"Contrary to popular belief, not all Hindus are vegetarians." This is the stuff and factoids I love to file away for future reference and Trivial Pursuit games. Thanks to information from the good people at Lonely Planet, National Geographic, the Library of Congress, Associated Press and the CIA, I give you an overview of India: its geography, its statistics, its culture, its history. Introduction India will sideswipe you with its size, clamor and diversity. Nothing in the country is ever quite what you expect, and the only thing to expect is the unexpected. India is a litmus test for many travelers, but if you enjoy delving into convoluted cosmologies and thrive on sensual overload, then India is one of the most intricate and rewarding dramas unfolding on earth.		Jump To . . .
		Introduction Religion Language Bollywood Observatory Delhi Kolkata History

Full country name: Republic of India
Area: 1,229,737 sq mi (about one-third the size of the US)
Population: 1,014,003,817 (about 4 1/2 times the size of the US)
Capital city: New Delhi
People: 72% Indo-Aryan, 25% Dravidian, 3% other
Religion: 80% Hindu, 14% Muslim, 2.4% Christian, 2% Sikh, 0.7% Buddhist, 0.5% Jains
Government: Federal Republic; based on English common law
Politics: With 354 million voters, more than 500 parties, and nearly 595,000 polling stations, India often called "the world's largest democracy." Prime Minister is Atal Bihari Vajpayee; President is Dr. Abdul Kalam
GDP: US$2.2 trillion
Inflation: 5.4%
Major industries: Textiles, chemicals, software outsourcing, steel, cement, mining, rice, wheat, oilseed, cotton, jute, tea, sugarcane, potatoes; cattle, water buffalo, fish
Major trading partners: US, Hong Kong, UK, Japan, Germany, Belgium, Saudi Arabia

Religion

Religion seeps into every facet of Indian life. Despite being a secular democracy, India is one of the few countries on earth in which the social and religious structures that define the nation's identity remain intact, and have continued to do so for at least 4000 years despite invasions, persecution, European colonialism and political upheaval. Change is inevitably taking place as modern technology reaches further and further into the fabric of society but essentially rural India remains much the same as it has for thousands of years. So resilient are its social and religious institutions that it has absorbed, ignored or thrown off all attempts to radically change or destroy them.

India's major religion, Hinduism, is practiced by approximately 80% of the population. In terms of the number of adherents, it's the largest religion in Asia and one of the world's oldest extant faiths. Hinduism has a vast pantheon of gods, a number of holy books and postulates that everyone goes through a series of births or reincarnations that eventually lead to spiritual salvation. With each birth, you can move closer to or further from eventual enlightenment; the deciding factor is your karma. The Hindu religion has three basic practices. They are puja or worship, the cremation of the dead, and the rules and regulations of the caste system. Hinduism is not a proselytising religion since you cannot be converted: you're either born a Hindu or you're not.

There are more than 100 million Muslims in India, making it one of the largest Muslim nations on earth. Islam is the dominant religion in the neighboring countries of Pakistan and Bangladesh, and there is a Muslim majority in Jammu and Kashmir. Muslim influence in India is particularly strong in the fields of architecture, art and food. The Sikhs in India number 18 million and are predominantly located in the Punjab. The religion was originally intended to bring together the best of Hinduism and Islam. Its basic tenets are similar to those of Hinduism with the important modification that the Sikhs are opposed to caste distinctions.

Buddhism was founded in northern India in about 500 BC, spread rapidly when emperor Ashoka embraced it but was gradually reabsorbed into Hinduism. Today Hindus regard the Buddha as another incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu. There are now only 6.6 million Buddhists in India, but important Buddhist sites in northern India, such as Bodhgaya, Sarnath and Kushinagar remain important sites of pilgrimage. The Jain religion also began life as an attempt to reform Brahminical Hinduism. It emerged at the same time as Buddhism. The Jains now number only about 4.5 million and are found predominantly in the west and south-west of India. Jains believe that the universe is infinite and was not created by a deity. They also believe in reincarnation and eventual spiritual salvation by following the path of the Jain prophets.

Language

India is as close as the world comes to Babel. There's no 'Indian' language per se, which is partly why English is still widely spoken almost half a century after the British left India. Eighteen languages are officially recognized by the constitution, but over 1600 minor languages and dialects were listed in the 1991 census. Major efforts have been made to promote Hindi as the national language and to gradually phase out English. In the south, very few people speak Hindi. The Indian upper class clings to English as the shared language of the educated elite, championing it as both a badge of their status and as a passport to the world of international business.

Bollywood

Indians love the cinema, and the Indian film industry, centered on Bombay, is one of the largest and most glamorous in the world. The vast proportion of films produced are gaudy melodramas based on three vital ingredients: romance, violence and music. You'll know what to expect from the fantastically hand-painted cinema billboards that dominate many streets. Imagine Rambo crossed with The Sound of Music and a Cecil B. DeMille biblical epic, and you're halfway there. It's cheap operatic escapism, extremely harsh on the ears, and should not be missed.

Highest Observatory in the World

The Indian Astronomical Observatory, sitting 14,800 feet (4,517 meters) above sea level in the village of Hanle, India, is the world's highest astronomy observatory. The Chandra telescope has a mirror a little over two meters (6.5 feet) large. The larger the mirror the better, as it allows a telescope to view more distant stars and galaxies.

Delhi

Your first impression of Delhi is unlikely to be a good one, particularly if it's also your first impression of India. You'll most likely notice the pollution, the crowds, the smell, the noise and the ceaseless hassles long before you notice the city's charms. And it has endless charms. It's worth persevering as the history of this city is fascinating, and it's all around you. It is a city of 13.8 million people, so grit your teeth and dive on in.

Kolkata (formerly Calcutta)

The capital of West Bengal sprawls shapelessly along the eastern bank of the Hooghly River. Once the glorious capital of British India, its urban horror story of squalor and starvation only began with Partition and a resulting massive influx of refugees. This plucky city, however, is keen to promote itself as the 'City of Joy' and, given half a chance, it reveals itself to be one of the country's most fascinating and congenial cities, the intellectual capital of the nation, and a thriving political and arts arena. It is a city of 14 million people.

It may have changed its name, but for many Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) still conjures up images of squalor, poverty and urban disaster - a superficial reputation belying the charm of the city's distinctly Bengali soul. While the teeming humanity, chaotic streets and crumbling colonial heritage are all too visible, Kolkata is also acknowledged as the cultural capital of India and its friendliest metropolis. A place of depth and contrast, Kolkata has some of the country's finest remnants of British colonial architecture and is home to India's heaviest concentration of political activists, poets and artists.

Kolkata undoubtedly has its share of problems - chronic labor unrest, population overload, political ineptitude, environmental degradation and traffic snarls that bite. Yet time and again enchanted visitors tell of its beauty, the energy and humor of its people amidst the mayhem, imparting the distinct impression that Kolkata is a city unfairly stigmatized.

History of India

India's first major civilization flourished for a thousand years from around 2500 BC along the Indus River valley. Its great cities were Mohenjodaro and Harappa (now in Pakistan), ruled by priests and bearing the rudiments of Hinduism. Aryan invaders swept south from central Asia between 1500 and 200 BC and controlled northern India, pushing the original Dravidian inhabitants south.

The invaders brought their own gods and cattle-raising and meat-eating traditions, but were absorbed to such a degree that by the 8th century BC the priestly caste had reasserted its supremacy. This became consolidated in the caste system, a hierarchy maintained by strict rules that secured the position of the Brahmin priests. Buddhism arose around 500 BC, condemning caste; it drove a radical swathe through Hinduism in the 3rd century BC when it was embraced by the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka, who controlled huge tracts of India.

A number of empires, including the Gupta, rose and fell in the north after the collapse of the Mauryas. Hinduism underwent a revival from 40 to 600 AD, and Buddhism began to decline. The north of India broke into a number of separate Hindu kingdoms after the Huns invasion; it was not really unified again until the coming of the Muslims. The far south, whose prosperity was based on trading links with the Egyptians, Romans and South-East Asia, was unaffected by the turmoil in the north, and Hinduism's hold on the region was never threatened.

In 1192 Muslims arrived from the Middle East. Within 20 years the entire Ganges basin was under Muslim control, though Islam failed to penetrate the south. Two great kingdoms developed in what is now Karnataka: the mighty Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagar, and the fragmented Bahmani Muslim kingdom.

Mughal emperors marched into the Punjab from Afghanistan, defeated the Sultan of Delhi in 1525, and ushered in another artistic golden age. The Maratha Empire grew during the 17th century and gradually took over more of the Mughals' domain. The Marathas consolidated control of central India until they fell to the last great imperial power, the British.

The British were not, however, the only European power in India: the Portuguese had controlled Goa since 1510 and the French, Danes and Dutch also had trading posts. By 1803, when the British overwhelmed the Marathas, most of the country was under the control of the British East India Company, which had established its trading post at Surat in Gujarat in 1612.

The company treated India as a place to make money, and its culture, beliefs and religions were left strictly alone. Britain expanded iron and coal mining, developed tea, coffee and cotton plantations, and began construction of India's vast rail network. They encouraged absentee landlords because they eased the burden of administration and tax collection, creating an impoverished landless peasantry - a problem which is still chronic in Bihar and West Bengal. The Mutiny in northern India in 1857 led to the demise of the East India Company, and administration of the country was handed over to the British government.

Opposition to British rule began in earnest at the turn of the 20th century. The 'Congress' which had been established to give India a degree of self-rule now began to push for the real thing. In 1915, Gandhi returned from South Africa, where he had practice as a lawyer, and turned his abilities to independence, adopting a policy of passive resistance, or satyagraha.

WWII dealt a deathblow to colonialism and Indian independence became inevitable. Within India, however, the large Muslim minority realized that an independent India would be Hindu-dominated. Communalism grew, with the Muslim League, led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, speaking for the overwhelming majority of Muslims, and the Congress Party, led by Jawaharlal Nehru, representing the Hindu population. The bid for a separate Muslim nation was the biggest stumbling block to Britain granting independence.

Faced with a political stand-off and rising tension, Viceroy Mountbatten reluctantly decided to divide the country and set a rapid timetable for independence. Unfortunately, the two overwhelmingly Muslim regions were on opposite sides of the country - meaning the new nation of Pakistan would be divided by a hostile India. When the dividing line was announced, the greatest exodus in human history took place as Muslims moved to Pakistan and Hindus and Sikhs relocated to India. Over 10 million people changed sides and even the most conservative estimates calculate that 250,000 people were killed. On 30 January 1948, Gandhi, deeply disheartened by Partition and the subsequent bloodshed, was assassinated by a Hindu fanatic.

Following the trauma of Partition, India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru championed a secular constitution, socialist central planning and a strict policy of nonalignment. India elected to join the Commonwealth, but also increased ties with the USSR - partly because of conflicts with China and partly because of US support for arch-enemy Pakistan, which was particularly hostile to India because of its claim on Muslim-dominated Kashmir. There were clashes with Pakistan in 1965 and 1971.

India's next prime minister of stature was Nehru's daughter Indira Gandhi, who was elected in 1966. She is still held in high esteem, but is remembered by some for meddling with India's democratic foundations by declaring a state of emergency in 1975. Mrs Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards in 1984 as a reprisal for using the Indian Army to flush out armed Sikh radicals from the Golden Temple in Amritsar. The Gandhis' dynastic grip on Indian politics continued when her son, Rajiv was swept into power.

During this time foreign investment and the use of modern technology were encouraged, import restrictions were eased and many new industries were set up. These measures projected India into the 1990s and out of isolationism, but did little to stimulate India's mammoth rural sector. Rajiv was assassinated on an election tour by a supporter of Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers.

The dangers of communalism in India were clearly displayed in 1992, when a Hindu mob stormed and destroyed a mosque built on the site of Rama's birth in Ayodhya. The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been keen to exploit such opportunities, and has led several disparate coalitions to power in recent years. Despite the dangers of playing communalist politics, the BJP's traditionalist Hindu stance has attracted voters concerned about retaining traditional values during the sudden onslaught of modern global influences.

In 1998 India tested its first nuclear weapons. Despite international outrage, the nuclear tests were met with widespread jubilation in India and caused a groundswell of support for the BJP.

But by April 1999 PM Vajpayee had lost majority support in parliament and was forced into a vote of confidence, which he lost by one vote. Sonia Ghandi, Rajiv Ghandi's widow, was expected to lead the Congress Party to victory after its three years in the political wilderness, but she was unable to secure a coalition and India was forced to the polls for the third time in as many years. The BJP was returned to government and Vajpayee to PM.

In early January 2004 India and Pakistan began talks, along with other nations in the region, during a South Asian summit in Islamabad. Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan have taken the historic step of proclaiming their desire to put a half-century of enmity behind them and renew peace talks. Easier said than done; the hurdles loom high.

At the heart of the matter lies the Himalayan territory of Kashmir (which, for my mother's benefit, is far North and far away from where I'll be). India and Pakistan both claim Kashmir in its entirety, and haven't tackled the Kashmir issue head-on since 1972. The territory is divided between predominantly Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan roughly along the battle lines that accompanied independence from Britain in 1947. A vote for self-determination in Kashmir was mandated in U.N. resolutions after independence, when its Hindu ruler aligned himself with New Delhi. That vote has yet to be held.

At 79, Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee is unlikely to serve out a second term if re-elected this year. Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf recently survived two assassination attempts. These talks will take months if not years to reach any solution. For now, the principal actors are talking; in the near future those talks will almost certainly involve the United States and Britain as official mediators.

Note: All of the above information has been drafted from web sites of Lonely Planet, National Geographic, CIA and Library of Congress. I didn't write any of this. I haven't personally checked all of these facts; I'm trusting that an organization like, say, the National Geographic Society, is pretty well versed on geography.