Indian Cultural Overview

Indians are the people of India, a nation of South Asia.

Geography

India is a large and diverse country by both land and people. From the high, snowy peaks of the Himalayas along its northern borders to the lush jungles of its southern coast, the nation claims countless cultures, climates, and ecosystems as its own. The historic home of many Indian civilizations has been the Indo-Gangetic Plain, a fertile stretch of land flowing from the foothills of the Himalayas. The nation’s largest river, the Ganges, winds down from the Himalayas through this plain. Moving farther south, the mountainous southern tip of India primarily consists of the Deccan Plateau, which varies from tropical forests to parched rain shadows.

• Capital: New Delhi

• Climate: Temperate to tropical, by region

• Total Population: 1,296,834,042 (2018 est.)

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History

As one of the hubs of global civilization, India’s history is too long and complicated to ever summarize briefly. The Indus River Valley, along India’s modern border with Pakistan and Afghanistan, gave rise to one of the first great civilizations around 5,000 years ago. These people, known as the Harappans, built cities and worked bronze for over a thousand years before declining. In their wake, migrating populations of Indo-Iranian populations settled in the region. These new arrivals, also referred to as Aryans, brought with them the Sanskrit language and writing system. They used it to pen the Vedas, some of the oldest surviving scriptures in the world. The Vedic period also saw the founding of two other important religions: Buddhism and Jainism around the 6th or 5th century BCE.

From these roots, the region that is now India saw hundreds of kingdoms and empires rise and fall. The Mauryan Empire, reigning from 321 to 185 BCE, conquered nearly all of the subcontinent. It was followed by the Gupta Empire, sometimes considered India’s golden age. At this time, the scholars, warriors, and priests of India conducted rich trade and made advances in mathematics and architecture.

The Guptas’ dynasty broke apart into smaller kingdoms, each led by warrior-kings, or rajputs. By the 13th century, outside pressures began encroaching on their domains, particularly from the north. Islamic kingdoms, primarily Turkic in origin, carved out their own niches. Largest of these was the Delhi Sultanate, which both warred and allied with its neighboring rajputs to maintain power over its Hindu citizens. Its last sultan was overthrown in 1526 by Timur, a conqueror of Turco-Mongolian ancestry. His Mughal Empire included the rule of Emperor Akbar I, who is remembered for his dedication to the arts, sciences, and religious tolerance as well as military prowess.

The Mughals faced a new threat as Atlantic mercantilism grew. European powers, always searching for new sources of wealth, established footholds in Indian powers. Of these, the British East India Company proved dominant. In 1857, British forces squashed an Indian rebellion and toppled the Mughals at the Siege of Delhi. This ushered in an era of colonialism, marked by both infrastructure improvements and hardships for the common people of India. It ended in 1947, primarily through the efforts of the nonviolent Indian National Congress. At this time, India and Pakistan formed two new and separate nations, a chaotic period known as the Partition of India. India has since grown into a global economic power and the second most populous country in the world.

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Daily Life

Because India developed through many small kingdoms, the daily life and customs of its people all vary by region. In rural areas, typical lifestyles have been overwhelmingly agrarian for thousands of years. The Indo-Gangetic Plain has supported large populations of farmers growing staple crops like wheat, barley, vegetables, and legumes. To the south, where the climate is wetter, rice cultivation is more common. In addition, families traditionally raised livestock like cattle, sheep, goats, water buffalo, and camels. More urban areas, meanwhile, allowed for specialized trades like commerce, crafts, and the arts. In addition, India is home to a long practice of asceticism, characterized by a spiritual withdrawal from worldly affairs and possessions.

These fundamentals of daily life have shaped the diet, clothing, and housing of those who lived them. Indian cuisine is famous for its generous use of spices, paired with fresh regional ingredients. While most of its indigenous faiths encourage vegetarianism, it is normal for families to eat meat with the exception of beef. The region has adopted ingredients and recipes from all over the world, including those of the Americas, Turkish culture, the British Empire, and the Persians.

India is the home of cotton cultivation and has also benefited from the silk trade with China. Paired with its own native dye industry, the nation is known for bright, colorful clothing and fine textiles. Best known of its outfits are the sari wraps worn by women and the dhoti for men. A dhoti is a lower-body wrap, typically paired with a long overcoat called a sherwani. Today, Indian people are more likely to wear Western-style apparel, but traditional clothing is still commonly seen on formal occasions.

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Society

During the Vedic period, the rulers of India implemented a caste system that has more or less survived into the modern era. Under this system, people inherited their social status from their parents and remained within those roles for life. Broadly, the caste system divided society into brahmin scholars and priests; kshatriya warriors and rulers; vaishya farmers and tradesmen, and shudra laborers, as well as untouchables, who lived largely outside the system.

Even as foreign rulers dominated the majority Hindu population, the caste system continued alongside other laws. This began to change during the 20th century with India’s independence. While caste is still practiced in some areas, especially regarding marriage, modern India has officially rejected the system. The nation continues to struggle with wealth and opportunity gaps within its booming populace, particularly the disparities between its rural and urban areas.

• Major Languages: Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil, Gujarati, Urdu, Kannada, Odia, Malayalam, Punjabi, Assamese, Maithili, and English, among others

• Urban Population: 34% (2018 est.)

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Economy

India’s historic economy relied on rich foreign commerce as well as a strong agricultural base. The region sat between other major trading powers like China, the Middle East, and Europe, an important place for goods to arrive and be sold. Indian merchants exported goods like cotton, wool, pottery, sugar, spices, ivory, gems, dyes, and silk textiles.

In the early modern era, the wealth of India attracted the attention of outside commercial interests like the British East India Company. This led to period of colonialism, when the economic output of India was mainly harnessed for the benefit of foreign rulers. Since its independence, India has leveraged its millions of English-speaking citizens to build a new economy based on service, technology, and education. This has resulted in both incredible wealth and extreme poverty within the nation; the solution remains an issue of debate among its politicians.

• Major Industries: Textiles, chemicals, food processing, steel, transportation equipment, cement, mining, petroleum, machinery, software, pharmaceuticals

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Beliefs

India is home to multiple religions which have proven influential on a global scale. Its largest by far is Hinduism, a broad faith encompassing the native beliefs of hundreds of millions of people. Hinduism is based on the Vedas and other ancient scriptures. It recognizes a supreme universal existence, or Brahman, and a more personal existence, or soul, known as *Ātman. *Adherents engage in practice and self-study to explore the relationship between themselves and the universe and lead more fulfilling lives. After death, souls are reborn into a new life, which is at least partly determined by the actions of their past. Hindu people may worship a variety of gods, each of whom represents another aspect of Brahman.

Out of these traditions, two other religions developed in ancient India. Buddhism traces its origins to a warrior prince, Siddhartha Gautama, who attained enlightenment after a long journey of meditation and study. The Gautama Buddha taught that suffering in the world is caused by our attachment to it. By learning to let go of desire, he claimed that human beings could transcend the cycle of death and suffering to rejoin the universal whole. Jainism, founded by the sage Mahavira, puts forth a similar message, with an emphasis on nonviolence among its followers.

Beyond these three foundational faiths, India has seen worshippers of nearly every major religion in the world. Islam entered the region through conquering cultures, creating a religious divided between its upper classes and Hindu majority. This tension persisted through the 20th century, leading to the violent Partition of India and Pakistan in 1947. Sikhism, a faith that sought to bridge the gap between people of all backgrounds, emerged in the Punjab region in the 15th century.

Religious Demographics:

• Hindu: 79.8%

• Muslim: 14.2%

• Christian: 2.3%

• Other and unspecified: 2%

• Sikh: 1.7% (2011 est.)

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Arts & Music

India possesses a rich art history, which has for thousands of years absorbed the techniques of outsiders while maintaining its own strong sense of style. Its ancient arts have survived through sculpture, architecture, literature, and in rare cases painting. Much of these early works were religious in nature, reflecting Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist teachings. During the medieval era, Muslim rulers introduced the art of medieval miniatures, which flourished through secular subjects as well. India became a center for textile arts through it cotton and silk trades, which developed into a major industry in colonial times. Today, the artists of India work across all media and express themselves on any number of subjects.

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References

Henderson, Carol. Culture and Customs of India. Greenwood Press. 2002.

Majumdar, Ramesh Chandra. Ancient India. Motilal Banarsidass. 1977.

Robb, Peter. A History of India. Macmillan International. 2011.

Thapar, Romila. A History of India. Penguin UK. 1990.

“The World Factbook: India.” Central Intelligence Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, 9 Oct. 2018, www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/in.html.

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