India

In the Indian Ocean, India is near Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Modern humans arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa by 55,000 years ago. Settled life emerged in the western margins of the Indus river basin 9,000 years ago, evolving into the Indus Valley Civilisation of the third millennium BCE. By, an archaic form of Sanskrit, an Indo-European language, diffused into India from the northwest, its earliest hymns containing elements of what would become Hinduism. The pre-existing Dravidian and other languages were gradually superseded in India's northern plains. Across the central stretch of these plains, rapid urbanisation took place, and after 500 BCE a caste-based, hereditary, form of social stratification began to solidify as Hinduism took fuller shape. During this period, Buddhism and Jainism arose, proclaiming social orders unlinked to heredity. The subsequent emergence of the loose-knit Maurya and Gupta Empires gave rise to wide-ranging cultural and scientific creativity. However, these eras saw a steady decline in women's status, alongside the eventual institutionalisation of untouchability. In South India, across the first millennium CE, the Middle kingdoms transmitted Dravidian language scripts and cultural traditions to Southeast Asia. Well before the millennium's end, Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Zoroastrianism had become established on India's southern and western coasts. Early in the 2nd millennium, Muslim armies from Central Asia intermittently overran India's northern plains, eventually establishing the Delhi Sultanate, and drawing India into the cosmopolitan networks of medieval Islam. In South India, the Vijayanagara Empire created a long-lasting composite culture. During this era, Sikhism emerged in the Punjab, rejecting established religious institutions. The Mughal Empire ushered in two centuries of economic expansion and relative peace, leaving a rich architectural legacy. Through its gradually expanding rule, the British East India Company consolidated territorial control over the subcontinent while transforming India into a colonial economy. British Crown rule began in 1858. Although equality before the law promised to Indians was slow to materialise, technological changes were introduced while modern education and the public life took root. A nationalist movement emerged in India, the first in the non-European British Empire. Noted for nonviolent resistance after 1920, it was a major factor in ending British rule. In 1947, the British Indian Empire was partitioned into the independent dominions of a Hindu-majority India and a Muslim-majority Pakistan. The partition brought large-scale loss of life and unprecedented migration. The Constitution of India was adopted in 1950 and declared India to be a federal republic governed through a democratic parliamentary system; it guarantees freedom of speech, freedom of press, and religious pluralism. Amendments enacted from 1951 onwards strengthened affirmative action programmes to reduce caste inequality. The reorganization of states in 1956 along linguistic lines, institutionalised regional language pride, and led to the growth of regional literature and cinema. During the 1970s, India reversed agricultural stagnation through the Green Revolution, achieving national food security. The country also altered the regional power balance through support for Bangladesh and enacted constitutional reform to end princely privileges. Population grew from 361 million in 1951, to approximately 1.464 billion in 2025. Economic reforms of the 1990s integrated India's economy with the world's. A large middle class and a communications boom gained momentum. However, challenges remain, including widening income gaps, gender inequality and environmental degradation. In recent years India has seen a political shift toward majoritarianism. A nuclear-weapon state with high military expenditure, India is among the world's largest economies and a founding member of the United Nations, while its cultural legacy encompasses 45 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Megadiverse land features four biodiversity hotspots. Its wildlife is supported in protected habitats and traditionally viewed with cultural tolerance.

• Conventional Long Name — Republic of India • Common Name — India • Image Flag — Flag of India.svg • Alt Flag — Horizontal tricolour flag bearing, from top to bottom, deep saffron, white, and green horizontal bands. In the centre of the white band is a navy-blue wheel with 24 spokes. • Symbol Width — 60px • Alt Coat — Three lions facing left, right, and toward viewer, atop a frieze containing a galloping horse, a 24-spoke wheel, and an elephant. Underneath is a motto: "सत्यमेव जयते". • Symbol Type — State emblem • Other Symbol Type — National song: • Other Symbol — "I Bow to Thee, Mother" • National Anthem — "Thou Art the Ruler of the Minds of All People" • Image Map — India (orthographic projection).svg • Map Width — 250px • Alt Map — Image of a globe centred on India, with India highlighted. • Capital — New Delhi • Admin Center — Mumbai • Admin Center Type — Largest city by city proper population • Largest Settlement — Delhi • Largest Settlement Type — city by metropolitan area population • Official Languages — * Hindi • English • Languages Type — Native languages • Languages — 424 languages • Demonym — * Indian • others • Government Type — Federal parliamentary republic • Leader Title1 — President • Leader Name1 — Droupadi Murmu • Leader Title2 — Vice President • Leader Name2 — C. P. Radhakrishnan • Leader Title3 — Prime Minister • Leader Name3 — Narendra Modi • Legislature — Parliament • Upper House — Rajya Sabha • Lower House — Lok Sabha • Sovereignty Type — Independence • Sovereignty Note — from the United Kingdom • Established Event1 — Dominion • Established Date1 — 15 August 1947 • Established Event2 — Republic • Established Date2 — 26 January 1950 • Area Km2 — 3,287,263 • Area Rank — 7th • Area Sq Mi — 1,269,346 • Percent Water — 9.6 • Population Estimate — 1.48 billion • Population Estimate Year — 2026 • Population Estimate Rank — 1st • Population Census — 1,210,854,977 • Population Census Year — 2011 • Population Census Rank — 2nd • Population Density Sq Mi — sqmi • Population Density Rank — 30th • Gdp Ppp — $18.902 trillion • Gdp Ppp Year — 2026 • Gdp Ppp Rank — 3rd • Gdp Ppp Per Capita — $12,801 • Gdp Ppp Per Capita Rank — 121st • Gdp Nominal — $4.153 trillion • Gdp Nominal Year — 2026 • Gdp Nominal Rank — 6th • Gdp Nominal Per Capita — $2,813 • Gdp Nominal Per Capita Rank — 148th • Gini — 25.5 • Gini Year — 2022 • Gini Change — decrease • Hdi — 0.685 • Hdi Rank — 130th • Hdi Year — 2023 • Hdi Change — increase • Currency — Indian rupee (₹) • Currency Code — INR • Time Zone — IST • Utc Offset — +05:30 • Date Format — * dd day-mm month-yyyy year • Calling Code — +91 • Cctld —.in (others) • Englishmotto — "Truth Alone Triumphs" • Religion Year — 2011 • Religion — * 79.8% Hinduism • 14.2% Islam • 2.3% Christianity • 1.7% Sikhism • 0.7% Buddhism • 0.4% Jainism • 0.23% unaffiliated • 0.65% other • Iso3166code — IN India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the world's seventh-largest country by area and the largest by population. 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 Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north; and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is near Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Modern humans arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa by 55,000 years ago. Settled life emerged in the western margins of the Indus river basin 9,000 years ago, evolving into the Indus Valley Civilisation of the third millennium BCE. By, an archaic form of Sanskrit, an Indo-European language, diffused into India from the northwest, its earliest hymns containing elements of what would become Hinduism. The pre-existing Dravidian and other languages were gradually superseded in India's northern plains. Across the central stretch of these plains, rapid urbanisation took place, and after 500 BCE a caste-based, hereditary, form of social stratification began to solidify as Hinduism took fuller shape. During this period, Buddhism and Jainism arose, proclaiming social orders unlinked to heredity. The subsequent emergence of the loose-knit Maurya and Gupta Empires gave rise to wide-ranging cultural and scientific creativity. However, these eras saw a steady decline in women's status, alongside the eventual institutionalisation of untouchability. In South India, across the first millennium CE, the Middle kingdoms transmitted Dravidian language scripts and cultural traditions to Southeast Asia. Well before the millennium's end, Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Zoroastrianism had become established on India's southern and western coasts. Early in the 2nd millennium, Muslim armies from Central Asia intermittently overran India's northern plains, eventually establishing the Delhi Sultanate, and drawing India into the cosmopolitan networks of medieval Islam. In South India, the Vijayanagara Empire created a long-lasting composite culture. During this era, Sikhism emerged in the Punjab, rejecting established religious institutions. The Mughal Empire ushered in two centuries of economic expansion and relative peace, leaving a rich architectural legacy. Through its gradually expanding rule, the British East India Company consolidated territorial control over the subcontinent while transforming India into a colonial economy. British Crown rule began in 1858. Although equality before the law promised to Indians was slow to materialise, technological changes were introduced while modern education and the public life took root. A nationalist movement emerged in India, the first in the non-European British Empire. Noted for nonviolent resistance after 1920, it was a major factor in ending British rule. In 1947, the British Indian Empire was partitioned into the independent dominions of a Hindu-majority India and a Muslim-majority Pakistan. The partition brought large-scale loss of life and unprecedented migration. The Constitution of India was adopted in 1950 and declared India to be a federal republic governed through a democratic parliamentary system; it guarantees freedom of speech, freedom of press, and religious pluralism. Amendments enacted from 1951 onwards strengthened affirmative action programmes to reduce caste inequality. The reorganization of states in 1956 along linguistic lines, institutionalised regional language pride, and led to the growth of regional literature and cinema. During the 1970s, India reversed agricultural stagnation through the Green Revolution, achieving national food security. The country also altered the regional power balance through support for Bangladesh and enacted constitutional reform to end princely privileges. India's population grew from 361 million in 1951, to approximately 1.464 billion in 2025. Economic reforms of the 1990s integrated India's economy with the world's. By the 2010s, the Indian economy had a stably high rate of growth. A large middle class and a communications boom gained momentum. However, challenges remain, including widening income gaps, gender inequality and environmental degradation. In recent years India has seen a political shift toward majoritarianism. A nuclear-weapon state with high military expenditure, India is among the world's largest economies and a founding member of the United Nations, while its cultural legacy encompasses 45 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. India's megadiverse land features four biodiversity hotspots. Its wildlife is supported in protected habitats and traditionally viewed with cultural tolerance.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the English proper noun "India" derives most immediately from the Classical Latin India, a reference to a loosely-defined historical region of Asia stretching from South Asia to the borders of China. Further etymons are: Hellenistic Greek India (Ἰνδία); Ancient Greek Indos (Ἰνδός), or the River Indus; Achaemenian Old Persian Hinduš (an eastern province of the Achaemenid Empire); and Sanskrit Sindhu, or "river," but specifically the Indus river, and by extension its well-settled basin. The Ancient Greeks referred to South Asians as Indoi, 'the people of the Indus'. The term Bharat, mentioned in both Indian epic poetry and the Constitution of India, is used in its variations by many Indian languages. A modern rendering of the historical name Bharatavarsha, which applied originally to North India, Bharat gained increased currency from the mid-19th century as a native name for India. Hindustan (Hindustan.ogg) is a Middle Persian name for India that became popular by the 13th century, 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.

• Illustration — Manuscript illustration, c. 1650, of the Sanskrit epic Ramayana, composed in story-telling fashion c. • Illustration — Cave 26, a Buddhist shrine, of the rock-cut Ajanta Caves Based on coalescence of Mitochondrial DNA and Y Chromosome data, the earliest extant lineages of modern humans on the Indian subcontinent had reached there from Africa between 80,000 and 50,000 years ago, and with high likelihood by 55,000 years ago. Neolithic and chalcolithic cultures arose in the western margins of the Indus river basin around Mehrgarh in Balochistan, Pakistan after. These gradually evolved into the Indus Valley Civilisation, which flourished during in Pakistan and western India. Centred around cities such as Mohenjo-daro, Harappa and Dholavira, its characteristic features included steatite seals, a written script, urban planning, terracotta human figures and animal statuettes. Between and, an archaic form of Sanskrit, an Indo-European language, diffused into India from the northwest. Its evidence today is found in the Rig Veda—the scripture associated with the historical Vedic religion, one of the progenitors of what later became Hinduism. The settling of the Ganges river plain took place during the next millennium, when swathes of the river system's adjoining regions were deforested and prepared for agriculture. The Dravidian and other languages of India were supplanted in the north, creating a broad language family-divide, with the Indo-Aryan languages being spoken mainly in the north and west, and the Dravidian in some parts of east India and most of the south. A second urbanisation took place in India by the middle-first-millennium BCE. In fortified cities in the central Ganges plain, social differentiation by caste, or varna, emerged. Also, by the mid-millennium, two new religions arose: Jainism, based on the teachings of Mahavira, and Buddhism, based on those of the Buddha. Both stressed non-violence and abjured animal sacrifices conducted in Brahmanism and birth into a fixed hereditary varna. By living ethically, lay people could rise socially and morally in these religions. The rise of the two religions was a backdrop to the emergence of the first loose-knit, geographically extensive power in South Asia, the Maurya Empire. During the rule of the founder's grandson, Ashoka (ca. 268–232 BCE), the empire briefly controlled the subcontinent's major urban hubs and arteries, except in the deep south. The empire's period was notable for creativity in art, architecture, inscriptions, and produced texts. Following his conquest of Kalinga, in which his forces caused immense loss of life, Ashoka adopted Buddhism, and subsequently commissioned numerous rock and pillar edicts throughout the Maurya Empire to promote ethical conduct, non-violence, and social welfare. By the 4th and 5th centuries CE, the Gupta Empire had created a system of administration and taxation in the greater Ganges Plain; this system became a model for later Indian kingdoms. Under the Guptas, a renewed Hinduism based on devotion, rather than the management of ritual, began to assert itself. The renewal was reflected in a flowering of art, literature, and science. However, the eras of the two empires also witnessed a steady erosion of women's rights, and, by the end, the institutionalisation of untouchability. In South India, the Sangam literature of the Tamil language reveals that, between and, the southern peninsula was ruled by the Cheras and the Cholas, along the western and eastern plains, respectively, of the Kaveri river valley, and the Pandyas farther south along the Vaigai river valley. By the sixth century, the Pallavas had grown into a regional power. Simultaneously, Buddhism and Jainism, which had favoured a conservative transactionalism, were replaced by kingly devotion to the gods of particular places, which became a characteristic of the Bhakti movement. The Pallavas, in particular, traded extensively with the Roman Empire and with West and Southeast Asia.

• Illustration — The Brihadisvara Temple, built by Chola monarch Rajaraja I between 1003 and 1010 CE • Illustration — Calligraphy on the Qutb Minar, built in the Delhi Sultanate from 1199 CE to 1220 CE The Indian early medieval age, from, was defined by regional kingdoms and cultural diversity. During this time, as land was cleared for agriculture, pastoral peoples and new non-traditional ruling classes were integrated into caste society. The caste system consequently began to show regional differences. In the 6th and 7th centuries, the first devotional hymns were composed in Tamil. They were emulated across India, leading to a resurgence of Hinduism and laying the groundwork for the subcontinent's regional languages. Indian royalty and the temples they supported drew large numbers of citizens to the capital cities, which grew into economic hubs. By the 8th and 9th centuries, South Indian culture and political systems spread across Southeast Asia. In the second half of the first millennium CE, Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Zoroastrianism established roots on India's southern and western coasts. After the 10th century, Muslim Central Asian nomadic clans—using swift-horse cavalry and raising vast armies united by ethnicity—repeatedly overran South Asia's north-western plains, leading eventually to the establishment of the Islamic Delhi Sultanate in 1206. The Sultanate, which came to control much of North India and made many forays into South India, initially disrupted Indian elites, but largely left its vast non-Muslim subject population to its own laws and customs. By repeatedly repulsing Mongol raiders in the 13th century, the sultanate saved India from the devastation visited on West and Central Asia, setting the scene for centuries of migration of fleeing soldiers, scholars, mystics, and artisans from those regions into the subcontinent, thereby creating a syncretic Indo-Islamic culture in the north. The sultanate's raiding and weakening of the regional kingdoms of South India paved the way for the indigenous Vijayanagara Empire. Embracing a strong Shaivite tradition and building upon the military technology of the sultanate, the empire came to control a large portion of peninsular India, and influenced South Indian society long after.

• Illustration — The dargah of Sufi Salim Chisti, built by Mughal emperor, Akbar, early 17th century • Illustration — An East India Company rule gold mohur, issued during the reign of William IIII In the early 16th century, northern India—then mainly under Muslim rulers—fell again to the superior mobility and firepower of a new generation of Central Asian warriors. The resulting Mughal Empire did not stamp out the local societies it came to rule. Instead, it balanced and pacified them through new administrative practices and diverse and inclusive ruling elites. This led to more systematic, centralised, and uniform rule. By departing from tribal bonds and exclusive Islamic identity, particularly under Akbar, the Mughals united their vast empire through personal loyalty to a near-divine emperor, expressed through a shared Persianised culture. The Mughal state derived most revenue from agriculture. Its economic policies mandated tax payments in a well-regulated silver currency, and integrated peasants and artisans into larger markets. The relative peace the empire maintained across much of the 17th century helped drive India's economic expansion. Mughal ruling classes fostered extensive patronage of the arts, including painting, literary forms, textiles, and architecture. Newly coherent social groups in northern and western India, such as the Marathas, the Rajputs, and the Sikhs, gained governing ambitions during Mughal rule. Through collaboration or adversity, the Mughals gave them recognition and military experience. Expanding commerce gave rise to new Indian commercial and political elites along the coasts of southern and eastern India. From the late 17th century, the Mughal Empire gradually began to disintegrate, and these local elites and communities frequently gained greater autonomy and self-governance. By the early 18th century, the lines between commercial enterprise and political sovereignty had become increasingly blurred. European chartered companies solidified their presence in India through fortified coastal outposts; most notable was the English East India Company. Its control of the seas, greater resources, and more advanced military training and technology led it to assert its military strength increasingly and caused it to become attractive to a portion of the Indian elite; these factors were crucial in allowing the company to gain control over the Bengal region by 1765 and sideline the other European companies. Its further access to the riches of Bengal and the subsequent increased strength and size of its army enabled it to annexe or subdue most of India by the 1820s. India no longer exported manufactured goods as it long had, but instead supplied the British Empire with raw materials. Many historians consider this to be the onset of India's colonial period. By this time, with its economic power severely curtailed by the British Parliament and having effectively been made an arm of British administration, the East India Company began more consciously to enter non-economic arenas, including education, social reform, and culture.

• Illustration — Mahatma Gandhi after a visit to the Presidency Jail, Calcutta, April 1938 • Illustration — The Capitol Complex in Chandigarh, commissioned after India's 1947 partition The 1848 appointment of Lord Dalhousie as the Governor General of the East India Company set the stage for changes essential to a modern state: consolidating and demarcating sovereignty, monitoring the population through censuses, educating citizens and rationalising the beauraucracy. Technological advancements—among them, railways, canals, and the telegraph—were introduced within years of their introduction in Europe, with the East India Company guaranteeing fixed financial returns to attract British private investors. Simultaneously, the proponents of these public works lobbied the British government for support, presenting them as necessities for military logistics and security and Indian social and cultural reform. Thus, the Upper Doab's Ganges Canal—conceived by Proby Cautley under Lord Auckland and completed under Dalhousie—was promoted to Company's Court of Directors in London as both a vital relief response to the Agra famine of 1837–1838 and a revenue-generating irrigation and navigation project. The canal, which brought agricultural prosperity to some areas, ultimately caused soil salinisation in others. Disaffection with the company also grew during this time, culminating in the Indian Rebellion of 1857, which swept across the central Gangetic plain, and extended into Central India. Shaking the foundations of Company rule, the uprising was provoked by diverse resentments and perceptions, including invasive British-style social reforms, harsh land taxes, and summary treatment of some wealthy landowners and princes. Yet the presumed causes of the uprising did not translate uniformly into actual rebellion. The rebel leaders proclaimed no coherent articles of faith that presaged a new political system. Crucially, many regions of India—including the Punjab, the Madras and Bombay presidencies—did not join the rebellion, thereby ensuring its ultimate defeat; neither did the Bengali intelligentsia, nor the major princely states. After the rebellion was suppressed in 1858, the East India Company was disbanded, and the British government assumed direct administration of India. Proclaiming a unitary state and a gradual but limited British-style parliamentary system, the new rulers also protected princes and landed gentry as a feudal safeguard against future unrest. In the decades following, a more organised public life gradually emerged across India, eventually leading to the founding of the Indian National Congress in 1885. Rapid commercialisation of agriculture in the second half of the 19th century brought severe economic setbacks, leaving many small farmers dependent on the uncertainties of distant markets. This period saw a rise in the frequency of large-scale famines, moreover, despite the risks of infrastructure development being borne by Indian taxpayers, little industrial employment was generated for the local population. However, commercial cropping, especially in the newly canal-irrigated Punjab, did increase food production for internal consumption. The expanding railway network provided critical famine relief, notably reduced the cost of moving goods, and helped nascent Indian-owned industry. The famines were systematically documented, leading to the publication of the Indian Famine Codes and reports of the Indian Famine Commissions of 1880, 1897, and 1901. During World War I, more than one million Indians served and Indian land taxes made substantial financial contributions to the Allied war effort. After the war, the British enacted limited constitutional reforms but also repressive legislation, galvanising Mahatma Gandhi, newly arrived from South Africa, to launch a nonviolent non-cooperation movement. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, ideas from Bolshevism and anarchism electrified a growing militancy across the subcontinent and injected a new urgency into the Congress's civil-disobedience movement. Starting in the mid-1930s, the British introduced legislative reforms including special representation for India's untouchables, and the Government of India Act of 1935, a blueprint for a federated state with extensive provincial autonomy; the Indian National Congress won victories in the resulting elections. The next decade was punctuated by escalating crises: the British Viceroy's unilateral declaration of India's entry ino World War II, the resignation of the provincial Congress ministries, the party's 1942 push for non-cooperation, the subsequent jailing of its leaders, and an upsurge of Muslim nationalism. After the war, the Muslim League's sweeping success in the 1946 provincial elections was a critical turning point; by securing the Muslim-reserved seats, it established a Muslim mandate for Pakistan that led eventually to the partition of British India. Two new nations, Pakistan and India, came into existence on 14–15 August 1947, accompanied by widespread loss of life and an unprecedented migration. The Constitution of India was adopted in 1950 and declared India to be a federal republic governed through a democratic parliamentary system; it guaranteed freedom of speech, freedom of press, and religious pluralism. Amendments enacted from 1951 onwards strengthened affirmative action programmes to dismantle caste system inequalities. The States Reorganisation Act of 1956, which redrew provincial boundaries along linguistic lines, institutionalised regional language pride and led to the growth of regional language literature and cinema. In 1971, the creation of Bangladesh altered the regional power balance; the abolition of princely privileges removed the last vestiges of India's feudal order. During this time, India's population was grew rapidly: it rose from 361 million in 1951, to approximately 1.464 billion in 2025, surpassing China's in 2021. Economic reforms of the 1990s integrated India's economy with the world's, reducing government regulations on domestic and foreign private businesses. By the mid-2010s, India's economy was rapidly growing, most notably in information technology services. India had a large, consumption-driven middle class and witnessed a communications boom. However, India's economic growth has been accompanied by widening income gaps, gender inequality, and degradation of the environment. In recent years, India has witnessed a shift toward majoritarianism and Hindu nationalism, altering the traditional secular consensus of the early postcolonial era.

India accounts for the bulk of the Indian subcontinent, lying atop the Indian tectonic plate, a part of the Indo-Australian Plate. India's defining geologic processes began approximately 70 million years ago, when the Indian Plate, then part of the southern supercontinent Gondwana, began a north-eastward drift caused by seafloor spreading to its south-west, and later, south and south-east. Simultaneously, the vast Tethyan oceanic crust, to its northeast, began to subduct under the Eurasian Plate. The Indian continental crust was obstructed and was sheared horizontally; while its lower crust and mantle slid beneath Eurasia, the upper layer piled up in sheets ahead of the subduction zone. This mountain-building orogeny created the Himalayas. The middle and stiffer layer continued to push into Tibet, causing crustal thickening of the Tibetan Plateau. Immediately south of the emerging Himalayas, plate movement created a vast crescent-shaped trough that rapidly filled with river-borne sediment and now constitutes the Indo-Gangetic Plain. The original Indian plate makes its first appearance above the sediment in the ancient Aravalli range, which extends from the Delhi Ridge in a southwesterly direction. To the west lies the Thar Desert, whose eastern spread is checked by the Aravallis. thumb

The Indian Plate survives as peninsular India, the oldest and geologically most stable part of the country. It extends as far north as the Satpura and Vindhya ranges in central India. These parallel chains run from the Arabian Sea coast in Gujarat in the west to the coal-rich Chota Nagpur Plateau in Jharkhand in the east. To the south, the peninsular landmass, the Deccan Plateau, is flanked on the west and east by coastal ranges known as Western and Eastern Ghats; the plateau contains the country's oldest rock formations, some over one billion years old. Geographically, India lies to the north of the equator between 6° 44′ and 35° 30′ north latitude and 68° 7′ and 97° 25′ east longitude. Major Himalayan-origin rivers that substantially flow through India include the Ganges and the Brahmaputra, both of which drain into the Bay of Bengal. Important tributaries of the Ganges include the Yamuna and the Kosi. The Kosi's extremely low gradient, caused by long-term silt deposition, leads to severe floods and course changes. Major peninsular rivers, whose steeper gradients prevent extensive flooding, include the Godavari, the Mahanadi, the Kaveri, and the Krishna, which also drain into the Bay of Bengal; and the Narmada and the Tapti, which drain into the Arabian Sea. India's coastline measures 7517 km in length; of this distance, 5423 km belong to peninsular India and 2094 km to the Andaman, Nicobar, and Lakshadweep island chains. According to the Indian naval hydrographic charts, the mainland coastline consists of 43% sandy beaches, 11% rocky shores including cliffs, and 46% mudflats or marshy shores. Coastal features include the marshy Rann of Kutch of western India and the alluvial Sundarbans delta of eastern India, the latter shared with Bangladesh. India has two archipelagos: the Lakshadweep coral atolls off the south-western coast, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a volcanic chain in the Andaman Sea. • Illustration — The Valley of Flowers National Park, Uttarakhand, average altitude 3500 m, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. • Illustration — The Tungabhadra, with rocky outcrops, flows into the peninsular Krishna River. • Illustration — The Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta (Sentinel-3B image). Ganges l., Brahmaputra r. • Illustration — A mangrove tree on a beach on Havelock Island, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands

• Illustration — Köppen climate classification of India In Köppen climate classification the regions of India are: Dry-winter, humid sub-tropical (CWa, largely the river plains of the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Punjab rivers); Tropical savanna with dry winters (Aw, large parts of peninsular India except the Deccan Plateau and the Western Ghats); Hot semi-arid (BSh, Deccan plateau, parts of Gujarat, eastern Rajasthan, Punjab, and Western Uttar Pradesh); Hot Desert (BWh, northern Gujarat and western Rajasthan); Tropical Monsoon (Am, Western Ghats), Dry winter sub-topical highland (CWb, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, northern Bengal and upper northeast India), Cold desert (BWk, Eastern Ladakh), Tropical rainforest (Af, Sundarbans, Andaman and Nicobar Islands; Warm summer hemiboreal (Dsb, upper Himachal Pradesh and Kashmir below the Himalayas), and Ice cap in the Western Himalayas. Monsoon weather systems play a significant role in India's climate. In turn, the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau play an important role in creating the South Asian monsoon, which accounts for 75 to 80 per cent of India's annual rain. In winter, the Tibetan Plateau (average altitude 4500 m) acts like a tower of ice and splits the westerlies, both the low-level and, by friction, the high-altitude jet streams. The southern branch rounds the Himalayas. Just beyond, as it slows down and creates a convergence, or backup, the air sinks, creating dry, northeasterly surface winds over India. This maintains dry, cool, Indian winters. After these winds slow down, sub-tropical westerlies guide extratropical Western disturbances from the Mediterranean Region and the Middle East across northwestern India, bringing rain for winter crops and replenishing the glaciers in the Karakorams. By May, the sun bakes the Tibetan Plateau. Rising warm air generates a high-altitude anticyclone. This creates the Tropical Easterly Jet Stream over southern India, which draws moisture-laden southwesterly surface winds off the Indian Ocean. The Western Ghats intercept these winds, which release their moisture as orographic rain, leaving a large swath of peninsular India in the mountains' rain shadow. India’s interior plains rely on monsoon depressions for their rain. These low-pressure storm systems form over the Bay of Bengal and are steered clockwise and inland by the anticyclonic jet stream. They cause summer rainfall across India from June to September. However, rainfall fluctuates in cycles, alternating between active phases characterised by heavy rain and dry breaks. • Illustration — The Agasthiyamalai range, Western Ghats, as seen from the rain shadow region in Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu • Illustration — Indian coral tree in bloom in the mist of the Southwest Monsoon, Mallalli Falls, Hassan, Karnataka • Illustration — A dromedary in the Thar Desert • Illustration — New snow in Baspa Valley, Sangla, Himachal Pradesh

India is a megadiverse country, a term employed for 17 countries that host high biological diversity and contain many species indigenous, or endemic, to them. India is the habitat for 8.6% of all mammals, 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. Fully a third of Indian plant species are endemic. India also overlaps four of the world's 34 biodiversity hotspots, or regions that display significant habitat loss in the presence of high endemism. India's densest forests, such as the tropical moist forest of the Andaman Islands, the Western Ghats, and Northeast India, occupy about 3% of its land area. Moderately dense forest, whose canopy density is between 40% and 70%, occupies 9.39% of India's land area. It predominates in the temperate coniferous forest of the Himalayas, the moist deciduous sal forest of eastern India, and the dry deciduous teak forest of central and southern India. India has two natural zones of thorn forest, one in the Deccan Plateau, immediately east of the Western Ghats, and the other in the western part of the Indo-Gangetic plain, now turned into rich agricultural land by irrigation, its features no longer visible. Among the Indian subcontinent's notable indigenous trees are the astringent Azadirachta indica, or neem, which is widely used in rural Indian herbal medicine, and the luxuriant Ficus religiosa, or peepul, which is displayed on the ancient seals of Mohenjo-daro, and under which the Buddha is recorded in the Pali canon to have sought enlightenment. Many Indian species have descended from those of Gondwana, the southern supercontinent from which India separated more than 100 million years ago. India's subsequent collision with Eurasia set off a mass exchange of species. However, volcanism and climatic changes later caused the extinction of many endemic Indian forms. Still later, mammals entered India from Asia through two zoogeographic passes flanking the Himalayas. This lowered endemism among India's mammals, which stands at 12.6%, contrasting with 45.8% among reptiles and 55.8% among amphibians. Among endemics are the vulnerable hooded leaf monkey and the threatened Beddome's toad of the Western Ghats. According to the IUCN Red List, India contains 1,021 threatened animal species—99 mammal, 82 bird, 105 reptile, 139 amphibian, 332 fish, 10 mollusk, and 254 other invertebrate—727 threatened plant species, and 4 threatened fungi species. Among them are the endangered Bengal tiger and the 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. 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. The pervasive and ecologically devastating human encroachment of recent decades has critically endangered Indian wildlife. In response, the system of national parks and protected areas, first established in 1935, was expanded substantially. In 1972, India enacted the Wildlife Protection Act and Project Tiger to safeguard crucial wilderness; the Forest Conservation Act was enacted in 1980 and amendments added in 1988. India hosts more than five hundred wildlife sanctuaries and eighteenbiosphere reserves, four of which are part of the World Network of Biosphere Reserves; its eighty-nine wetlands are registered under the Ramsar Convention. • Illustration — An Attacus taprobanis moth from Kadavoor, Kerala • Illustration — India has the majority of the world's wild tigers, approximately 3,170 in 2022. • Illustration — A purple sunbird perched on an Indian coral tree, Jim Corbett National Park, Uttarakhand • Illustration — A Crested hawk-eagle with an Indian garden lizard in Satpura National Park, Madhya Pradesh • Illustration — Saltwater crocodile in Sundarbans National Park, West Bengal

India is a parliamentary republic with a multi-party system. There are sixrecognised national parties in the country, including the Indian National Congress (generally, "the Congress") and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP); there are over 50regional parties. The Congress is considered the ideological centre in Indian political culture; the BJP is right-wing to far-right. • Illustration — Narendra Modi has been India's Prime Minister since 2014. Following independence on 15 August 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru served as prime minister of the Dominion of India, remaining caretaker until 1951, shortly after India became a republic in 1950. Led by Nehru, the Congress won the 1951, 1957, and 1962 general elections comfortably. After Nehru died in May 1964, Lal Bahadur Shastri became prime minister. Shastri died in January 1966, shortly after signing the Tashkent Peace Declaration. The Congress chose Indira Gandhi as prime minister, leading the party to election victories in 1967 and 1971. In 1975, she declared a state of emergency, suspending civil liberties, which led to Congress being voted out in 1977. Congress returned to power in 1980. Following a military operation at the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Indira Gandhi was assassinated on 31 October 1984. Indira Gandhi's son, Rajiv Gandhi, succeeded her and won the late 1984 elections. During the general election campaign of 1991, Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a Sri Lankan Tamil separatist. Congress emerged from the elections as the largest party, and P. V. Narasimha Rao formed a minority government that completed a full five-year term. After the 1999 elections, the BJP's Atal Bihari Vajpayee led a National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition and became the first non-Congress prime minister to complete a five-year term. The NDA was defeated in 2004 by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA). Manmohan Singh served as prime minister with external support, returning with increased, independent numbers in 2009. In 2014, the BJP led by Narendra Modi won an absolute majority, in the Indian parliament, and expanded it in 2019. The party joined an NDA coalition after losing its single-party majority in the 2024 general election. Modi remains the longest-serving non-Congress prime minister. • Illustration — The original preamble of the Constitution of India in 1950. In 1976, during the tenure of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the first sentence was changed to "Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic". The Constitution of India was drafted by the Constituent Assembly of India between 1946 and 1949, despite the political disruptions of the Partition. The Government of India Act 1935 was used as a model and framework. Long passages from the Act were included. The constitution describes a federal state with a parliamentary system of democracy. The federal structure was notable for the strength of the central government, which exclusively controlled defence, foreign affairs, railways, ports, and currency. The President, the constitutional head of state, has reserve powers for taking over the administration of a state. The central legislature has two houses: the Lok Sabha, whose delegates are directly elected by the people in general elections every five years, and the Rajya Sabha, whose members are nominated by the elected representatives in the states. The Constitution also includes features not found in the 1935 Act. The definition of fundamental rights is based on the Constitution of the United States, and the constitutional directives, or goals of endeavour, are based on the Constitution of Ireland. An Indian institution recommended by the constitution is the panchayat or village committees. Untouchability is illegal (Article 17) and caste distinctions are derecognised (Articles 15(2) and 16(2)). The promulgation of the Indian Constitution transformed India into a republic within the Commonwealth. The prime minister of India is the head of government and exercises most executive power. Appointed by the president, the prime minister is supported by the party or political alliance with a majority of seats in the lower house of parliament. The executive of the Indian government consists of the president, the vice-president, and the Union Council of Ministers—with the cabinet being its executive committee—headed by the prime minister. Any minister holding a portfolio must be a member of one of the houses of parliament. In the Indian parliamentary system, the executive is subordinate to the legislature; the prime minister and their council are directly responsible to the lower house of the parliament. Civil servants act as permanent executives, and all decisions of the executive are implemented by them. India has a three-tierunitary independent judiciary comprising the supreme court, headed by the Chief Justice of India, 25high courts, and a large number of trial courts. The supreme court has original jurisdiction over cases involving fundamental rights and over disputes between states and the centre and has appellate jurisdiction over the high courts. It has the power to both strike down Union or State laws which contravene the Constitution and invalidate any government action it deems unconstitutional.

India is a federal union comprising 28 states and 8 union territories. All states, as well as the union territories of Jammu and Kashmir, Puducherry and the National Capital Territory of Delhi, have elected legislatures and governments following the Westminster system. The remaining five union territories are directly ruled by the central government through appointed administrators. In 1956, under the States Reorganisation Act, states were reorganised on a linguistic basis. Over a quarter of a million local government bodies operate at the city, town, district, block, and village levels.

• Illustration — In the 1950s and 60s, India played a pivotal role in the Non-Aligned Movement. From left to right: Gamal Abdel Nasser of the United Arab Republic (now Egypt), Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia and Jawaharlal Nehru in Belgrade, September 1961. India remained a member of the Commonwealth of Nations after becoming a republic in 1950. It strongly supported decolonisation in Africa and Asia in the 1950s, and played a leading role in the Non-Aligned Movement. Following a period of cordial relations in the 1950s, India and China went to war in 1962, resulting in a decisive military defeat for India. By 1967, however, India was able to fend off Chinese excursions into Sikkim. India has had uneasy relations with its western neighbour, Pakistan. The two went to war in 1947, 1965, 1971, and 1999. Three wars were fought over the disputed territory of Kashmir. After the 1965 war, India began to pursue close military and economic ties with the Soviet Union. By the late 1960s, the Soviet Union was India's largest arms supplier. China's nuclear test of 1964 and threats to intervene in support of Pakistan in the 1965 war caused India to produce nuclear weapons. India conducted its first nuclear weapons test in 1974 and carried out additional underground testing in 1998. India has signed neither the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty nor the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, calling both flawed and discriminatory. India maintains a "no first use" nuclear policy and possesses a nuclear triad as a part of its "Minimum Credible Deterrence" doctrine. Since the end of the Cold War, India has increased its economic, strategic, and military cooperation with the United States and the European Union. In 2008, a civilian nuclear agreement was signed between India and the United States. Although India possessed nuclear weapons at the time and was not a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, it received waivers from the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Suppliers Group, ending earlier restrictions on India's nuclear technology and commerce; India subsequently signed co-operation agreements involving civilian nuclear energy with Russia, France, the United Kingdom, and Canada.

The economic history of colonial India and early postcolonial India began with colonial extraction and ended with state planning. During British rule, the Indian subcontinent underwent deindustrialisation. After India's independence in 1947, it adopted a socialist-oriented economic model that relied on government-owned heavy industries and five-year plans which took their cues from those of the Soviet Union of the 1930s. Although the Green Revolution of the 1960s eventually helped India to attain some self-sufficiency in food, India's economic growth in real terms remained low. A balance of payments crisis in 1991 forced the government's hand and led it to embrace economic deregulation. The reduction in the government's control over the economy opened the domestic market to foreign direct investment and sped up the growth of private enterprise.

Today, India is a large emerging market with strong local buying. Its expanding economic output ranks among the largest in the world both by market exchange rates and purchasing power parity. Although agricultural production remains the main source of employment for nearly half the population, the service sector predominantly drives the overall economy. India relies on financial technology, information systems, and professional services both for its export earnings and urban development. Recent government initiatives have emphasized physical infrastructure and manufacturing programmes designed to increase indigenous industrial capacity. India's rapid economic expansion is counterbalanced by disparities in wealth, employment, and regional growth. The per capita income remains low relative to other large emerging economies, and shows large imbalances in the distribution of wealth. The official labour market struggles to generate enough stable jobs to account for the expanding, youthful workforce; this leaves a large proportion of the population to rely on informal employment. Significant gaps exist in regional growth within India: less developed states lag considerably behind advanced cities in human capital development and how swiftly their governments can clamp down on those who flout rules and regulations. • Illustration — In 2019, 43% of India's total workforce was employed in agriculture. • Illustration — A woman growing radish in the foreground and garlic to the right in a village in the Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu. In 2019, 55% of India's female workforce was employed in agriculture. • Illustration — India is the world's largest milk producer, with the largest cattle population. In 2018, nearly 80% of India's milk came from small farms with herds of one to two, and farmers harvested it by hand milking.

• Illustration — An entrance to Bagmane Tech Park, Bangalore, showing some of the major corporate offices hosted therein India is a worldwide centre for information technology and business services, which add 7.5% to GDP and over 35% to services sold abroad. This sector is sustained by a large English-speaking skilled labour force, with revenues surpassing $300 billion in Fiscal Year 2026. Although the industry once relied on basic call centres and simple software fixes, it has shifted toward cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and international tech hubs. Bangalore has grown from a cheap offshore site into a top centre for corporate research, making it one of the largest technology hubs outside Silicon Valley. India's automotive sector comprises 7.1% of its economy. It produces 28 million vehicles every year of which the vast majority are two-wheelers (77%) followed by passenger cars (18%). In 2022, 8 per cent of Indian households owned a car, 55 per cent owned a bicycle, and 54 per cent a motor cycle or scooter. In 2023, India became the third-largest automobile market in the world, with buyers, many of whom are in their 30s, increasingly preferring SUVs. India's pharmaceutical sector relies on a vast network of production facilities focused on low-cost manufacturing. Thousands of individual factories and domestic firms comprise this sector and together make India the main worldwide source of generic medications and vaccines by volume. However, the sector faces supply line vulnerabilities, especially a reliance on China for over 70% of its raw active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). Although India faces international quality-control audits in its factories, adverse outcomes have dropped from 12 per cent in 2015 to 8 per cent in 2025, and 80% of those were in small firms not the top 20 companies. India's total installed electricity capacity exceeds 532 GW, with non-fossil and renewable energy sources contributing more than 283.5 GW, or roughly 53%. The country's usage of coal is a major cause of India's greenhouse gas emissions, but its renewable energy capacity is growing. India emits about 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions. This equates to about 2.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide per person per year, which is half the world average. Increasing access to electricity and clean cooking with liquefied petroleum gas have been priorities for energy in India. • Illustration — A vehicle on the assembly line at a MG Motors manufacturing plant in Halol, Gujarat. India is the world's third-largest automobile market by sales. • Illustration — A tea garden in Sikkim. India, the world's second-largest tea producer, is a nation of one billion tea drinkers who consume 70% of India's tea output. • Illustration — A Chinese fishing net being raised in Kochi. Fishing contributes 1.07% to India's total GDP, and supports over 28 million people, especially within vulnerable communities.

India's population was 361 million in 1951. It grew to approximately 1.464 billion in 2025, surpassing China's population in 2021. 1,210,193,422 residents were reported in the 2011 provisional census report. The median age was 28.7 in 2020. Medical advances made in the last 50 years as well as increased agricultural productivity brought about by the "Green Revolution" have caused India's population to grow rapidly, though India's decennial rates of growth are decreasing: its population grew by 17.64% from 2001 to 2011, compared to 21.54% growth in the previous decade (1991–2001). The first post-colonial census, conducted in 1951, counted 361 million people. The life expectancy at birth has increased from 49.7 years in 1970–1975 to 72.0 years in 2023. The under-five mortality rate for the country was 113 per 1,000 live births in 1994, and had declined to 41.1 per 1,000 live births by 2018. The 2011 census reported a human sex ratio of 940 females per 1,000 males. Female infanticide in India, and lately female foeticide, have created lopsided gender ratios; the number of missing women in the country quadrupled from 15 million to 63 million during the period 1964–2014, faster than the population growth during the same period. According to an Indian government study, an additional 21 million girls are unwanted and do not receive adequate care. Despite a government ban on sex-selective foeticide, the practice persists. 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. In 2001, over 70% lived in rural areas. The level of urbanisation increased further from 27.81% in the 2001 census to 31.16% in the 2011 census. The overall population growth rate slowed because rural growth declined sharply after 1991. In the 2011 census, there were 53 million-plus urban agglomerations in India, among them Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad, in decreasing order by population. • Illustration — Mumbai is India's largest urban agglomeration. The image shows the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel on the left and the Gateway of India. • Illustration — A panorama of Bangalore, the fifth-largest urban agglomeration. In the 1980s, when the first multinational corporations began to set up centres in India, they chose 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.

Languages of India belong to several language families. The 2011 Census of India, the last conducted by the Indian government, gives the following breakdown: • Language families and speakers in India • Rank — Language family — Sub-family — Number of languages — Number of speakers — Percentage of speakers • 1 — Indo-European — Indo-Aryan — 21 — 945,052,555 — 78.05% • Iranian — 1 — 21,677 — 0% • Germanic — 1 — 259,678 — 0.02% • | 2 — Dravidian — 17 — 237,840,116 — 19.64% • | 3 — Austro-Asiatic — 14 — 13,493,080 — 1.11% • | 4 — Tibeto-Burman — 66 — 12,257,382 — 1.01% • | 5 — Semito-Hamitic — 1 — 54,947 — 0% There are also small numbers of speakers of Tai–Kadai, Andamanese, and minor language families and isolates. • Illustration — On the reverse of each of India's paper money notes, the denomination is listed in a panel on the left in 15 languages, in addition to Hindi and English, which appear more prominently elsewhere. These are from top to bottom: 1. Assamese, 2. Bengali, 3. Gujarati, 4. Kannada, 5. Kashmiri, 6. Konkani, 7. Malayalam, 8. Marathi, 9. Nepali, 10. Oriya, 11. Punjabi, 12. Sanskrit, 13. Tamil, 14. Telugu, 15. Urdu. The Constituent Assembly of India chose the official language of India's federal government in September 1949 after three years of debate between two opposing camps. Hindi language protagonists wanted Hindi in the Devanagari script to be the sole "national language" of India whereas delegates from South India preferred English to have a place in the Constitution. The compromise reached declared (i) Hindi to be the "official language" of India's federal government; (ii) English to be an associate official language for 15 years during which Hindi's formal lexicon would be developed; and (iii) the international form of Hindu–Arabic numerals to be the official numerals. The compromise resolution became articles 343–351 of India's constitution, which came into effect on 26 January 1950. In 1965, after bitter opposition from South India to Hindi becoming the sole official language, a compromise was reached whereby English would continue to be an "associate official language" indefinitely. The Eighth Schedule of India's Constitution also recognises 22 languages, including Hindi but not English, which the government must develop. These are sometimes called "scheduled languages". This list includes major regional languages, but also others—such as Sanskrit, which no longer has first language speakers in India, and Urdu, which is not region-specific—because of their value to India's cultural heritage. In 1950, there were 14 scheduled languages: Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. In the following decades constitutional amendments added others: Sindhi (1967), Nepali, Manipuri, and Konkani (1992), Maithili, Dogri, Santali and Bodo (2004). • Illustration — Map of India by dominant spoken native language • Illustration — The main languages of India by relative numbers of speakers

Hinduism is the majority faith followed by nearly 80% of the population; Islam is the largest minority at over 14%. India also has populations of Christians and Sikhs in the tens of millions, Buddhists and Jains fewer than 10 million, and historical populations of Zoroastrians in the tens of thousands and Jews less than ten thousand. As of the 2011 census, India's last census, Hindus comprised a majority in 28 of India’s 35 states and union territories; this included the four most populous states: Uttar Pradesh (total population: 200 million; Hindu population: 80% of the state's total), Maharashtra (112 million, 80%), Bihar (104 million, 83%) and West Bengal (91 million, 71%). Muslims are in the majority in Lakshadweep Islands (60,000, 97%) and Jammu and Kashmir (8.6 million, 68%). Indian Christians make up about 2.3% of India's population. Saint Thomas Christians number around 8.7 million, whereas Indian Catholics number 11.8 million. Nearly 33% of Adivasi (or Scheduled Tribes of India's Constitution) are Christian. They are concentrated in three hill states of the northeast, Mizoram, Meghalaya, and Nagaland, where they constitute between 70% and 90% of the population. As per the 2011 census, Sikhs comprised less than 2% of India's population, though they were a majority in Punjab state, where more than 87% of Sikhs were farmers. Indian Buddhists number 8.45 million, with 77%, or 6.5 million, living in the state of Maharashtra. Indian Jains number 4.45 million, and Zoroastrians (Parsis), 60,000. As of 2019, there were 3,000 Jews in India, down from 28,000 in 1950. Other religions in India (and population in the 2011 census) are Sarnaism (4.96 million) and Gondi-Koyapunem (1.03 million) and Sari dharma (510,000). In 1951—India's first postcolonial census—the percentage breakdown of India's religions was: Hindu (84.1%), Muslims (9.8%), Christians (2.3%), Sikhs (1.9%), Buddhists (0.7%) and Jains (0.5%); sixty years later, in India's last census (2011), the percentages were: Hindus (79.8%), Muslims (14.2%), Christians (2.3%), Sikhs (1.7%), Buddhists (0.7%) and Jains (0.4%) In absolute numbers, during the period 1951–2011, India's religious groups grew in the following manner: Hindus (304 million to 966 million), Muslims (35 million to 172 million), Christians (8.3 million to 28 million), Sikhs (6.82 million to 20.83 million), Buddhists (2.67 million to 8.44 million) and Jains (1.66 million to 4.45 million). In the decade 1951–1961, the population growth by religions was: Hindus (20.7%), Muslims (32.7%), Christians (29%), Sikhs (10.3%), Buddhists (5.9%), Jains (3.7%); in the decade 2001–2011, the growth was: Hindus (16.7%), Muslims (24.7%), Christians (15.7%), Sikhs (16.1%), Buddhists (4.8%), and Jains (2.2%). All religions have registered declining growth rates. Birth rates, population growth, and access to education influence how communities mobilise politically to preserve their places of worship, to manage charitable trusts, and to protect their family laws. Differences in states' laws, especially those prohibiting religious conversion—usually from Hinduism to other faiths—colour the daily lives of minority communities. Providing constitutional protections for minorities in the face of majoritarian pressure remains a fraught challenge. India is a secular state and guarantees the fundamental right to freedom of religion ("Liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith, and worship"). • Illustration — Jain pilgrim, Shravanabelagola • Illustration — The exterior of St Judes Church, Chinnathurai • Illustration — Zoroastrian agiary, Mumbai • Illustration — A Sikh pilgrim at the Golden Temple in Amritsar • Illustration — Interior of the Magen David Synagogue, Kolkata

In 1911, there were three primary schools for every ten villages in British India. Early literacy was low: It was 5% in 1891 (9% for men and 1% for women) and 7% in 1921 (12% for men and 2% for women). Historically, local diversity limited literacy growth in India because caste and religious fragmentation reduced private spending. Literacy rates rose to 18% in 1951 (27% for men and 9% for women) and 41% in 1981 (53% for men and 29% for women). By 2011, literacy reached 74.04% (82.14% for men and 65.46% for women). They ranged from Kerala's 93.91% to Bihar's 63.82%. Meanwhile, rural gains reached twice the level of urban, narrowing the rural-urban gap from 21.2 percentage points in 2001 to 16.1 in 2011. The central, state, and local governments manage education in India. Every child between the ages of 6 and 14 has a right to education, which is free and compulsory. Traditionally, children had spent eight years in primary school before moving on to high school. In 2020, the National Education Policy changed this division to one based on developmental stages: a foundational stage: five years of pre-school and standards 1–2, for ages 3–8; a preparatory stage: standards 3–5; a middle stage: standards 6–8; and a secondary stage: standards 9–12. Critics argue that the new plan, although progressive, suffers from public underfunding and inadequate school infrastructure. The first universities in India were founded in Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras in 1857, the last year of East India Company rule. India now has one of the world's largest post-secondary education systems. Recent college reforms envisage offering more flexible degrees, creating online learning tools, and inviting foreign universities to set up campuses in India. However, large gaps remain between rural and urban areas. School quality, campus building conditions, and computer access vary substantially based on a student's gender and family's wealth. Poor job prospects for graduates and uneven rule enforcement across different states have faced criticism from researchers and the public alike. • Illustration — Children await school lunch in Rayka (also Raika), a village in Gujarat. The salutation Jai Bhim on the blackboard honours the jurist, social reformer, and Dalit leader B. R. Ambedkar. • Illustration — The Madrasah of the Masjid-i-Ala mosque in Srirangapatna, Karnataka, built in the period 1786–87, during the rule of Tipu Sultan • Illustration — IIT Roorkee, formerly the Thomason College of Civil Engineering, is the oldest engineering college in India. It was founded in 1847 during East India Company rule to train men employed in the construction of the Ganges Canal. • Illustration — Students protesting Indian examination paper leaks—the illegal sharing or selling of official exam questions before the test begins—in Delhi, July 2026

• Illustration — The Anganwadi centre in Ada village, Asifabad district, Telangana in July 2022. Child undernutrition and stunting rates have steadily declined in India, though the rate has slowed over the last decade. Anganwadi centres play a central role by providing localised supplementary nutrition and health counselling. Since its 1947 independence, India has significantly reduced historically endemic diseases, though some remain intractable. The country was certified smallpox-free in April 1977 following two years of surveillance after its last Variola major case. It was officially certified polio-free by the World Health Organisation on 27 March 2014, after successfully completing three consecutive years without recorded cases of wild poliovirus. In contrast, cholera remains endemic to Ganges-Meghna Delta estuaries, resulting in seasonal outbreaks caused by monsoons and water supply network shortcomings. Tuberculosis is a major concern; India bears a quarter of the global tuberculosis disease burden. Historical malaria cases have dropped from millions to hundreds of thousands annually, but India experiences localised seasonal increases caused by drug-resistant variants of the Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax vectors. Patients in India often face a stark choice: use basic, free, publicly funded health care or pay high out-of-pocket fees for better-equipped care from private doctors and hospitals. This divide is particularly severe outside cities, as public clinics in rural areas rarely have enough doctors or nurses to meet local demands. When serious medical emergencies occur, poorer families are often forced to sell land or take out high-interest loans to pay for private care. This resulting medical debt pushes approximately 55 million people into poverty every year. Long-term exposure to outdoor and indoor air pollution adds a major environmental risk to public health in India. Particulate matter emissions from vehicles and factories are linked to a rise in chronic respiratory diseases, strokes, and cardiovascular disease, together adding an estimated 1.7 million premature deaths annually. India's early COVID-19 lockdown bought time to rapidly increase local testing and protective gear production; however, later waves of the virus overwhelmed the healthcare system, leading to severe shortages of oxygen and intensive care beds. Post-pandemic epidemiological studies estimate that cumulative excess deaths in India reached between 3.2 and 4.7 million.

Significant mathematics began in India in the first millennium BCE. The Śulba Sūtras (literally, "Aphorisms of the Chords" in Vedic Sanskrit) (c. 700–400 BCE) contain the earliest extant verbal expression of the Pythagorean theorem (although very likely it had been known to the Old Babylonians.) All mathematical works were orally transmitted until approximately 500 BCE; thereafter, they were transmitted both orally and in manuscript form. The oldest extant mathematical document produced on the Indian subcontinent is the birch bark Bakhshali manuscript from the 7th century CE. During the classical period of Indian mathematics (400 CE to 1200 CE), Aryabhata, Brahmagupta, Bhaskara II, Varāhamihira, and Madhava made important contributions. The decimal number system in use today was first recorded in Indian mathematics. Indian mathematicians made early contributions to the study of the concept of zero as a number, negative numbers, arithmetic, and algebra. Trigonometry was further advanced in India, and the modern definitions of sine and cosine were developed there. These mathematical concepts were transmitted to the Middle East, China, and Europe. A later landmark in Indian mathematics was the development of the series expansions for trigonometric functions (sine, cosine, and arc tangent) by mathematicians of the Kerala school in the 15th century CE. Their work, completed two centuries before the invention of calculus in Europe, provided the first example of a power series. In the modern era, Srinivasa Ramanujan made fundamental contributions to number theory.

India contains a wide array of musical practices, including many different folk musics from different regions. Indian classical music has Vedic origins, and split in the 13th century into the two main traditions of Hindustani and Carnatic music. Hindustani is associated with North India and is more improvisational, featuring instruments such as the sitar and tabla, and Carnatic is South Indian and more focused on written compositions such as the kriti, while both styles contain common elements such as the raga melodic framework and tala rhythmic meter. Indian music has influenced western genres, including rock and jazz musicians during the 1960s counterculture. Indian film music is music written for Indian cinema, generally composed by music directors and sung by playback singers. Modern Indian pop takes influences from classical, folk, and western pop music. • Illustration — M. S. Subbulakshmi, Carnatic music vocalist • Illustration — A short documentary on Indian classical music and some instruments: Veena, Sitar, Tabla, and Bansuri • Illustration — Ravi Shankar at the Woodstock music festival, 1969

Dance in India draws heavily on Indian classical dance traditions. Many of these in turn arose in temples or other religious contexts. However, their sponsorship and promotion have continued in secular, modern India. India also has local and modern dance traditions. Whether a dance is classical is determined by the Sangeet Natak Academi, the Indian government's organisation for performing arts. Although more dances could perhaps meet the criteria for classical, the Akademi has chosen eight. Classical Dances of India • Dance — Origin state — Region — Type or origin — Musical accompaniment • Bharatanatyam — Tamil Nadu — South India — Temple dance — Cinna Melam, Carnatic music • Kathak — Uttar Pradesh — North India — Historical dance — Hindustani music • Kathakali — Kerala — South India — Dance-drama — Madhalam drum ensembles; Sopana vocal music • Kuchipudi — Andhra Pradesh — South India — Dance-drama — Carnatic music ensemble • Manipuri — Manipur — Northeast India — Temple/ritual dance — Ensemble comprising Pung Cholom, flutes, trumpets, Tambura, Pena, and cymbals • Mohiniattam — Kerala — South India — Dance-drama — Carnatic ensemble • Odissi — Odisha — East India — Temple dance — Ensemble of Hindustani music instruments: pakhavaj, sitar, flute, cymbals, harmonium • Sattriya — Assam — Northeast India — Dance-drama — Borgeet accompanied by khol drums and cymbals. The best-known classical dance is Bharatanatyam, which began as temple dances performed by Tamil devadasis. Identified with "prostitutes and courtesans", their dancing was formally banned in 1947. Concurrently, the dance was rehabilitated as a "pure" art form, with Rukmini Devi Arundale as a prominent figure. A devdasi who went on to attain national and international prominence was Thanjavur Balasaraswati. Some sources consider the dance-dramas Chhau of Jharkhand, West Bengal, and Odisha and Yakshagana of Karnataka to also belong to the classical tradition. Local dance traditions vary widely across India. In addition to the dance-dramas Chhau and Yakshagana, they include dance-dramas Raslila of western Uttar Pradesh and Terukkuttu of Tamil Nadu; calendrical and festival dances such as the Bhangra of Punjab, especially at Vaisakhi, the onset of spring, and Garba of Gujarat during Navratri; and tribal or Adivasi dances, such as those of the Santal and Toda people, the latter, for example, in honour of the god Ön who brought buffalo to earth. Among 20th-century directions is the modern dance of Uday Shankar in which classical styles were employed but not adhered to rigidly. Examples are dance-dramas based on the ancient Indian animal fables, Panchatantra, and Nehru's mid-century meditation on Indian history, The Discovery of India. Dance has been an essential aspect of Indian films from the first talkies of the 1930s. Individual and group dances in Bollywood, for example, show a broad range of influences, including classical, local, and Western popular dance. Towards the end of the 20th century, innovations in British South Asian music and dance, such as Post-Bhangra, fed back into dance in India. • Illustration — The Kathakali dance of Kerala • Illustration — The Bharatanatyam dance of Tamil Nadu • Illustration — The Kathak dance of northern India absorbed Persian and Central Asian influences during Mughal rule.

• Illustration — Women in sari at an adult literacy class in Tamil Nadu From ancient times until the advent of the modern era, the most widely worn traditional dress in India was draped. For women, it took the form of a sari, a single piece of cloth many yards long. The sari was traditionally wrapped around the lower body and the shoulder. In its modern form, it is combined with an underskirt, or Indian petticoat, and tucked in along the waistband for more secure fastening. It is also commonly worn with an Indian blouse, or choli, which serves as the primary upper-body garment; the sari's end passes over the shoulder, covering the midriff and obscuring the upper body's contours. For men, a similar but shorter length of cloth, the dhoti, has served as a lower-body garment. The use of stitched clothes became widespread after Muslim rule was established by the Delhi Sultanate (c. 1300 CE) and continued by the Mughal Empire (c. 1525 CE). Among the garments introduced during this time and still commonly worn are: the shalwars and pyjamas, both styles of trousers, and the tunics kurta and kameez. Shalwars are atypically wide at the waist but narrow to a cuffed bottom. A drawstring holds them up, causing them to pleat at the waist. When the pants are cut quite narrow, on the bias, they are called churidars. The kameez is a long shirt or tunic. Its side seams left open below the waistline. The kurta is traditionally collarless and made of cotton or silk; it is worn plain or with embroidered decoration, such as chikankari; and typically falls to either just above or just below the wearer's knees. In the last 50 years, fashion in India has changed a great deal. In urban northern India, the sari is increasingly no longer everyday wear, though it remains popular on formal occasions. Younger urban women rarely wear the traditional shalwar kameez, favouring churidars or jeans. In office settings, ubiquitous air conditioning allows men to wear sports jackets year-round. For weddings and formal occasions, men in the middle and upper classes often wear bandhgala, or short Nehru jackets, with pants, with the groom and his groomsmen sporting sherwanis and churidars. • Illustration — A man in dhoti and woollen shawl in Varanasi • Illustration — Female tourists from Manipur in shawl and phanek—a lower-body garment similar to a sarong • Illustration — Women in shalwar-kameez in Puducherry

• Illustration — A tandoor chef in Turkman Gate, Old Delhi, makes khameri roti, a Muslim-influenced style of leavened bread. A typical Indian meal is built on a plain cereal, complemented by savoury dishes. The cooked cereal could be steamed rice; chapati, a thin unleavened bread; idli, a steamed breakfast cake; or dosa, a griddled pancake. The savoury dishes might include lentils, pulses, vegetables, meat, poultry and fish commonly spiced with ginger and garlic, but also coriander, cumin, turmeric, cinnamon, cardamom and others. In some instances, the ingredients may be mixed during the cooking process. India has distinctive vegetarian cuisines, each a feature of the geographical and cultural histories of its communities. About 20% to 39% of India's population consists of vegetarians. Although meat is eaten widely, the proportional consumption of meat is low. The most significant import of cooking techniques into India during the last millennium occurred during the Mughal Empire, spreading into northern India from regions to its northwest, along with dishes such as pilaf. Onions, garlic, almonds, and spices were added to the simple yogurt marinade of Persia. Rice was partially cooked and layered alternately with sauteed meat, the pot sealed tightly, and slow cooked according to another Persian cooking technique, to produce biryani, a feature of festive dining in many parts of India. The diversity of Indian food served worldwide has been partially concealed by the dominance of Punjabi cuisine. The popularity of tandoori chicken—cooked in a tandoor oven, which had traditionally been used for baking bread in the rural Punjab and the Delhi region, especially among Muslims, but which is originally from Central Asia—dates to the 1950s, and was caused in large part by an entrepreneurial response among people from the Punjab who had been displaced by the 1947 partition. • Illustration — South Indian vegetarian thali, or platter • Illustration — Machher jhol, a spicy fish curry eaten in eastern India, Nepal, and Bangladesh • Illustration — Mango, the national fruit of India, is eaten widely in the summer months.

Sport in modern India is a nexus of both little-known, indigenous traditions and commercial sporting events that now have a worldwide reach. Traditional sports such as kabaddi and kho-kho have experienced a resurgence, attracting large television audiences; on the other hand, kushti wrestling in rural akharas—often regarded by its practitioners as not so much a sport as a physical and moral regimen—has continued to survive away from the exposure of broadcasting. Cricket is India's most watched sport, and a multi-billion dollar industry. The widespread popularity of chess among youth in southern India culminated in 18-year-old Gukesh Dommaraju of Chennai winning the undisputed World Chess Champion title in 2024. British intervention reshaped India's athletic landscape. It introduced cricket, football and field hockey and institutionalised polo—a sport whose history is a case of reverse migration from ancient northeastern India to the West. Today, at the rural grassroots level, government initiatives like "Khelo India" have democratised athletics for traditionally overlooked youth. Rural soccer programs have employed teamwork to break down old caste barriers. State initiatives such as the Target Olympic Podium Scheme have expanded resources for female athletes; meanwhile, the prominent international victories of figures like boxer Mary Kom and badminton player P. V. Sindhu have challenged traditional gender stereotypes in sports. India has won eight men's cricket ICC tournament titles: two Cricket World Cups, three T20 World Cups, and three Champions Trophy titles. India has won a record eight men's field hockey gold medals in the summer Olympics, the last in 1980. • Illustration — The Indian hockey team, captained by Dhyan Chand (standing second from l.), after winning the finals at the 1936 Summer Olympics – their third of six consecutive Olympic golds • Illustration — Indian batsman, Virat Kohli, after his century at Trent Bridge, 20 August 2018 • Illustration — Gukesh Dommaraju from Chennai, the reigning world chess champion and the youngest ever • Illustration — P. V. Sindhu, after winning the silver medal in Badminton at the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, August 2016 • Illustration — A young athlete after felicitating Mary Kom—a 2012 London Summer Olympics boxing medal winner—New Delhi, 16 August 2012

* * * * • Robinson, Francis, ed. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives (1989) *

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