[vascular plant]] species, but less than 30% of its primary habitat.<ref name="SivaperumanVenkataraman2018" />}}<ref name="SivaperumanVenkataraman2018">{{Citation |last1=Venkataraman |first1=Krishnamoorthy |title=Indian Hotspots: Vertebrate Faunal Diversity, Conservation and Management |page=5 |year=2018 |editor-last=Sivaperuman, Chandrakasan |chapter=Biodiversity Hotspots in India |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8kFKDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA5 |publisher=[[Springer Publishing|Springer]] |isbn=978-981-10-6605-4 |last2=Sivaperuman |first2=Chandrakasan |editor2-last=Venkataraman, Krishnamoorthy}}</ref>

Many Indian species have descended from those of [[Gondwana]], the southern [[supercontinent]] from which India separated more than 100 million years ago.{{sfn|Crame|Owen|2002|p = 142}} India's subsequent collision with Eurasia set off a mass exchange of species. However, [[Deccan Traps|volcanism]] and [[Climate variability and change|climatic changes]] later caused the extinction of many endemic Indian forms.{{sfn|Karanth|2006}} Still later, mammals entered India from Asia through two [[Zoogeography|zoogeographic]] passes flanking the Himalayas.{{sfn|Tritsch|2001|p=14}} This had the effect of lowering endemism among India's mammals, which stands at 12.6%, contrasting with 45.8% among reptiles and 55.8% among amphibians.<ref name="Puri" /> Among endemics are the vulnerable<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Singh, M. |last2=Kumar, A. |last3=Molur, S. |name-list-style=amp |year=2008 |title=Trachypithecus johnii |journal=[[The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species]] |volume=2008 |at=e.T44694A10927987 |doi=10.2305/IUCN.UK.2008.RLTS.T44694A10927987.en |doi-access=free}}</ref> [[Nilgiri Langur|hooded leaf monkey]]<ref name="itis">{{Cite web |last=Fischer |first=Johann |author-link=Johann Baptist Fischer |title=Semnopithecus johnii |url=https://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=944270#null |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180829072131/https://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=944270#null |archive-date=29 August 2018 |access-date=27 August 2018 |publisher=[[ITIS]]}}</ref> and the threatened<ref name="IUCN">{{Cite journal |last1=S.D. Biju |last2=Sushil Dutta |last3=M.S. Ravichandran Karthikeyan Vasudevan |last4=S.P. Vijayakumar |last5=Chelmala Srinivasulu |last6=Gajanan Dasaramji Bhuddhe |year=2004 |title=Duttaphrynus beddomii |journal=[[The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species]] |publisher=[[IUCN]] |volume=2004 |page=e.T54584A86543952 |doi=10.2305/IUCN.UK.2004.RLTS.T54584A11155448.en |doi-access=free}}</ref> [[Duttaphrynus beddomii|Beddome's toad]]<ref name="IUCN" /><ref>{{Cite web |last=Frost, Darrel R. |year=2015 |title=''Duttaphrynus beddomii'' (Günther, 1876) |url=https://research.amnh.org/vz/herpetology/amphibia/Amphibia/Anura/Bufonidae/Duttaphrynus/Duttaphrynus-beddomii |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150721092639/https://research.amnh.org/vz/herpetology/amphibia/Amphibia/Anura/Bufonidae/Duttaphrynus/Duttaphrynus-beddomii |archive-date=21 July 2015 |access-date=13 September 2015 |website=Amphibian Species of the World: an Online Reference. Version 6.0 |publisher=[[American Museum of Natural History]]}}</ref> of the Western Ghats.

India contains 172 [[World Conservation Union|IUCN]]-designated [[List of endangered animals in India|threatened animal species]], or 2.9% of endangered forms.{{sfn|Mace|1994|p = 4}} These include the endangered [[Bengal tiger]] and the [[South Asian river dolphin|Ganges river dolphin]]. [[Critically endangered]] species include the [[gharial]], a [[crocodilian]]; the [[great Indian bustard]]; and the [[Indian white-rumped vulture]], which has become nearly extinct by having ingested the carrion of [[diclofenac]]-treated cattle.<ref name="LovetteFitzpatrick2016">{{Citation |last1=Lovette |first1=Irby J. |title=Handbook of Bird Biology |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OGyQDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA599 |page=599 |year=2016 |publisher=[[John Wiley & Sons]] |isbn=978-1-118-29105-4 |last2=Fitzpatrick |first2=John W.}}</ref> Before they were extensively used for agriculture and cleared for human settlement, the thorn forests of Punjab were mingled at intervals with open grasslands that were grazed by large herds of blackbuck preyed on by the [[Asiatic cheetah]]; the blackbuck, no longer extant in Punjab, is now severely endangered in India, and the cheetah is extinct.{{sfn|Tritsch|2001|p=15|ps=Before it was so heavily settled and intensively exploited, the Punjab was dominated by thorn forest interspersed by rolling grasslands which were grazed on by millions of Blackbuck, accompanied by their dominant predator, the Cheetah. Always keen hunters, the Moghul princes kept tame cheetahs which were used to chase and bring down the Blackbuck. Today the Cheetah is extinct in India and the severely endangered Blackbuck no longer exists in the Punjab.}} The pervasive and ecologically devastating human encroachment of recent decades has critically endangered Indian wildlife. In response, the system of [[National parks of India|national parks]] and [[protected areas of India|protected areas]], first established in 1935, was expanded substantially. In 1972, India enacted the [[Wildlife Protection Act of 1972|Wildlife Protection Act]]{{sfn|Ministry of Environment and Forests 1972}} and [[Project Tiger]] to safeguard crucial wilderness; the Forest Conservation Act was enacted in 1980 and amendments added in 1988.{{sfn|Department of Environment and Forests|1988}} India hosts [[Wildlife sanctuaries of India|more than five hundred wildlife sanctuaries]] and [[Biosphere reserves of India|eighteen{{Nbsp}}biosphere reserves]],<ref>{{Cite web |title=Biosphere |url=https://moef.gov.in/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/biosphere.pdf |access-date=28 June 2023}}</ref> four of which are part of the [[World Network of Biosphere Reserves]]; [[List of Ramsar sites in India|seventy-five wetlands]] are registered under the [[Ramsar Convention]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=75 Ramsar Sites in 75th Year of Independence |url=https://pib.gov.in/Pressreleaseshare.aspx?PRID=1851484 |access-date=28 June 2023 |website=pib.gov.in}}</ref>

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A [[parliamentary republic]] with a [[multi-party system]],{{sfn|Burnell|Calvert|1999|p = 125}} India has six{{Nbsp}}recognised [[List of political parties in India#National parties|national parties]], including the [[Indian National Congress]] (INC) and the [[Bharatiya Janata Party]] (BJP), and more than 50{{Nbsp}}[[List of political parties in India#State parties|regional parties]].{{sfn|Election Commission of India}} The Congress is considered [[Centrism|center]] in Indian [[political culture]],<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Sáez |first1=Lawrence |last2=Sinha |first2=Aseema |year=2010 |title=Political cycles, political institutions and public expenditure in India, 1980–2000 |journal=[[British Journal of Political Science]] |volume=40 |issue=1 |pages=91–113 |doi=10.1017/s0007123409990226 |s2cid=154767259|issn = 0007-1234 }}</ref> and the BJP [[Right-wing politics|right-wing]].{{sfn|Malik|Singh|1992|pp=318–336}}{{sfn|Banerjee|2005|p=3118}}<ref>{{Cite news |last=Halarnkar |first=Samar |date=13 June 2012 |title=Narendra Modi makes his move |work=[[BBC News]] |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-18352532 |quote=The right-wing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), India's primary opposition party}}</ref> For most of the period between 1950—when India first became a republic—and the late 1980s, the Congress held a majority in the [[Parliament of India|Parliament]]. Since then, however, it has increasingly shared the political stage with the BJP,{{sfn|Sarkar|2007|p=84}} as well as with powerful regional parties which have often forced the creation of multi-party [[coalition government]]s at the center. {{sfn|Chander|2004|p=117}}

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| caption1         = US president [[Barack Obama]] addresses the [[Member of Parliament (India)|members]] of the [[Parliament of India]] in [[New Delhi]] in November 2010.

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A two-year period of political turmoil followed the general election of [[1996 Indian general election|1996]]. Several short-lived alliances shared power at the centre. The BJP formed a government briefly in 1996; it was followed by two comparatively long-lasting [[United Front (India, 1996)|United Front]] coalitions, which depended on external support. There were two prime ministers during this period; [[H.D. Deve Gowda]] and [[I.K. Gujral]]. In [[1998 Indian general election|1998]], the BJP was able to form a successful coalition, the [[National Democratic Alliance]] (NDA). Led by [[Atal Bihari Vajpayee]], the NDA became the first non-Congress, [[coalition government]] to complete a five-year term.{{sfn|Dunleavy|Diwakar|Dunleavy|2007}} Again in the [[2004 Indian general election]]s, no party won an absolute majority, but the Congress emerged as the largest single party, forming another successful coalition: the [[United Progressive Alliance]] (UPA). It had the support of [[Left-wing politics|left-leaning]] parties and MPs who opposed the BJP. The UPA returned to power in the [[2009 Indian general election|2009 general election]] with increased numbers, and it no longer required external support from [[List of Communist Parties in India|India's communist parties]].{{sfn|Kulke|Rothermund|2004|p = 384}} That year, [[Manmohan Singh]] became the first prime minister since [[Jawaharlal Nehru]] in [[1957 Indian general election|1957]] and [[1962 Indian general election|1962]] to be re-elected to a consecutive five-year term.{{sfn|Business Standard|2009}} In the [[2014 Indian general election|2014 general election]], the BJP became the first political party since 1984 to win a majority and govern without the support of other parties.<ref>{{Cite news |date=16 May 2014 |title=BJP first party since 1984 to win parliamentary majority on its own |work=[[Daily News and Analysis|DNA]] |agency=Indo-Asian News Service |url=https://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-bjp-first-party-since-1984-to-win-parliamentary-majority-on-its-own-1988981 |access-date=20 May 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140521032413/https://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-bjp-first-party-since-1984-to-win-parliamentary-majority-on-its-own-1988981 |archive-date=21 May 2014}}</ref> In the [[2019 Indian general election|2019 general election]], the BJP was victorious again with majority. In the [[2024 Indian general election|2024 general election]], the BJP failed to achieve majority and the BJP-led NDA coalition [[Third Modi ministry|formed the government]]. [[Narendra Modi]], a former [[Chief minister (India)|chief minister]] of [[Gujarat]], is serving as the 14th Prime Minister of India in his third term since May 26, 2014.<ref>{{cite web|title=Modi Wins 3rd Term in India Election With Closer Results Than Expected|work=The New York Times|date=4 June 2024|last=Mashal|first=Mujib|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/04/world/asia/modi-india-election.html}}</ref>

* [[Legislature]]: The legislature of India is the [[bicameralism|bicameral]] [[Parliament of India|parliament]]. Operating under a [[Westminster system|Westminster-style]] parliamentary system, it comprises an upper house called the [[Rajya Sabha]] (Council of States) and a lower house called the [[Lok Sabha]] (House of the People).{{sfn|Gledhill|1970|p = 127}} The Rajya Sabha is a permanent body of 245{{Nbsp}}members who serve staggered six-year terms with elections every 2 years.{{sfn|Sharma|2007|p = 161}} Most are elected indirectly by the [[States and union territories of India|state and union territorial]] legislatures in numbers proportional to their state's share of the national population.{{sfn|Sharma|2007|p = 162}} All but two of the Lok Sabha's 545{{Nbsp}}members are elected directly by popular vote; they represent [[Single-member constituency|single-member constituencies]] for five-year{{Nbsp}}terms.{{sfn|Sharma|2007|p = 143}} Two seats of parliament, [[Anglo-Indian reserved seats in the Lok Sabha|reserved]] for [[Anglo-Indian]]s in the article 331, have been scrapped.<ref>{{Cite web |date=5 December 2019 |title=Cabinet approves scrapping of 2 seats reserved for Anglo-Indians in Parliament |url=https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/india/seats-reserved-for-anglo-indians-in-parliament-to-be-scrapped-after-cabinet-approval |access-date=17 October 2021 |website=[[National Herald]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last1=Ghosh |first1=Abantika |last2=Kaushal |first2=Pradeep |date=2 January 2020 |title=Explained: Anglo-Indian quota, its history, MPs |url=https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/anglo-indian-quota-history-mps-6164232/ |access-date=17 October 2021 |newspaper=[[The Indian Express]]}}</ref>

# [[Odisha]]<!--Do not change this per [[WP:COMMONNAME]].-->

== Foreign, economic, and strategic relations ==

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The President of India is the supreme commander of the nation's armed forces; with 1.45&nbsp;million active troops, they compose the [[List of countries by number of troops|world's second-largest military]]. It comprises the [[Indian Army]], the [[Indian Navy]], the [[Indian Air Force]], and the [[Indian Coast Guard]].{{sfn|Central Intelligence Agency}} The official Indian [[List of countries by military expenditures|defence budget]] for 2011 was US$36.03&nbsp;billion, or 1.83% of GDP.{{sfn|Behera|2011}} Defence expenditure was pegged at US$70.12&nbsp;billion for fiscal year 2022–23 and, increased 9.8% than previous fiscal year.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Ministry wise Summary of Budget Provisions, 2022–23 |url=https://www.indiabudget.gov.in/doc/eb/sumsbe.pdf |access-date=3 February 2022 |website=Ministry of Finance, Government of India}}</ref>{{sfn|Pandit|2022}} India is the world's second-largest arms importer; between 2016 and 2020, it accounted for 9.5% of the total global arms imports.{{sfn|Pandit|2021}} Much of the military expenditure was focused on defence against Pakistan and countering growing Chinese influence in the Indian Ocean.{{sfn|Miglani|2011}} In May 2017, the [[Indian Space Research Organisation]] launched the [[South Asia Satellite]], a gift from India to its neighbouring [[SAARC]] countries.<ref name="Deccan Herald">{{Cite news |date=12 January 2015 |title=Isro-Saarc satellite to be a communication vehicle |work=[[Deccan Herald]] |agency=DH News Service |url=https://www.deccanherald.com/content/452938/isro-saarc-satellite-communication-vehicle.html |url-status=live |access-date=22 April 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150628084201/https://www.deccanherald.com/content/452938/isro-saarc-satellite-communication-vehicle.html |archive-date=28 June 2015}}</ref> In October 2018, India signed a US$5.43&nbsp;billion (over {{INR|link=yes}}400&nbsp;billion) agreement with [[Russia]] to procure four [[S-400 Triumf]] surface-to-air missile defence systems, Russia's most advanced long-range [[missile defence]] system.<ref>{{Cite news |date=4 October 2018 |title=India Russia S-400 missile deal: All you need to know |work=[[The Times of India]] |url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/india-russia-s-400-missile-deal-all-you-need-to-know/articleshow/66066460.cms |url-status=live |access-date=9 October 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181005130107/https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/india-russia-s-400-missile-deal-all-you-need-to-know/articleshow/66066460.cms |archive-date=5 October 2018}}</ref>

{{Main article|Economy of India}}

According to the [[International Monetary Fund]] (IMF), the Indian economy in 2024 was nominally worth $3.94&nbsp;trillion; it was the [[List of countries by GDP (nominal)|fifth-largest economy]] by market exchange rates and is, at around $15.0&nbsp;trillion, the [[List of countries by GDP (PPP)|third-largest]] by [[purchasing power parity]] (PPP).<ref name="IMFWEO.IN" /> With its average annual GDP growth rate of 5.8% over the past two decades, and reaching 6.1% during 2011–2012,{{sfn|International Monetary Fund 2011|p = 2}} India is one of the [[List of countries by real GDP growth rate|world's fastest-growing economies]].{{sfn|Nayak|Goldar|Agrawal|2010|p = xxv}} However, due to its low GDP per capita—which ranks 136th in the world in nominal per capita income and 125th in per capita income adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP)—the vast majority of Indians fall into the low-income group.{{sfn|International Monetary Fund}}<ref>{{Cite web |last=Kochhar |first=Rakesh |date=2021-03-18 |title=In the pandemic, India's middle class shrinks and poverty spreads while China sees smaller changes |url=https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/03/18/in-the-pandemic-indias-middle-class-shrinks-and-poverty-spreads-while-china-sees-smaller-changes/ |access-date=2024-10-22 |website=Pew Research Center |language=en-US}}</ref> Until 1991, all Indian governments followed [[protectionism|protectionist]] policies that were influenced by socialist economics. Widespread [[Licence Raj|state intervention and regulation]] largely walled the economy off from the outside world. An acute [[1991 Indian economic crisis|balance of payments crisis in 1991]] forced the nation to [[Economic liberalisation in India|liberalise its economy]];{{sfn|Wolpert|2003|p = xiv}} since then, it has moved increasingly towards a free-market system{{sfn|Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 2007}}{{sfn|Gargan|1992}} by emphasising both foreign trade and direct investment inflows.{{sfn|Alamgir|2008|pp = 23, 97}} India has been a member of [[World Trade Organization]] since 1 January 1995.{{sfn|World Trade Organization 1995}}

The 522-million-worker [[Labour in India|Indian labour force]] is the [[List of countries by labour force|world's second largest]], {{As of|2017|lc=y}}.{{sfn|Central Intelligence Agency}} The service sector makes up 55.6% of GDP, the industrial sector 26.3% and the agricultural sector 18.1%. India's [[Remittance|foreign exchange remittances]] of US$100 billion in 2022,<ref>{{Cite news |date=1 December 2022 |title=Remittances to India set to hit record $100bn this year, 25% higher than FDI flows |work=The times of India |url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/remittances-to-india-set-to-hit-record-100bn-this-year-25-higher-than-fdi-flows/articleshow/95894938.cms |access-date=5 December 2022}}</ref> highest in the world, were contributed to its economy by 32 million Indians working in foreign countries.<ref>{{Cite news |date=19 November 2021 |title=India received $87 billion in remittances in 2021: World Bank |work=[[Business Standard]] |url=https://wap.business-standard.com/article-amp/economy-policy/india-received-87-billion-in-remittances-in-2021-world-bank-121111800329_1.html |access-date=3 February 2022}}</ref> Major agricultural products include rice, wheat, oilseed, cotton, jute, tea, sugarcane, and potatoes.{{sfn|Library of Congress|2004}} Major industries include textiles, telecommunications, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, food processing, steel, transport equipment, cement, mining, petroleum, machinery, and software.{{sfn|Library of Congress|2004}} In 2006, the share of external trade in India's GDP stood at 24%, up from 6% in 1985.{{sfn|Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 2007}} In 2008, India's share of world trade was 1.7%;<ref>{{Citation |title=Exporters Get Wider Market Reach |date=28 August 2009 |url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/Exporters-get-wider-market-reach/articleshow/4942892.cms?referral=PM |work=[[The Times of India]] |access-date=23 July 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140912002353/https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/Exporters-get-wider-market-reach/articleshow/4942892.cms?referral=PM |url-status=live |archive-date=12 September 2014}}</ref> In 2021, India was the [[List of countries by imports|world's ninth-largest importer]] and the [[List of countries by exports|sixteenth-largest exporter]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=1999–2019 |title=Trade Map: Trade statistics for international business development |url=https://www.trademap.org/Country_SelProduct_TS.aspx?nvpm=1%7c%7c%7c%7c%7cTOTAL%7c%7c%7c2%7c1%7c1%7c1%7c2%7c1%7c2%7c1%7c%7c1 |access-date=30 September 2022 |website=[[International Trade Centre]]}}</ref> Major exports include petroleum products, textile goods, jewellery, software, engineering goods, chemicals, and manufactured leather goods.{{sfn|Library of Congress|2004}} Major imports include crude oil, machinery, gems, fertiliser, and chemicals.{{sfn|Library of Congress|2004}} Between 2001 and 2011, the contribution of petrochemical and engineering goods to total exports grew from 14% to 42%.{{sfn|Economist 2011}} India was the world's second-largest textile exporter after [[China]] in the 2013 calendar year.{{sfn|Economic Times 2014}}

Averaging an economic growth rate of 7.5% for several years prior to 2007,{{sfn|Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 2007}} India has more than doubled its hourly wage rates during the first decade of the 21st century.{{sfn|Bonner|2010}} Some 431 million Indians have left poverty since 1985; India's middle classes are projected to number around 580&nbsp;million by 2030.{{sfn|Farrell|Beinhocker|2007}} Though ranking 68th in [[Global Competitiveness Report|global competitiveness]],<ref name="rank 2019">{{Cite web |title=The Global Competitiveness Report 2019 |url=http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_TheGlobalCompetitivenessReport2019.pdf |access-date=18 February 2022}}</ref> {{As of|2010|lc=y}}, India ranks 17th in financial market sophistication, 24th in the banking sector, 44th in business sophistication, and 39th in innovation, ahead of several advanced economies.{{sfn|Schwab|2010}} With seven of the world's top 15 information technology outsourcing companies based in India, {{As of|2009|lc=y}}, the country is viewed as the second-most favourable outsourcing destination after the United States.{{sfn|Sheth|2009}} India is ranked 39th in the [[Global Innovation Index]] in 2024.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Global Innovation Index 2024 : Unlocking the Promise of Social Entrepreneurship |url=https://www.wipo.int/web-publications/global-innovation-index-2024/en/ |access-date=2024-11-29 |website=www.wipo.int |language=en}}</ref>{{As of|2023}}, India's consumer market was the [[List of largest consumer markets|world's fifth largest]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.CON.PRVT.CD?most_recent_value_desc=true&year_high_desc=true|title=Households and NPISHs Final consumption expenditure (current US$)|website=World Bank Open Data}}</ref>

Driven by growth, India's nominal [[GDP per capita]] increased steadily from US$308 in 1991, when economic liberalisation began, to US$1,380 in 2010, to an estimated US$2,731 in 2024. It is expected to grow to US$3,264 by 2026.<ref name="IMFWEO.IN" /> However, it has remained lower than those of other Asian developing countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, and is expected to remain so in the near future.

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| caption1         = A panorama of [[Bengaluru]], the centre of India's software development economy.  In the 1980s, when the first [[multinational corporation]]s began to set up centres in India, they chose Bengaluru (then called Bangalore) because of the large pool of skilled graduates in the area, in turn due to the many science and engineering colleges in the surrounding region.<ref name="ScottGarofoli2007">{{Citation |last1=Scott |first1=Allen J. |title=Development on the Ground: Clusters, Networks and Regions in Emerging Economies |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GUCUAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA208 |page=208 |year=2007 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-1-135-98422-9 |last2=Garofoli |first2=Gioacchino}}</ref>

 

According to the Worldwide Cost of Living Report 2017 released by the [[Economist Intelligence Unit]] (EIU) which was created by comparing more than 400 individual prices across 160 products and services, four of the cheapest cities were in India: [[Bangalore|Bengaluru]] (3rd), [[Mumbai]] (5th), [[Chennai]] (5th) and [[New Delhi]] (8th).{{sfn|Economist 2017}}

The [[pharmaceutical industry in India]] emerged as a global player. As of 2021, with 3000 pharmaceutical companies and 10,500 manufacturing units India is the world's third-largest pharmaceutical producer, largest producer of generic medicines and supply up to 50–60% of global vaccines demand, these all contribute up to {{USD}}24.44&nbsp;billions in exports and India's local pharmaceutical market is estimated up to {{USD}}42&nbsp;billion.<ref name="Phamra1">{{Cite news |date=16 September 2021 |title=Indian Pharma: a strategic sector from 'Make in India' to 'Make and Develop in India' |work=[[The Financial Express (India)]] |url=https://www.financialexpress.com/lifestyle/health/indian-pharma-a-strategic-sector-from-make-in-india-to-make-and-develop-in-india/2331377/ |access-date=18 October 2021}}</ref><ref name="Pharma2">{{Cite web |date=12 October 2021 |title=Indian Pharmaceutical Industry |url=https://www.ibef.org/industry/pharmaceutical-india.aspx |access-date=18 October 2021 |website=[[India Brand Equity Foundation]]}}</ref> India is among the top 12 biotech destinations in the world.<ref>Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Sector in India: sector briefing by the UK Trade and Investment 2011, utki.gov.uk</ref>{{sfn|Yep|2011}} The Indian biotech industry grew by 15.1% in 2012–2013, increasing its revenues from {{INR}}204.4&nbsp;billion ([[Indian rupee]]s) to {{INR}}235.24&nbsp;billion (US$3.94&nbsp;billion at June 2013 exchange rates).<ref>{{Cite web |date=24 June 2013 |title=Biotechnology in India – 2013 "biospectrum-able" Survey |url=https://www.differding.com/page/biotechnology_in_india_2013_biospectrum_able_survey/f1.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140223203715/https://www.differding.com/page/biotechnology_in_india_2013_biospectrum_able_survey/f1.html |archive-date=23 February 2014 |access-date=4 April 2014 |publisher=Differding.com}}</ref>

India's capacity to generate electrical power is 300 gigawatts, of which 42 gigawatts is [[Renewable energy in India|renewable]].<ref name="Par">{{Cite web |date=1 August 2016 |title=India's Total Power Generation Capacity Crosses 300 GW Mark |url=https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/indias-total-power-generation-capacity-crosses-300-gw-mark-1438906 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170616181350/https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/indias-total-power-generation-capacity-crosses-300-gw-mark-1438906 |archive-date=16 June 2017 |access-date=17 October 2021 |publisher=[[NDTV India|NDTV]]}}</ref> [[Coal in India|The country's usage of coal]] is a major cause of [[Climate change in India#Greenhouse gas emissions|greenhouse gas emissions by India]] but [[Renewable energy in India|its renewable energy]] is competing strongly.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Rowlatt |first=Justin |date=12 May 2020 |title=India's carbon emissions fall for first time in four decades |language=en-GB |work=[[BBC News]] |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-52614770 |access-date=3 December 2020}}</ref> India emits about 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions. This equates to about 2.5 tons of [[carbon dioxide]] per person per year, which is half the world average.<ref name="USAID2018">{{cite web|last=USAID|date=September 2018|title=Greenhouse Gas Emissions in India |url=https://www.climatelinks.org/sites/default/files/asset/document/India%20GHG%20Emissions%20Factsheet%20FINAL.pdf |access-date=10 June 2021|website=}}</ref><ref name="UNEP2019">{{cite web|last=UN Environment Programme |year=2019 |title=Emissions Gap Report 2019|url=https://www.unenvironment.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2019|access-date=10 June 2021|website=UNEP – [[UN Environment Programme]]}}</ref> Increasing [[Electrification|access to electricity]] and [[clean cooking]] with [[liquefied petroleum gas]] have been priorities for energy in India.<ref>{{cite web|title=India 2020 – Analysis|date=9 January 2020 |url=https://www.iea.org/reports/india-2020|access-date=3 December 2020|publisher=[[International Energy Agency]]|language=en-GB}}</ref>

Despite economic growth during recent decades, India continues to face socio-economic challenges. In 2006, India contained the [[poverty in India|largest number]] of people living below the World Bank's international poverty line of US$1.25 per day.<ref>{{citation|date=29 May 2006|title=Inclusive Growth and Service Delivery: Building on India's Success|publisher=[[World Bank]]|url=https://siteresources.worldbank.org/SOUTHASIAEXT/Resources/DPR_FullReport.pdf|access-date=7 May 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120514143037/https://siteresources.worldbank.org/SOUTHASIAEXT/Resources/DPR_FullReport.pdf|archive-date=14 May 2012|url-status=dead}}</ref> The proportion decreased from 60% in 1981 to 42% in 2005.<ref>{{citation|title=New Global Poverty Estimates – What It Means for India|publisher=[[World Bank]]|url=https://www.worldbank.org.in/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/SOUTHASIAEXT/INDIAEXTN/0,,contentMDK:21880725~pagePK:141137~piPK:141127~theSitePK:295584,00.html|access-date=23 July 2011|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120506043711/https://www.worldbank.org.in/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/SOUTHASIAEXT/INDIAEXTN/0,,contentMDK:21880725~pagePK:141137~piPK:141127~theSitePK:295584,00.html|archive-date=6 May 2012}}</ref> Under the World Bank's later revised poverty line, it was 21% in 2011.{{efn|In 2015, the World Bank raised its international poverty line to $1.90 per day.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Kenny|first1=Charles|last2=Sandefur|first2=Justin|title=Why the World Bank is changing the definition of the word "poor"|url=https://www.vox.com/2015/10/7/9465999/world-bank-poverty-line|publisher=[[Vox Media|Vox]]|access-date=26 February 2017|date=7 October 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170114175442/https://www.vox.com/2015/10/7/9465999/world-bank-poverty-line|archive-date=14 January 2017}}</ref>}}<ref name="WB2015">{{cite web|title=Poverty headcount ratio at $1.90 a day (2011 PPP) (% of population)|url=https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.DDAY?locations=IN|publisher=[[World Bank]]|access-date=26 February 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170215021227/https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.DDAY?locations=IN|archive-date=15 February 2017}}</ref> 30.7% of India's children under the age of five are underweight.<ref>{{cite web|title=India's rank improves to 55th position on global hunger index|url=https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/indicators/indias-rank-improves-to-55th-position-on-global-hunger-index/articleshow/44802193.cms|date=13 October 2014|website=[[The Economic Times]]|access-date=18 October 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141019030848/https://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-10-13/news/54970880_1_nutrition-mission-india-ghi|archive-date=19 October 2014|url-status=live}}</ref> According to a [[Food and Agriculture Organization]] report in 2015, 15% of the population is undernourished.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/india-is-home-to-194-million-hungry-people-un/article7255937.ece|title=India is home to 194 million hungry people: UN|author=Internet Desk|newspaper=[[The Hindu]]|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161202044027/https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/india-is-home-to-194-million-hungry-people-un/article7255937.ece|archive-date=2 December 2016|date=28 May 2015|access-date=17 October 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.dawn.com/news/1184959/india-home-to-worlds-largest-number-of-hungry-people-report|title=India home to world's largest number of hungry people: report|website=[[Dawn (newspaper)|Dawn]]|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150529132938/https://www.dawn.com/news/1184959/india-home-to-worlds-largest-number-of-hungry-people-report|archive-date=29 May 2015|date=29 May 2015|access-date=17 October 2021}}</ref> The [[Midday Meal Scheme]] attempts to lower these rates.{{sfn|Drèze|Goyal|2008|p = 46}}

== Demographics, languages, and religion ==

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With an estimated 1,428,627,663 residents in 2023, India is the world's most populous country.<ref name="WPP UN" /> 1,210,193,422 residents were reported in the [[2011 Census of India|2011 provisional census report]].{{sfn|Provisional Population Totals Paper 1 of 2011 India|p=160}} Its population grew by 17.64% from 2001 to 2011,{{sfn|Provisional Population Totals Paper 1 of 2011 India|p=165}} compared to 21.54% growth in the previous decade (1991–2001).{{sfn|Provisional Population Totals Paper 1 of 2011 India|p=165}} The human sex ratio, according to the 2011 census, is 940 females per 1,000 males.{{sfn|Provisional Population Totals Paper 1 of 2011 India|p=160}} The median age was 28.7 {{as of|2020|lc=on}}.{{sfn|Central Intelligence Agency}} The first post-colonial census, conducted in 1951, counted 361&nbsp;million people.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://indiabudget.nic.in/es2006-07/chapt2007/tab97.pdf|title=Population Of India (1951–2001)|website=[[Census of India]]|publisher=[[Ministry of Finance (India)|Ministry of Finance]]|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110812042806/https://indiabudget.nic.in/es2006-07/chapt2007/tab97.pdf|archive-date=12 August 2011|access-date=13 February 2013}}</ref> Medical advances made in the last 50 years as well as increased agricultural productivity brought about by the "[[Green Revolution in India|Green Revolution]]" have caused India's population to grow rapidly.{{sfn|Rorabacher|2010|pp = 35–39}}

The life expectancy in India is at 70 years—71.5 years for women, 68.7 years for men.{{sfn|Central Intelligence Agency}} There are around 93 physicians per 100,000 people.<ref>{{cite web|title=Physicians (per 1,000 people) – India|url=https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.MED.PHYS.ZS?locations=IN&most_recent_value_desc=true|publisher=[[World Bank]]|year=2019|access-date=27 March 2022}}</ref> Migration from rural to urban areas has been an important dynamic in India's recent history. The number of people living in urban areas grew by 31.2% between 1991 and 2001.{{sfn|Garg|2005}} Yet, in 2001, over 70% still lived in rural areas.{{sfn|Dyson|Visaria|2005|pp = 115–129}}{{sfn|Ratna|2007|pp = 271–272}} The level of urbanisation increased further from 27.81% in the 2001 Census to 31.16% in the 2011 Census. The slowing down of the overall population growth rate was due to the sharp decline in the growth rate in rural areas since 1991.{{sfn|Chandramouli|2011}} According to the 2011 census, there are 53 [[List of million-plus urban agglomerations in India|million-plus urban agglomerations in India]]; among them [[Mumbai]], [[Delhi]], [[Kolkata]], [[Chennai]], [[Bangalore|Bengaluru]], [[Hyderabad]] and [[Ahmedabad]], in decreasing order by population.<ref name="censusindia 2011">{{cite web | url=https://censusindia.gov.in/2011-prov-results/paper2/data_files/India2/Table_3_PR_UA_Citiees_1Lakh_and_Above.pdf | title=Urban Agglomerations/Cities having population 1 lakh and above | publisher=[[Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner]], India | access-date=12 May 2014 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131017153124/https://censusindia.gov.in/2011-prov-results/paper2/data_files/India2/Table_3_PR_UA_Citiees_1Lakh_and_Above.pdf | archive-date=17 October 2013}}</ref> The literacy rate in 2011 was 74.04%: 65.46% among females and 82.14% among males.{{sfn|Provisional Population Totals Paper 1 of 2011 India|p=163}} The rural-urban literacy gap, which was 21.2 percentage points in 2001, dropped to 16.1 percentage points in 2011. The improvement in the rural literacy rate is twice that of urban areas.{{sfn|Chandramouli|2011}} [[Kerala]] is the most literate state with 93.91% literacy; while [[Bihar]] the least with 63.82%.{{sfn|Provisional Population Totals Paper 1 of 2011 India|p=163}}

India has a very ancient tradition of art, which has exchanged many influences with the rest of [[Eurasia]], especially in the first millennium, when [[Buddhist art]] spread with Indian religions to [[Central Asia|Central]], [[East Asia|East]] and [[Southeast Asia]], the last also greatly influenced by Hindu art.<ref>Rowland, 185–198, 252, 385–466</ref> Thousands of [[Indus Valley civilisation#Seals|seals from the Indus Valley Civilization]] of the third millennium BCE have been found, usually carved with animals, but a few with human figures. The [["Pashupati" seal]], excavated in [[Mohenjo-daro]], Pakistan, in 1928–29, is the best known.{{Sfn|Craven|1997|pp=14–16}}{{Sfn|Harle|1994|pp=17–18}} After this there is a long period with virtually nothing surviving.{{Sfn|Harle|1994|pp=17–18}}{{Sfn|Rowland|1970|pp=46–47}} Almost all surviving ancient Indian art thereafter is in various forms of religious [[Indian sculpture|sculpture]] in durable materials, or coins. There was probably originally far more in wood, which is lost. In north India [[Mauryan art]] is the first imperial movement.{{Sfn|Craven|1997|pp=35–46}}{{Sfn|Rowland|1970|pp=67–70}}{{Sfn|Harle|1994|pp=22–24}} In the first millennium CE, [[Buddhist art]] spread with Indian religions to [[Central Asia|Central]], [[East Asia|East]] and [[Southeast Asia]], the last also greatly influenced by [[Hindu art]].{{Sfn|Rowland|1970|pp=185–198, 252, 385–466}} Over the following centuries a distinctly Indian style of sculpting the human figure developed, with less interest in articulating precise anatomy than [[ancient Greek sculpture]] but showing smoothly flowing forms expressing ''prana'' ("breath" or life-force).{{Sfn|Craven|1997|pp=22, 88}}{{Sfn|Rowland|1970|pp=35, 99–100}} This is often complicated by the need to give figures multiple arms or heads, or represent different genders on the left and right of figures, as with the [[Ardhanarishvara]] form of Shiva and [[Parvati]].{{Sfn|Craven|1997|pp=18–19}}{{Sfn|Blurton|1993|p=151}}

File:Jahangir Receives Prince Khurram at Ajmer on His Return from the Mewar Campaign.jpg|''[[Jahangir]] Receives [[Shah Jahan|Prince Khurram]] at [[Ajmer]] on His Return from the [[Mewar]] Campaign'', Balchand, {{circa|1635}}

Indian music ranges over various traditions and regional styles. [[Indian classical music|Classical music]] encompasses two genres and their various folk offshoots: the northern [[Hindustani classical music|Hindustani]] and the southern [[Carnatic music|Carnatic]] schools.{{sfn|Massey|Massey|1998}} Regionalised popular forms include [[filmi]] and [[Indian folk music|folk music]]; the [[Syncretism|syncretic]] tradition of the ''[[baul]]s'' is a well-known form of the latter. [[Dance in India|Indian dance]] also features diverse folk and classical forms. Among the better-known [[List of Indian folk dances|folk dances]] are: ''[[Bhangra (dance)|bhangra]]'' of Punjab, ''[[bihu dance|bihu]]'' of Assam, ''[[Jhumair]]'' and ''[[Chhau dance|chhau]]'' of Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal, ''[[Garba (dance)|garba]]'' and ''[[Dandiya Raas|dandiya]]'' of Gujarat, ''[[ghoomar]]'' of Rajasthan, and ''[[lavani]]'' of Maharashtra. Eight dance forms, many with narrative forms and mythological elements, have been accorded [[Classical Indian dance|classical dance status]] by India's [[Sangeet Natak Akademi|National Academy of Music, Dance, and Drama]]. These are: ''[[Bharata Natyam|bharatanatyam]]'' of the state of Tamil Nadu, ''[[kathak]]'' of Uttar Pradesh, ''[[kathakali]]'' and ''[[mohiniyattam]]'' of Kerala, ''[[kuchipudi]]'' of Andhra Pradesh, ''[[Manipuri dance|manipuri]]'' of Manipur, ''[[odissi]]'' of Odisha<!--Do not change this per [[WP:COMMONNAME]].-->, and the ''[[sattriya]]'' of Assam.<ref>{{citation|title=South Asian Arts: Indian Dance|encyclopedia=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]] |url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/556016/South-Asian-arts/65246/Indian-dance |access-date=17 July 2011}}</ref>

In the 2011 census, about 73% of the population was literate, with 81% for men and 65% for women. This compares to 1981 when the respective rates were 41%, 53% and 29%. In 1951 the rates were 18%, 27% and 9%. In 1921 the rates 7%, 12% and 2%. In 1891 they were 5%, 9% and 1%,<ref>{{cite journal|first=Rajni|last=Pathania|title=Literacy in India: Progress and Inequality|url=https://www.bangladeshsociology.org/LiteracyinIndiaBEJS17.1.pdf|volume=17|website=bangladeshsociology.org|publisher=Bangladesh e-Journal of Sociology|date=January 2020|issue=1|access-date=18 October 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|first=Dandapani|last=Natarajan|title=Extracts from the All India Census Reports on Literacy|url=https://lsi.gov.in:8081/jspui/bitstream/123456789/366/1/26501_1971_CEN.pdf|publisher=[[Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India|Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India]]|year=1971|access-date=18 October 2021}}</ref> According to Latika Chaudhary, in 1911 there were under three primary schools for every ten villages. Statistically, more caste and religious diversity reduced private spending. Primary schools taught literacy, so local diversity limited its growth.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Chaudhary |first1=Latika |title=Determinants of Primary Schooling in British India |journal=The Journal of Economic History |date=March 2009 |volume=69 |issue=1 |pages=269–302 |doi=10.1017/S0022050709000400 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-economic-history/article/abs/determinants-of-primary-schooling-in-british-india/59982D3DACF7D318E8D69DD7A0CDEF93 |access-date=30 May 2024 |language=en |issn=0022-0507}}</ref>

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| caption1          = Women (from left to right) in [[churidar]]s and [[kameez]] (with back to the camera), jeans and sweater, and pink [[shalwar kameez]]<!-- a boy in [[kurta]] with [[chikan (embroidery)|chikan]] embroidery-->

Salwars are atypically wide at the waist but narrow to a cuffed bottom. They are held up by a drawstring, which causes them to become pleated around the waist.<ref name="StevensonWaite2011">{{citation|last1=Stevenson|first1=Angus|last2=Waite|first2=Maurice|title=Concise Oxford English Dictionary: Book & CD-ROM Set|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4XycAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA1272|year=2011|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|access-date=3 September 2019|isbn=978-0-19-960110-3|page=1272}}</ref> The pants can be wide and baggy, or they can be cut quite narrow, on the [[Grain (textile)#Bias|bias]], in which case they are called [[churidar]]s. When they are ordinarily wide at the waist and their bottoms are hemmed but not cuffed, they are called pyjamas. The kameez is a long shirt or tunic,<ref name="StevensonWaite2011-b">{{citation|last1=Stevenson|first1=Angus|last2=Waite|first2=Maurice|title=Concise Oxford English Dictionary: Book & CD-ROM Set|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4XycAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA774|year=2011|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|isbn=978-0-19-960110-3|page=774}}</ref> its side seams left open below the waistline.<ref>{{citation|url=https://dsalsrv04.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/app/platts_query.py?page=418|author=Platts, John T. (John Thompson)|title=A dictionary of Urdu, classical Hindi, and English|location=London|page=418|publisher=[[W. H. Allen & Co.]]|year=1884|access-date=26 August 2019|archive-date=24 February 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210224204345/https://dsalsrv04.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/app/platts_query.py?page=418|url-status=dead}} (online; updated February 2015)</ref> The [[kurta]] is traditionally collarless and made of cotton or silk; it is worn plain or with embroidered decoration, such as [[chikan (embroidery)|chikan]]; and typically falls to either just above or just below the wearer's knees.<ref name="Shukla2015">{{citation|last=Shukla|first=Pravina|title=The Grace of Four Moons: Dress, Adornment, and the Art of the Body in Modern India|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MlObCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA71|year=2015|publisher=[[Indiana University Press]]|isbn=978-0-253-02121-2|page=71}}</ref>

[[File:Making Khameeri Roti in Tandoor in Turkman Gate Old Delhi.webm|thumb|180px|A tandoor chef in the [[Turkman Gate]], [[Old Delhi]], makes Khameeri [[roti]] (a Muslim-influenced style of [[Bread#Leavening|leavened bread]]).<ref name="Panjabi1995">{{citation|last=Panjabi|first=Camellia|title=The Great Curries of India|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TYCFJMLZ_-4C&pg=PA158|year=1995|publisher=[[Simon and Schuster]]|isbn=978-0-684-80383-8|pages=158–|quote=The Muslim influenced breads of India are leavened, like ''naan'', ''Khamiri roti'', ...}}</ref>]]

India has distinctive vegetarian cuisines, each a feature of the geographical and cultural histories of its adherents.<ref name="Davidson2014-p410">{{citation|last=Davidson|first=Alan|title=The Oxford Companion to Food|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RL6LAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA410|year=2014|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|isbn=978-0-19-967733-7|page=410}}</ref> The appearance of ''[[ahimsa]]'', or the avoidance of violence toward all forms of life in many religious orders early in Indian history, especially [[Upanishads|Upanishadic Hinduism]], [[Buddhism]] and [[Jainism]], is thought to have contributed to the predominance of vegetarianism among a large segment of India's Hindu population, especially in southern India, Gujarat, the [[Hindi]]-speaking belt of north-central India, as well as among Jains.<ref name="Davidson2014-p410" /> Although meat is eaten widely in India, the proportional consumption of meat in the overall diet is low.<ref name="SahakianSaloma2016-50">{{citation|last1=Sahakian|first1=Marlyne|last2=Saloma|first2=Czarina|last3=Erkman|first3=Suren|title=Food Consumption in the City: Practices and patterns in urban Asia and the Pacific|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TBIxDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT50|year=2016|publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]]|isbn=978-1-317-31050-1|page=50}}</ref> Unlike China, which has increased its per capita meat consumption substantially in its years of increased economic growth, in India the strong dietary traditions have contributed to dairy, rather than meat, becoming the preferred form of animal protein consumption.<ref name="OECDNations2018">{{citation|author1=OECD|author2=Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations|title=OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2018–2027|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JuBiDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA21|year=2018|publisher=[[OECD Publishing]]|isbn=978-92-64-06203-0|page=21}}</ref>

{{See also|Indian physical culture}}{{multiple image

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| caption1         = Girls play [[hopscotch]] in [[Jaora]], [[Madhya Pradesh]].  Hopscotch has been commonly played by girls in rural India.<ref name="SrinivasanJermyn2001">{{citation|last1=Srinivasan|first1=Radhika|last2=Jermyn|first2=Leslie|last3=Lek|first3=Hui Hui|title=India|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zoVby4OJWhYC&pg=PA109|year=2001|publisher=Times Books International|isbn=978-981-232-184-8|page=109}} Quote: "Girls in India usually play jump rope, or hopscotch, and five stones, tossing the stones up in the air and catching them in many different ways ... the coconut-plucking contests, groundnut-eating races, ... of rural India."</ref>

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Several [[Traditional games of India|traditional indigenous sports]]—such as ''[[kabaddi]]'', ''[[kho kho]]'', [[pehlwani]], ''[[gilli-danda]],'' [[hopscotch]] and [[Indian martial arts|martial arts]] such as ''[[Kalarippayattu]]'' and ''[[marma adi]]—''remain popular. [[Chess in India|Chess]] is commonly held to have [[History of chess#India|originated in India]] as ''[[Chaturanga|chaturaṅga]]'';{{sfn|Wolpert|2003|p=2}} in recent years, there has been a rise in the number of Indian [[Grandmaster (chess)|grandmasters]],{{sfn|Rediff 2008 b}} and world champions.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Graham |first=Bryan Armen |date=2024-12-12 |title=Gukesh Dommaraju becomes youngest world chess champion after horrific Ding Liren blunder |url=https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/dec/12/gukesh-dommaraju-india-wins-world-chess-championship-youngest-champion-ding-liren |access-date=2024-12-12 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref> [[Parcheesi]] is derived from ''[[Pachisi]]'', another traditional Indian pastime, which in early modern times was played on a giant marble court by [[Mughal Empire|Mughal emperor]] [[Akbar the Great]].{{sfn|Binmore|2007|p=98}}

[[File:Sachin Tendulkar about to score 14000th run in test cricket.jpg|thumb|upright=2|right|Indian [[cricket]]er [[Sachin Tendulkar]] about to score a record 14,000 runs in [[Test cricket]] while playing against Australia in [[Bangalore]] (now Bengaluru), 2010]]

[[Cricket in India|Cricket]] is the most popular sport in India.<ref>{{citation |last=Shores |first=Lori |title=Teens in India |date=15 February 2007 |page=78 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CPQmbyiS-iEC |access-date=24 July 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120617050252/https://books.google.com/books?id=CPQmbyiS-iEC |archive-date=17 June 2012 |url-status=live |publisher=[[Compass Point Books]] |isbn=978-0-7565-2063-2}}</ref> [[India national cricket team|India]] has won two [[Cricket World Cup]]s, the [[1983 Cricket World Cup|1983 edition]] and the [[2011 Cricket World Cup|2011 edition]]. India has won eight field hockey gold medals in the [[Field hockey at the Summer Olympics|summer olympics]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.indiatoday.in/amp/sports/other-sports/story/independence-day-india-at-70-cricket-football-hockey-kabaddi-1029624-2017-08-14|title=What India was crazy about: Hockey first, Cricket later, Football, Kabaddi now?|website=India Today|date=14 August 2017 }}</ref>

India has participated in shooting sports and has won several medals at the [[Olympic Games|Olympics]], the [[ISSF World Shooting Championships|World Shooting Championships]], and the Commonwealth Games.{{sfn|Commonwealth Games 2010}}{{sfn|Cyriac|2010}} Other sports in which Indians have succeeded internationally include [[badminton]],{{sfn|British Broadcasting Corporation 2010 a}} boxing,{{sfn|Mint 2010}} and wrestling.{{sfn|Xavier|2010}} [[Football in India|Football]] is popular in [[West Bengal]], [[Goa]], [[Tamil Nadu]], [[Kerala]], and the [[Seven Sister States|north-eastern states]]. The major domestic league is the [[Indian Premier League]]. Professional leagues in other sports include the [[Indian Super League]] ([[Soccer|football]]) and the [[Pro Kabaddi League]].<ref>{{cite web |date=26 September 2021 |title=From IPL to ISL, sports leagues in India to watch out for |url=https://www.financialexpress.com/sports/from-ipl-to-isl-sports-leagues-in-india-to-watch-out-for/2337628/ |access-date=3 December 2021 |website=The Financial Express |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Indian Super League: Odisha president says sacking Stuart Baxter was 'the only course of action' |url=https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11995/12207157/indian-super-league-odisha-president-says-sacking-stuart-baxter-was-the-only-course-of-action |access-date=3 December 2021 |newspaper=Sky Sports}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |date=6 August 2014 |title=Kabaddi gets the IPL treatment |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/business-28660432 |access-date=3 December 2021 |work=BBC News |language=en-GB}}</ref>

{{Portal bar|India|Countries|Asia}}

{{Reflist|22em}}

===Overview===

===Etymology===

* {{cite journal |last=Clémentin-Ojha |first=Catherine |title='India, that is Bharat...': One Country, Two Names |journal=South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal |volume=10 |year=2014 |url=https://journals.openedition.org/samaj/3717 |archive-date=28 September 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150928035644/https://samaj.revues.org/3717}}

===History===

===Geography===

* {{citation|last=Chang|first=J. H.|year=1967|title=The Indian Summer Monsoon|periodical=[[Geographical Review]]|volume=57|issue=3|pages=373–396|doi=10.2307/212640|jstor=212640|publisher=[[American Geographical Society]], Wiley|bibcode=1967GeoRv..57..373C }}

===Biodiversity===

===Politics===

* {{citation|agency=Press Trust of India|date=16 May 2009|title=Second UPA Win, A Crowning Glory for Sonia's Ascendancy|url=https://www.business-standard.com/india/news/second-upa-wincrowning-glory-for-sonia%5Cs-ascendancy/61892/on |access-date=13 June 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305072031/http://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/second-upa-win-a-crowning-glory-for-sonia-s-ascendancy-109051600183_1.html |archive-date=5 March 2016 |ref={{sfnRef|Business Standard|2009}}|newspaper=[[Business Standard]] India|last1=India |first1=Press Trust of }}

===Foreign relations and military===

* {{citation|last=Pandit|first=Rajat|date=27 July 2009|title=N-Submarine to Give India Crucial Third Leg of Nuke Triad|newspaper=[[The Times of India]]|url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/N-submarine-to-give-India-crucial-third-leg-of-nuke-triad/articleshow/4823578.cms|access-date=10 March 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110811144548/https://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2009-07-27/india/28212143_1_nuclear-powered-submarine-ins-arihant-nuclear-submarine|url-status=live|archive-date=11 August 2011}}

* {{cite news|last=Pandit|first=Rajat|date=16 March 2021|title=India's weapon imports fell by 33% in last five years but remains world's second-largest arms importer|newspaper=[[The Times of India]]|url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/indias-weapon-imports-fell-by-33-in-last-five-years-but-remains-worlds-second-largest-arms-importer/articleshow/81516403.cms|access-date=3 February 2022}}

* {{cite news|last=Pandit|first=Rajat|date=1 February 2022|title=Strong push for indigenous weapons amidst modest hike in defence budget|newspaper=[[The Times of India]]|url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/strong-push-for-indigenous-weapons-amidst-modest-hike-in-defence-budget/articleshow/89275344.cms|access-date=3 February 2022}}

* {{citation|date=11 October 2008|title=India, US Sign 123 Agreement|newspaper=[[The Times of India]]|url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/India-US-sign-landmark-123-Agreement/articleshow/3582223.cms|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111107021602/https://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2008-10-11/india/27905286_1_indian-nuclear-market-sign-landmark-civil-nuclear-field|url-status=live|archive-date=7 November 2011|access-date=21 July 2011|ref={{sfnRef|The Times of India 2008}}}}

===Economy===

* {{citation|date=June 2011|title=World Economic Outlook Update|publisher=[[International Monetary Fund]]|url=https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2011/01/weodata/weorept.aspx?sy=2009&ey=2016&scsm=1&ssd=1&sort=country&ds=.&br=1&c=512%2C548%2C558%2C564%2C566%2C524%2C578%2C534%2C536&s=NGDPDPC&grp=0&a=&pr.x=60&pr.y=17|access-date=22 July 2011|ref={{sfnRef|International Monetary Fund 2011}}}}

===Demographics===

===Art===

===Culture===

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