67.5Mil BC A pulse of volcanic eruptions began about this time in the Deccan area of India. A 2nd pulse took place around 65 million BC and a 3rd about 100,000 years later. These were later believed to have contributed to the extinction of dinosaurs due to their heavy release of sulfur dioxide.
(SFC, 12/16/08, p.A4)
67Mil BC In 1987 scientists in India found the fossilized remains of an 11½-foot snake, dating to about this time, coiled around a dinosaur egg.
(SFC, 3/3/10, p.A3)
65Mil BC In 2003 US and Indian scientists reported on a new dinosaur species from western India from this time. They named it Rajasaurus narmadensis, or "Regal reptile from the Narmada," after the Narmada River region where the bones were found.
(AP, 8/13/03)
65Mil BC Evidence in 2009 suggested that an object some 40km in diameter hit the Earth off the coast if India about this time and forced vast quantities of lava out of the Deccan Traps. The impact was suggested to be responsible for breaking the Seychelles away from India as well as for the dying off of dinosaurs. This impact was named Shiva and is believed to have coincided with the Chicxulub impact in the Yucatan.
(Econ, 10/24/09, p.91)
50Mil BC The Tibetan Plateau began to lift about this time as India thrust northward. This led to the creation of the Gobi Desert north of the plateau.
(SFC, 5/19/06, p.B7)
1.6Mil BC - 1Mil BC Stone age Acheulian tools dating to this period were found in southern India at the Attirampakkam site in Tamil Nadu state during excavations from 1999-2002. The site was discovered by British geologist Robert Bruce Foote in 1863 and was sporadically investigated for over a century.
(Econ, 3/26/11, p.93)(www.antiquity.ac.uk/projgall/pappu297/)
7500BC In 2001 Indian engineers began dredging operations in the Gulf of Khambhat (Cambay) and pulled up human fossil bones, fossil wood, stone tools, pieces of pottery and many other things that indicated that a human habitation site dating to about this time.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_archaeology_in_the_Gulf_of_Cambay)
c3000BCE Ayurveda, a holistic Indian science, had its beginnings. It later taught that the balancing of the mind, spirit and body is the secret of health, vitality, longevity and beauty.
(SFC, 4/25/00, p.C6)
c3000BCE Hatha Yoga, a combination of mind and body exercises, began in India about this time.
(SSFC, 4/18/04, p.D16)
2700BC-700BC The Harappan civilization flourished in the Indus and Ganges valleys.
(Reuters, 3/15/06)
c2,500 Excavations in 2000 revealed a walled city at the Dholavira site in Gujarat state.
(AM, 11/00, p.22)
2300-2000BC There was cultural exchange between the Indus Valley civilization and Mesopotamia. The Indus Valley, or Harrapan, civilization was discovered in 1920-21 when engraved seals were discovered near present-day Sahiwal in Pakistani Punjab at a place called Harappa.
(EAWC, p.2)(http://inic.utexas.edu/asnic/subject/peoplesandlanguages.html)
2000BC Balathal, outside the city of Udaipur, was a Chalcolithic village. The people used copper tools and weapons. Terra-cotta figurines of bulls have been found at the site. It was abandoned and reoccupied c340BC.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.B)
c2000BC Tantra, a quasireligious doctrine, dates back to this time. Its first texts were in Sanskrit and the original adherents practiced ritual copulation.
(WSJ, 12/7/98, p.A1)
2000-1500BC The events of the Indian Ramayana epic, written around 500BC, supposedly took place about this time period.
(AM, 7/04, p.50)
1600-1500BC In India the Aryans invaded the Indus Valley region. In 1999 researchers reported that gene patterns confirmed that Caucasoid invaders entered India between 1000 and 2000 BC.
(EAWC, p.3)(SFC, 5/26/99, p.C2)
1600-1000 In India the Early Vedic period of Indian civilization unfolded.
(EAWC, p.3)
1550BC In India writing disappeared for a time with the destruction of the Indus Valley civilization.
(EAWC, p.4)
1500BC The Laws of Manu, a Hindu sacred text, dated to about this time. It sanctified the caste system of India.
(www.fordham.edu/halsall/india/manu-full.html)(Econ, 10/6/07, p.15)
1500BC Before this time in India the sap of the palmyra palm was used to make a fermented drink later called a "toddy" by the English.
(SFEC, 6/22/97, Z1 p.5)
c1000BC The Rig Veda, the first Vedic literature was written.
(EAWC, p.6)
c1000 The original Hindu calendar was based on a lunar cycle and dated back to this time.
(SFC, 1/1/00, p.A18)
1000BC The Sushruta Samhita, an early text of Ayurvedic medicine, was compiled by Sushrut, the primary pupil of Dhanvantri, about this time. In 2003 India moved to assess the country’s herbs systematically in a program called the Golden Triangle Partnership.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayurveda)(www.ccras.nic.in/gtp.htm)
1000-600BC This was the late Vedic period in India. The Aryans were integrated into Indian culture and the caste system emerged.
(EAWC, p.6)
800-600BC The Brahmans, a priestly caste, began to emerge.
(EAWC, p.7)
800-500BC The Upanishadic philosophy began with the writing of the Upanishads. Doctrines of rebirth and the transmigration of souls began to appear.
(EAWC, p.7)
563BCE Apr 8, Buddha (d.483BCE), Siddhartha Gautama, was born in Northern India (later Nepal. Raja Suddhodana, king of the Sakyas in the 6th century BC, is best known as the father of Buddha. The kingdom of the Sakyas was on what is now the border of Nepal and India. The birthplace of the Indian prince Siddartha, who became the monk Buddha, was believed to have been discovered by archeologists in 1996. Lumbini, Nepal, the birthplace of Buddha, was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997. [see May 15]
(V.D.-H.K.p.21)(WSJ, 2/6/96, p.A-1)(SFC, 9/1/96, DB p.30)(SFC,12/5/97, p.B2)(AP, 5/17/11)
563BCE May 15, Wesak Day, also known as Buddha's birthday. [see Apr 8] His birthday was later celebrated in Nepal on the day of the first full moon in May. The same day is also observed as the anniversary of his enlightenment.
(SFC, 5/15/03, p.A3)(AP, 5/17/11)
543 BC Colonists from northern India subdued the indigenous Vaddahs (Veddah) of Sri Lanka, known in the ancient world as Taprobane and later called Serendip. Descendants of those colonists, the Buddhist Sinhalese, form most of the population of Sri Lanka.
(SFC, 6/20/96, p.A8)(SFC, 9/22/97, p.A10)
540-486BC Mahavira, the founder of Jainism, lived. [see 480BC]
(EAWC, p.9)
537BC Cyrus the Persian campaigned west of the Indus River.
(EAWC, p.9)
517-509BC Darius the Persian conquered the Indus Valley region.
(EAWC, p.10)
c500BC The Ramayana, a literary epic depicting the struggles of the god Ram, was composed.
(SFC, 3/8/96, p.A10)
c500BC The city of Varanasi was also known as Kashi and Benares and has been a center of civilization for 2,500 years. It is the home of the Hindu god Shiva.
(SFEC,11/23/97, p.T4)
c500-200BC In India the Mahabharata, of which the Bhagavad-Gita is a part, was put into its final form.
(PC Comp. 12/94, p.278)(EAWC, p.10)
483BC Gautama Siddhartha Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, died about this time in Kushinagar, in northern India.
(eawc, p.9)(SSFC, 10/14/07, p.A15)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gautama_Buddha)
c480BCE Vardhamana Mahavira, the semi-legendary teacher who reformed older doctrines and established Jainism, died. He is regarded as the 24th and latest Tirthankara, one of the people to have attained personal immortality through enlightenment. Jainism was founded as a dualistic, ascetic religion as a revolt against the caste system and the vague world spirit of Hinduism.
(WUD, 1994, p.762,1488,1580)
450BC In 2006 archaeologists in Bangladesh said they had uncovered part of a fortified citadel at Wari, northeast of Dhaka, dating back to this time that could have been a stopping off point along an ancient trade route.
(Reuters, 3/15/06)
400BC In India Panini’s "Sutra," the earliest Sanskrit grammar, was written.
(EAWC, p.12)
530BC-283BC Kautilya, Indian political advisor, lived about this time. He is generally called Chanakya (derived from his father's name "Chanak") but, in his capacity as author of the Arthashastra, is generally referred to as Kautilya derived from his clan's name "Kotil
" (Kautilya means "of Kotil"). He was a master of the shrewd act of diplomacy.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chanakya)
c340BC-200CE Balathal near Udaipur was reoccupied by a new people who built a massive rampart around the site and later abandoned it.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.B)
331BC Alexander conquered the Persian Empire and then made his way to India and conquered part of it.
(EAWC, p.13)
327BC-326BCE Alexander the Great passed through the Indus Valley and installed Greek officials in the area.
(EAWC, p.13)
323BCE The death of Alexander provided an opportunity for an independent state. Chandragupta Maurya founded the Maurya dynasty, the first Indian empire with its capital in Patna.
(eawc, p.13)(SC, 5/18/02)
304BC Chandragupta traded 500 war elephants to Seleucus in exchange for the Indus region and lands immediately to the West.
(EAWC, p.14)
300BC Kautilya (aka Chanakya), an Indian statesman and scholar, authored the Artha-Shastra (the Science of Material Gain) at the end of the 4th century BC. This is the first known treatise on government and economy.
(www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/History/Ancient/Kautilya.html)
c300BC Palur in eastern India near Chilika Lake has yielded red-and-black-ware potsherds, one of which had the image of a boat.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.B)
273-232 Ashoka, the grandson of Chandragupta Maurya, ruled India, an area of a million sq. miles, and 50 million people. He was the most impressive ruler of the Maurya dynasty and was strongly disposed in favor of Buddhism, which orientation showed positively in his public policy.
(V.D.-H.K.p.21)(EAWC, p.14)
260BCE Ashoka, the 3rd ruler of the Mauryan empire (India), converted to Buddhism after defeating the Kalinga region. He began promoting Buddhist teaching throughout the subcontinent and beyond to Sri Lanka and even Greece.
(www.metmuseum.org/toah/ht/04/ssa/ht04ssa.htm)
250BC In India a general council of Buddhist monks was held in Patna, where the canon of Buddhist scripture was selected.
(EAWC, p.14)
250BC In India Emperor Ashoka ordered a sculpture of four Asiatic lions about this time. The image later became a model emblazoned on India’s passports and currency.
(WSJ, 6/27/07, p.A9)
c200BC-650CE Caves at Ajanta were painted and sculpted during this period with court scenes and tales from the Jataka and Bodhisattvas.
(WSJ, 11/12/98, p.A28)
184BC In India the Maurya dynasty ended when the last ruler was assassinated by an ambitious army commander.
(EAWC, p.15)
78CE Mar 3, Origin of Saka Era in India.
(SC, 3/3/02)
79CE The Hindu calendar was updated to the solar year with this year as year 1. The original dated back to about 1000 BC.
(SFC, 1/1/00, p.A18)
100-200 Poompuhar (southern India) grew during the reign of Karikal Cholan, the second-century Chola king who established trade ties with China, Arabia and the Roman Empire. In the 20th century remnants of brick buildings, water reservoirs, a boat jetty and Roman coins were found during undersea excavations.
(AP, 1/14/05)
150-250 Acharya Nagarjuna, Indian philosopher, lived about this time. He founded the Madhyamaka school of Mahayana Buddhism.
(Econ, 1/8/11, p.43)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagarjuna)
c300 Vatsayana wrote the philosophical treatise "Kama Sutra" during the classical age of the Gupta period. One of its 35 chapters dealt with various sexual positions.
(SFEC, 3/2/97, DB p.32)
320 The Gupta state began with the accession of Chandragupta I. His son and grandson were successful conquerors and extended the state across Northern India from sea to sea. The journal of the Buddhist monk Fa-hsien provides most of our knowledge of Gupta society.
(MWH, 1994)
400 About this time sage-prince Kambu of the Cambodian legends, who belonged to the Kamboja lineage, appears to have sailed from Indian subcontinent, probably from Saurashtra/Gujarat on the west coast of India and established a small Kamboja kingdom in Bassac around Vat-Ph'u hill in Mekong Basin. The first Khmer or king, know as Kambu, founded Kambujadesa, which means the Sons of Kambu or Kambuja for short.
(SFEC, 10/20/96, T5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kambu_Svayambhuva)
c400-500 The Indian philosopher Yashomitra made commentaries on Buddhism and described it as "awakened" (vibuddha) and "full-bloomed" or "perfected" (prabuddha).
(SFEM,12/14/97, p.46)
427 The Nalanda Buddhist center of learning was established in Bihar state, India, and continued to 1197. It has been called one of the first great universities in recorded history.
(Econ, 9/4/10, p.46)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nalanda)
c500 The Indian monk Bodhidharma hit on the idea of Zen after staring at a wall for nine years.
(WSJ, 10/23/96, p.A1)
544 In India about this time Pulakeshin I instituted the Chalukyan kingdom and his son established Vatapi, identified as Badami, as the capital.
(http://tinyurl.com/mdkhf)
550 Aryabhata (b.476), Indian astronomer and mathematician, died. The Aryabhatiya, an astronomical treatise, is the magnum opus and only extant work of Aryabhata.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryabhata)
580-728 Pallava kings ruled in southern India, later Tamil Nadu state. The port town of Mahabalipuram was the capital of their ancient kingdom.
(AP, 9/21/05)
600-700CE The Tantras, Buddhist texts for generating deep religious experiences, were produced.
(SFEC,12/14/97, p.T5)
c600-700 The 7th century Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Hsuan-tsang sought out the sources of Buddhism in India.
(AM, 9/01, p.48)
c700-800 Padmasambhava was an 8th century sorcerer and saint who converted Tibet to Buddhism.
(SFEC,12/14/97, p.T5)
740 The Virupaksha temple in Pattadakal, an early capital of the Chalukyas of southern India, was built by Queen Lokamahadevi about this time to commemorate her husband's victory over the Pallavas.
(http://tinyurl.com/s6lck)
981 Adherents to the Jainist faith consecrated a 57-foot statue of their most important saint, Bahubali, in the town of Shravana Belgola, India.
(Sm, 3/06, p.23)
985-1014 The Brihadeshwarar temple was built in southeastern India’s Tamil Nadu state.
(WSJ, 10/1/04, p.A10)
985-1200 The Chola Kingdom prospered in southern India. Arts flourished and the economy prospered under expanding trade and military conquests. Ganesha, son of Shiva, was the first god invoked at the beginning of a new enterprise.
(WSJ, 10/8/99, p.W14)(WSJ, 10/8/99, p.W14)
990 A set of instructions on chess, the Versus de Scachis (Poem About Chess), emerged in Switzerland about this time. The game had begun in India before the 6th century.
(Arch, 1/05, p.40)(Econ, 10/29/11, p.97)
993 The south Indian Cola Empire captured Anuradhapura (Sri Lanka).
(Arch, 7/02, p.34)
1000 The Gypsy people (Romany) migrated from Rajasthan, India, about this time. They call themselves Rom, which is derived from their original Indian caste name Dom.
(Wired, 9/96, p.46)(SFC, 2/28/97, p.A24)(Econ, 6/21/08, p.35)
1000-1100 An 11th century temple was constructed in Thanjavur in southern India.
(WSJ, 6/9/97, p.A1)
1000-1100 The sandstone sculpture "Uma Maheshvara" is a variant of the archetypal couple Shiva and Parvati.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.E1)
1019 Machmud of Ghazni, a kingdom in central Asia, invaded India and took so many captives that the prices of slaves plummeted for several years. He invade India annually for 25 years.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R4)
1026-1756 http://www.itihaas.com/medieval/index.html
1100-1200 The bronze sculpture "Shiva Nataraya" depicted the Hindu god of creation and destruction doing the dance that sustains the universe.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.E1)
1100-1200 The comic man-elephant "Ganesha" sculpture was carved in schist.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.E1)
1100-1200 There was a Muslim victory over the Rajputs. It was commemorated by the 240-foot tower in Delhi known as Qutb Minar.
(SFEC, 5/21/00, p.T8)
1140 Ghorid leaders from central Afghanistan captured and burned Ghazni, then moved on to conquer India.
(www.afghan, 5/25/98)
1166 El-Idrisi (b.1099), a Muslim geographer, died. The Arab geographer Idrisi claimed that Indians preferred iron from East Africa over their own because of its malleability.
(SSFC, 9/2/07, p.A18)(NH, 6/97, p.44)
1192-1198 Time of the Quwwatul Islam Masjid.
(SFEC, 5/21/00, p.T8)
1193 The Nalanda Buddhist learning center in Bihar state was sacked by Turkic Muslim invaders under Bakhtiyar Khalji, a milestone in the decline of Buddhism in India. Khalji was a member of the Muslim Turkic Khilji, or the Khalaj tribe as it is known in Iran and Afghanistan.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nalanda)(www.spiritus-temporis.com/bakhtiyar-khalji/)
1209 The Delhi Sultanate established Muslim rule in northern India.
(AM, 7/04, p.51)
1274 Lal Shahbaz Qalandar (b.1177), born as Seyyed Shah Hussain Marandi in Marand (near the city of Tabriz) in Azerbaijan (then part of Iran), died. He had migrated to Sindh and settled in Sehwan and was buried there. He is also known as Shaikh Hussain Marandi. He was a Sufi in the regions that lie in the Sindh province of Pakistan.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahbaz_Qalander)
1298 Tamerlane plundered Delhi.
(SFEC, 5/21/00, p.T8)
c1300-1700 Vijayanagra (aka Hampi) in southern India was the capital of a great empire during this time.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vijayanagara)
1350-1500 There was cold and drought during this period in Central Asia as temperatures came down with low rainfall and low productivity. The climatic effect on Sindh was that Jam Banbhniyo Samma, tried to capture some areas of Delhi Sultanate in the Multan Sarkar and also south in Gujarat.
(http://panhwar.com/Article129.htm)
c1396 The tabla, a 600-year-old invention, was evolved from Arabian drums to accompany a fusion of Islamic Qawali singing and Dhrupad music composed for Sanskrit couplets usually recited in temples.
(SFC, 5/19/96,Mag, p.25)
c1396 The kirana style of Hindustani music began.
(SFC, 6/18/96, p.A17)
1399 Dec 17, Tamerlane's Mongols destroyed the army of Mahmud Tughluk, Sultan of Delhi, at Panipat.
(HN, 12/17/98)
1405 Admiral Zheng He, a Muslim eunuch, led a Ming dynasty fleet with 28,000 men through Southeast Asia to India and on to Africa and the Middle East. From 1405 to 1433 Zheng He led 7 voyages to promote trade and recognition of the Ming dynasty.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R51)(WSJ, 11/18/06, p.P11)(AP, 2/26/10)
1451 An Afghan named Buhlul invaded Delhi, and seized the throne. He founded the Lodi dynasty.
(www.afghan, 5/25/98)
1459 May 12, Sun City, India, was founded by Rao Jodhpur.
(MC, 5/12/02)
1469 Apr 15, The guru Nanak (d.1539), 1st guru of Sikhs, was born to Hindu parents in Lahore. Nanak assimilated tenets of pantheistic Hinduism and monotheistic Islam and founded Sikhism in the Punjab. He refused to accept the caste system and the supremacy of the Brahmanical priests and forbade magic, idolatry and pilgrimages. Brahma is the Hindu god of creation. Turbaned followers would sport the main of the lion, Singha or Sikh. The sacred Sikh book, Granth Sahib, was compiled by the 5th guru, Arjun, in 1605.
(WUD, 1994, p.1326)(Hem., 3/97, p.28)(SFEM, 9/19/99, p.74)(SFC, 9/22/99, p.E1)(WSJ, 10/12/01, p.W17)
1483 Feb 14, Zahir al-Din Mohammed Babur Shah, prince, founder Mughal dynasty in India (1526-30), was born.
(MC, 2/14/02)
1497 Jul 8, Vasco da Gama, Portuguese explorer, departed on a trip to India. He sailed from Lisbon enroute to Calicut, India. His journey took him around South Africa and opened the Far East to European trade and colonial expansion.
(V.D.-H.K.p.143)(WUD, 1994, p.1672)(www.indhistory.com/vasco-da-gama.html)
1498 May 20, Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama arrived at Calicut (Kozhikkode) in Kerala, India.
(www.indhistory.com/vasco-da-gama.html)
1499 In India Guru Nanak Dev Ji (1469-1539) started Sikhism. The monotheistic religion rejected most of the tenets of Hinduism, but teaches rebirth and liberation through the spiritual path and also accepts yoga practice.
(www.sikhism.com/singh/articles/clean_shaven)
1504 Babur, founder of the Mughal dynasty in India, captured Kabul in Afghanistan and maintained control to 1519. Babur’s mother descended from Genghis Khan and his father from Timur (Tamerlane).
(TL-MB, 1988, p.8)(www.afghan, 5/25/98)(WSJ, 10/24/00, p.A12)
1513 Portugal captured Goa, India.
(SSFC, 3/19/06, p.F7)
1519 Nanak (1469-1539) founded Sikhism, a combination of Hinduism and Buddhism. Sikhs revere 10 gurus. "Be in the world, but not worldly."
(TL-MB, 1988, p.11)(WSJ, 10/12/01, p.W17)
1524 Dec 24, Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama (~55), who had discovered a sea route around Africa to India, died in Cochin, India. He had served as Viceroy in India.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.12)(AP, 12/24/97)(MC, 12/24/01)
1525 Babur, a warrior with an Islamic Persian background, invaded Hindu India. He took Delhi and Agra and made Agra his capital.
(HT, 4/97, p.22)
1526 Apr 21, Mongol Emperor Zahir-ud-din Babur annihilated Indian Army of Ibrahim Lodi at the Battle of Panipat. Babar, King of Kabul, established in this year the Mughal dynasty at Delhi.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.13)(SFEC, 5/21/00, p.T8)(WSJ, 3/31/07, p.P10)
1526-1712 In northern India the Mughal Dynasty was the last great dynasty to rule.
(Hem., 2/97, p.55)
1527 Mar 16, The Emperor Babur defeated the Rajputs at the Battle of Kanvaha, removing the main Hindu rivals in Northern India.
(HN, 3/16/99)
1528 Babar the Great ordered a large mosque built in Ayodha, 2 years after he established the Mogul Empire in India. The Babri Mosques was destroyed by a Hindu mob in 1992.
(AM, 7/04, p.49)
1529 May 6, Babur defeated the Afghan Chiefs in the Battle of Ghagra, India.
(HN, 5/6/98)
1530 Dec 26, (OS) Zahir al-Din Mohammed Babur Shah (47), founder Moguls dynasty (India), died. Babur left power to his son Humayun, who built a royal city called Purana Qila that is part of Delhi today. His memoirs, known as the Baburnama, are considered the first true autobiography in Islamic literature. The first English translation was made in 1922 by Annette Beveridge.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babur)(Econ, 12/18/10, p.80)
1537 In India Bangalore was founded on the Deccan Plateau by a king who was lost and given a bowl of boiled beans (Bendakalooru means town of boiled beans) by women in the area.
(WSJ, 3/25/98, p.B10)
1538 Portugal captured Diu, India, and established it as part of a fortified trade network.
(SSFC, 3/19/06, p.F7)
1542 Oct 14, Abul-Fath Djalal-ud-Din, 3rd Mogul emperor of India (1556-1605), was born.
(MC, 10/14/01)
1542-1605 Emperor Akbar, godfather of Shah Jahan, ruled as the 3rd Grand Moghul of India. Akbar commissioned an illustrated manuscript of the Hamzanama (Story of Hamza, the paternal uncle of the prophet Mohammed). The 1,400 painted folios took over 100 artists 15 years to complete.
(WSJ, 8/8/02, p.D10)
1556 Nov 5, The Emperor Akbar defeated the Hindus in a 2nd Battle at Panipat and secured control of the Mogul Empire. Akbar the Great became Mogul Emperor of India and defeated the Afghans at the Battle of Panipat in the Punjab.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.19)(HN, 11/5/98)
1556 Humayun, son of Babur, fell down the library steps in Purana Qila and died. This put his 14-year-old son, Akbar, on the throne.
(HT, 4/97, p.22)
1565 Humayun’s tomb was completed in Delhi.
(SFEC, 5/21/00, p.T8)
1565 Akbar had the Red Fort built in Agra along the Yamuna River.
(HT, 4/97, p.22)
1569-1627 Jehangir, later successor to Akbar. He commissioned the artist Manohar for the painting "King David Playing the Harp."
(SFEM, 2/1/98, p.14)
1569-1583 Akbar was informed by a holy man that he would soon be a father. A Muslim wife bore him a son and Akbar built a walled city, Fatehpur Siskri, in Sikri, the home village of the holyman. The local water table could not meet the demands of the city and after about 14 years the capital was moved back to Agra.
(HT, 4/97, p.23)
1571 Mughal emperor Akbar moved his court from Agra (India), to Fatehpur Sikri, where he built a sandstone palace in the middle of nowhere.
(Econ, 3/7/09, p.82)
1574 The 4th Sikh guru founded the city of Amritsar.
(WSJ, 10/12/01, p.W17)
c1575 Mahesa painted "Rustam Kills a Demon."
(WSJ, 4/10/01, p.A20)
1579 Portuguese merchants set up trading stations in Bengal.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.22)
1581 Akbar, Mughal Emperor of India, conquered Afghanistan.
(TL-MB, p.23)
1586 Akbar, the greatest Mughal Emperor of India, attempted to establish "Din Illahl" as a universal religion acceptable to his many Hindu subjects. The movement eventually collapsed under the 18th-century Muslim revival.
(TL-MB, p.24)
1592 Jan 5, Shah Jahan, Mughal emperor of India (1628-58), was born. He later built the Taj Mahal.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1600 Dec 31, The British East India Company (d.1874) was chartered by Queen Elizabeth I in London to carry on trade in the East Indies in competition with the Dutch, who controlled nutmeg from the Banda Islands.
(WUD, 1994, p.449)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R49)(www.theeastindiacompany.com/history.html)
c1600 Christian missionaries arrived in India with the first European traders.
(SFC, 11/6/99, p.A14)
1600-1700 The Hindu state of Kotah later became part of the modern state of Rajasthan.
(AM, May/Jun 97 p.62)
c1600-1700 The 17th century Sikh guru Gobind Singh said: "Oh Shiva, bless me, that nothing deters me from doing good deeds, and where I am obliged to fight, I fight for sure to win."
(SFC, 4/12/99, p.A12)
c1604 Arjun, the 5th Sikh guru, compiled the sacred book "Granth Sahib," a compilation of over 6,000 hymns meant to be sung to classical Indian ragas. Arjun was responsible for the Harimandir (temple of God) in the city of Amritsar. Arjun was later executed by Muslim rulers in Lahore. In 2004 Sikhs marked the 400th anniversary of the book’s arrival to Amritsar.
(WSJ, 10/12/01, p.W17)(AP, 9/1/04)
1605 Akbar the Great died. He was succeeded by Juhangir (Jahangir, Jehangir, 1569-1627) the ineffectual and his "evil queen" Nur Jahan.
(WUD, 1994, p.762)(HT, 4/97, p.23)
1610 Ustad Mansur, a seventeenth century Mughal painter, painted a picture depicting the Dodo bird. As a court artist of Jehangir (1605-1627) Mansur specialized in depicting plants and animals.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ustad_Mansur)
1615 Prince Shah Jahan, son of Jehangir, returned home after a successful military campaign.
(WSJ, 12/16/97, p.A16)
1618-1707 Aurangzeb, Moghul ruler of India. His wealth was said to be 10 times that of Louis XIV. The empire reached its greatest size during his rule but his persecution of Hindu subjects weakened Muslim Moghul control.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R8)
1620 Jehangir, successor of Akbar, visited the gardens of Kashmir and adopted the "flower style" as opposed to the previous bestiaries.
(WSJ, 12/16/97, p.A16)
1627 Oct 28, Djehangir (Jahangir), great mogul of India, died.
(MC, 10/28/01)
1628-1658 Shah Jahan (1592-1666), a descendent of the Moghuls, ruled India. He was India’s 3rd Mughal emperor. The manuscript "Padshahnama" (King of the World) by Abdul-Hamid Lahawri documents the reign of Shah Jahan. In 1997 Wheeler Thackston made a new translation.
(WUD, 1994, p.1309)(HT, 4/97, p.22)(WSJ, 12/4/97, p.A20)
1630 The Spiti Valley, a part of western Tibet, became part of India.
(SFEC, 7/23/00, p.T9)
1630-1631 There was a great famine in India. Records indicate that cannibalism became so rampant that human flesh was sold on the open market.
(SFC, 7/6/96, p.E4)
1631 Jun 17, Mumtax Mahal, wife of Shah Jahan of India, her tomb (Taj Mahal), died. Arjumand Shah Begum (aka Mumtaz Mahal -Jewel of the Palace), was the 2nd wife of Shah Jahan. She had bore him 14 children and died in childbirth. He build the Taj Mahal (1654) in her memory. The project took 22 years and cost $18 million.
(HT, 4/97, p.22)(SFEC, 5/21/00, p.T8)(SC, 6/7/02)
1639 The walled city of Old Delhi, the 6th Delhi city, was erected by Shah Jahan. It came to be called Shajahanabad after the construction of new Delhi by the British.
(SFEC, 5/21/00, p.T1)
1642 A diamond, said to be stolen from a Hindu statue, was acquired in India by Jean Baptiste Tavernier, a noted French traveler. The 45.52 carat steel blue diamond was found in India back in remote times as a rough crystal weighing 112 carats. Tavernier later sold to King Louis XIV of France. The diamond, known as the French Blue or the Tavernier Blue, disappeared. For many years it was not heard from at all. In 1830, a large steel blue diamond of a different shape, and weighing only 44.50 carats appeared on the market in England and was purchased by Henry Thomas Hope, an English banker. It changed hands a number of times and in 1911 it was sold to Evelyn Walsh McLean of Washington, DC, who had it placed in a Cartier setting.
(http://famousdiamonds.tripod.com/hopediamond.html)(SSFC, 12/20/09, p.N7)
1643 The great marble dome of the Taj Mahal was first completed.
(WSJ, 3/31/07, p.P10)
1648 The Lal Qila (Red Fort) was built by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan. [see 1565]
(Hem., 2/97, p.58)
1653 Shah Jahan completed the Taj Mahal. Master builders, masons, calligraphers, etc. along with more than 20,000 laborers, worked for 22 years under orders of Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan to complete the great mausoleum for the shah's beloved wife. In 2007 Diana and Michael Preston authored “Taj Mahal” and Ebba Koch authored “the Complete Taj Mahal.”
(WSJ, 3/31/07, p.P10)(www.tribuneindia.com/2003/20030713/spectrum/heritage.htm)
1654-1656 Rembrandt painted a medallion portrait of Muhammed Adil Shah of Bijapur.
(SFEM, 2/1/98, p.16)(SFC, 2/7/98, p.E8)
1658 Jun 15, The Mogul emperor Aurangzeb imprisoned his father the Shah, after winning a battle at Samgarh.
(HT, 6/15/00)
1658 Jun 25, In India Aurangzeb proclaimed himself emperor of the Moghuls. Aurangzeb, son of Shah Jahan, overthrew his father and locked him up in the Jasmine tower.
(HT, 4/97, p.24)(HN, 6/25/98)
1658 The Jami Masjid (Friday Mosque) was completed in Delhi.
(SFEC, 5/21/00, p.T8)
1662 Dutch fortune seekers killed over 400 members of the Nayar warrior caste in Kerala.
(SFEM, 7/18/99, p.12)
1664 Michael Sweerts (b.1618), Belgium-born artist, died in Goa, India. He did much of his important work in Rome, moved to the Netherlands, and traveled in Asia with a band of missionaries. His major work included a series depicting the Seven Acts of Mercy.
(WSJ, 7/2/02, p.D7)
1666 Jan 22, Shah Jahan died.
(HT, 4/97, p.24)
1668 Mar 26, England took control of Bombay, India.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1668 Mar 27, English king Charles II gave Bombay to the East India Company.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1674 Jun 6, Sivaji crowned himself King of India.
(HN, 6/6/98)
1675 The 9th Sikh guru was executed in Delhi. His son, Gobind Rai, took up arms and organized a new fraternity called the Khalsa (the pure), and gave them the common surname Singh (lion), and changed his own name to Gobind Singh.
(WSJ, 10/12/01, p.W17)
1680 Apr 3, Shivaji Raje Bhosle (b.1627), warrior king and founder of the Maratha empire of western India, died.
(Econ, 7/12/08, p.73)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shivaji)
c1694/5 Devidas painted "The Awakening of Trust."
(WSJ, 4/10/01, p.A20)
1695 Henry Avery (b.~1653), former Royal Navyman turned pirate, captured the Ganj-i-Sawai, the largest ship of the Mogul emperor in India.
(WSJ, 11/22/08, p.W2)
1699 The Sikhs were founded by a series of 10 prophets or gurus and believe in one God but many paths to heaven. [see Nanak c1500, 1519] In 1999 some 20,000 thousands of Sikhs gathered to march in SF on the 300th anniversary of their religion.
(SFEC, 4/25/99, p.C1)
1700 India, with a population of some 165 million, was the world’s biggest economy and leading cotton producer.
(Econ, 9/24/11, SR p.4)
1707 Mar 3, Aurangzeb (88), Emperor of India (1658-1707), died.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1708 Gobind Singh, the 10th Sikh guru died in India. He named the “Granth Sahib” holy book as his eternal successor before his death.
(AP, 9/1/04)
1725-1774 Sir Robert Clive, soldier of fortune. Known as "Clive of India" he wrested Bengal away from the French on behalf of the British East India Co. [see 1757]
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R8)
1737 Sep 19, In India’s Bay of Bengal a cyclone destroyed some 20,000 ships. It was estimated that more than 300,000 people died in the densely populated area called the Sundarbans. Later research indicated the population of Calcutta at the time to be around 20,000. An estimate of the number of deaths was revised down to about 3,000.
(http://cires.colorado.edu/~bilham/gif_images/1737Calcutta.pdf)
1739 Mar 20, In India, Nadir Shah of Persia occupied Delhi and took possession of the Peacock thrown. King Nadir Shah later took the golden Peacock Throne back to Persia.
(HN, 3/20/99)(SFEC, 5/21/00, p.T8)
1746 Sep 21, A French expeditionary army occupied Labourdonnais. Colonial governor Joseph Francois Dupleix occupied Madras.
(PCh, 1992, p.298)(MC, 9/21/01)
1747-1773 Rule of Ahmad Shah Abdali (Durrani). Ahmad Shah consolidated and enlarged Afghanistan. He defeated the Moghuls in the west of the Indus, and he takes Herat away from the Persians. Ahmad Shah Durrani's empire extended from Central Asia to Delhi, from Kashmir to the Arabian sea. It became the greatest Muslim empire in the second half of the 18th century.
(www.afghan, 5/25/98)
c1750 By this time the British East India Company had gained virtual control of India.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)
1751 Aug 31, English troops under sir Robert Clive occupied Arcot, India.
(MC, 8/31/01)
1756 Jun 20, In India rebels defeated the British army at Calcutta. British soldiers were imprisoned in a suffocating cell that gained notoriety as the "Black Hole of Calcutta." Most of them died. The exact circumstances of this incident, such as the number of prisoners, originally put at 146, are disputed.
(HN, 6/20/98)(AP, 6/20/07)
1756 Dec 6, British troops under Robert Clive occupied Fulta, India.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1757 Jan 2, British troops occupied Calcutta, India.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Clive,_1st_Baron_Clive)
1757 Jan 28, Ahmed Shah, the first King of Afghanistan, occupied Delhi and annexed the Punjab.
(HN, 1/28/99)
1757 Jun 23, Forces of the East India Company led by Robert Clive (1725-1774) defeated Indians at Plassey and won control of Bengal. Lord Clive defeated Siraj-ud-daula, the Nawab of Bengal and exacted a payment of $140 million from Moghul ruler Mir Jafar and a Moghul title of nobility and rights to land around Calcutta. This effectively marked the beginning of British colonial rule in India. Clive served 2 terms as the governor of Bengal.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R8)(SSFM, 4/1/01, p.40)(AP, 6/23/07)
1758 Jan 2, The French began bombardment of Madras, India.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1763 The "Jnaneshvari" manuscript, a commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, was completed. In this period Hindu books began to vie with Muslim texts in the perfection of their paper, calligraphy, illustration and binding.
(WSJ, 12/11/01, p.A17)
1767 Robert Clive returned to England with a huge fortune and was accused of embezzlement.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R8)
1767 George Hodgeson, British entrepreneur, cut a deal with the East India Company to start providing beer to the British Civil-service and merchant classes in the India colonies. He doubled the hop content to help preserve the beer on its long voyage.
(WSJ, 8/13/04, p.W6)
1768-1834 The brigand, Amir Khan Pindari, was finally bribed by the British to retire with a grant of sovereignty over 4 territories.
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.E8)
1773-1785 Warren Hastings served as the British governor-general of India. [see 1787]
(WSJ, 5/1/00, p.A24)(WSJ, 2/22/00, p.A20)
1780-1839 The Maharajah Ranjit Singh. He consolidated Sikh rule after splintering conflicts with Punjab's Mughal court and Afghan and Persian invaders.
(SFC, 9/22/99, p.E1)
1782 Zayn al-Din, the John James Audubon of Indian art, painted "A Painted Stork."
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.E1)
1783 May 4, In India Tipu Sultan was enthroned as the ruler of Mysore after the death of Haider Ali in a simple ceremony at Bednur.
(www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20080048779)
1785 Apr, Elizabeth Marsh (b.1735), traveler and writer, died of breast cancer in Calcutta, India. In 1769 she had published “The Female Captive,” an account of her captivity in a Muslim court. In 2007 Linda Colley authored “The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh: A Woman in World History.”
(Econ, 7/14/07, p.89)(www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n12/mant01_.html)
1786 Feb 24, Charles Cornwallis, whose armies had surrendered to US at Yorktown, was appointed governor-general of India. [see Sep 12]
(MC, 2/24/02)
1786 Sep 12, Despite his failed efforts to suppress the American Revolution, Lord Cornwallis was appointed governor general of India. [see Feb 24]
(HN, 9/12/98)
1787 There was an effort to impeach the governor-general of India. Edmund Burke indicted Warren Hastings, governor-general of India (1773-1785), on 21 charges for high crimes and misdemeanors. The trial lasted 7 years and Hastings was acquitted on all charges.
(SFEC, 11/1/98, BR p.11)(WSJ, 5/1/00, p.A24)
1789 Dec, In India’s city of Coringa 3 tidal waves caused by a cyclone destroyed the harbor city at the mouth of the Ganges river. Most ships were sunk and some 20,000 people drowned.
(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1789 Thomas Daniell, R.A., painted his "South View of the Taj Mahal."
(SFEM, 2/1/98, p.16)
1795 Mar 11, Battle at Kurdla, India: Mahratten beat Moguls.
(MC, 3/12/02)
1798 Lord Wellesley decided to build a new British Government House in Calcutta and chose the neo-classical Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire as a model.
(SSFM, 4/1/01, p.43)
1799 May 4, In India Tipu Sultan was killed in a battle against 5,000 British soldiers who stormed and razed his capital, Seringapatanam. British forces defeated the sultan of Mysore at the Battle of Seringapatam.
(www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20080048779)(SSFM, 4/1/01, p.42)
1799 In Jaipur, India, the Hawa Mahal (the palace of wind) a five-storied sandstone building, was built by a Hindu king for his queen.
(Reuters, 5/14/08)
1803 Sep 23, British Major General Sir Arthur Wellesley defeated the Marathas at Assaye, India.
(HN, 9/23/98)
1805 Lord Charles Cornwallis, governor general of India, died in India.
(HNQ, 9/9/02)
1809 In southern Kerala their was a rise against British control in Travancore.
(SFEM, 7/18/99, p.10)
1812 May, William Moorcroft, East India Co. head of 5,000 acre horse farm at Pusa, departed for Tibet in search of horses to improve his stock.
(ON, 1/02, p.3)
1817 In Kerala the Maharani of Travancore issued an edict that the state should defray the whole cost of education of its people.
(SFEM, 7/18/99, p.10)
1818 Jun 2, The British army defeated the Maratha alliance in Bombay, India.
(HN, 6/2/98)
1819 William Moorcroft, East India Co. head of 5,000 acre horse farm at Pusa, India, set out for Bukhara, Uzbekistan, to trade for horses.
(ON, 1/02, p.5)
1819 A British hunting party discovered the painted caves at Ajanta that dated from c200BC-650CE.
(WSJ, 11/12/98, p.A28)
1820 A "Skinner Artist" painted "Thakur Daulat Singh in a Council."
(SFEM, 2/1/98, p.14)
1820 The Prince of Baroda was forbidden to increase his daily number of canon salutes by the British Raj, so instead he had his fort's canons made from solid gold at 28 pounds each.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R4)
1820-1821 Sita Ram painted "West View of a Mosque and Gateway."
(SFEM, 2/1/98, p.16)
1820-1825 Ghulam Ali Khan painted his gouache and watercolor: "Assembly of Ascetics and Yogins around a Fire."
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.E8)
1827 "Nawab Nasir ud Din Haidar, King of Oudh in his palace" was painted by a local artist.
(SFEM, 2/1/98, p.16)
1829 Nov 8, Lord William Bentinck, Governor-General of the East India Company, called for the abolition of sati (suttee), the practice of a widow burning herself to death on her husband's funeral pyre. [see Dec 4]
(www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1829bentinck.html)
1829 Dec 4, British colonial rulers abolished "suttee" (Sati) in India. This was the practice of a widow burning herself to death on her husband's funeral pyre.
(http://chnm.gmu.edu/wwh/p/103.html)(Reuters, 9/21/06)
1830s Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859), English essayist, historian and politician, served as a member of the British Supreme Council in India.
(www.britannica.com)(Econ, 10/30/04, p.48)
1831 Muslim warrior Sayeed Ahmad Shaheed was slain in Balakot (later part of Pakistan) while failing to repel Sikh invaders.
(AP, 4/6/06)
1834 The maharaja of Jammu was able to annex Ladakh, a West Tibetan kingdom.
(SFEC,12/14/97, p.T4)
1834 William Bentinck, India's governor-general, wrote to his superiors in London that Indian cloth-makers were suffering severe hardship due to the efficiency of the English textile industry.
(WSJ, 3/29/04, p.A1)
1836 Feb 18, Swami Ramakrishna [Gadadhar Chatterji], Indian mystic, Hindu leader, was born.
(MC, 2/18/02)
1838 Jun 27, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Bengali novelist (Anandamath), was born.
(SC, 6/27/02)
1838 Oct 1, Lord Auckland, British governor general in India, issued the Simla Manifesto, setting forth the necessary reasons for British intervention in Afghanistan. This led to the 1st Anglo-Afghan War.
(Econ, 10/7/06, p.18)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Anglo-Afghan_War)
1838 Dec, India’s British governor general dispatched to Kabul the Army of the Indus to protect British interests from growing Russian influence.
(SSFC, 10/28/01, p.C8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Anglo-Afghan_War)
1838 Emily Eden painted her portrait of "Hira Singh."
(SFEM, 2/1/98, p.16)
1839 Nov, In India’s city Coringa a gigantic 40-foot tidal wave caused by an enormous cyclone wiped out the harbor city that was never entirely rebuilt; 20,000 vessels in the bay were destroyed and some 300,000 people died.
(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1839 A Sikh kingdom under Ranjit Singh ruled the Punjab until this time.
(WSJ, 10/12/01, p.W17)
1844 The maharaja of Jammu purchased Kashmir from the East India Company.
(SFEC,12/14/97, p.T4)
1846 Feb 10, British General Sir Hugh Gough decisively routed Tej Singh’s Sikhs in the Battle of Sobraon.
(HN, 2/10/97)
1846 Lt. Harry Lumsden in the heat of India’s Punjab dyed his PJs a tawny color. They were made of cotton and called khaki in Hindi.
(NH, 6/96, p.7)
1849 Feb 21, In the Second Sikh War, Sir Hugh Gough’s well placed guns won a victory over a Sikh force twice the size of his at Gujerat on the Chenab River, assuring British control of the Punjab for years to come.
(HN, 2/21/98)
1849 Britain annexed the Punjab, the vast territories of what later became known as eastern Pakistan and northern western India. This put them on the edge of the tribal territories, mostly claimed by Afghanistan, and forced them to launch military campaigns almost every year for the next half century to keep the tribes at bay.
(Econ, 1/2/10, p.18)
1853 Apr 16, India's 1st steam locomotive pulled 14 cars and 400 people 34 km. from Bombay to Thane.
(NG, 5/95, p.140)(Econ, 12/6/03, p.61)
1856 Jun 14, Ahmad Raza Khan was born in Bareilly, Rohilkhand, British India, a city now in Uttar Pradesh, India. He later founded the Barelvi tradition of Islam. Deobandis and Barelvis are the two major groups of Muslims in the Subcontinent apart from the Shia. Barelvi Hanafis deem Deobandis to be kaafir. Those hostile to the Barelvis deprecated them as the shrine-worshipping, the grave-worshiping, ignorant Barelvis.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Raza_Khan)(Econ, 5/2/09, p.61)
1856 In northeast India the East India Company first moved its troops to the border of the Awadh (Oudh) kingdom and then annexed the state (later part of Uttar Pradesh state). In 1857 rebels took control of Awadh, and it took the British 18 months to reconquer the region, a period which included the famous Siege of Lucknow. Oudh was placed back under a chief commissioner, and was governed as a British province. The descendants of the ruler, the Nawab, remained in the city as powerful landlords, living off the family's riches.
(AP, 12/11/10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awadh)
1857 May 10, The Seepoys of India revolted against the British Army. The Bengal Army, Indian soldiers in the British army, staged a revolt in what is viewed as the first attempt at independence. The Rani of Jhansi, a charismatic female strategist, led the Hindu revolt.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)(HN, 5/10/98)(SSFC, 11/9/03, p.C9)
1857 May 11, Indian mutineers against the British seized Delhi.
(HN, 5/11/98)
1857 Jul 15, British women and children were murdered in the second Cawnpore Massacre during the Indian Mutiny.
(HN, 7/15/98)
1857 Sep 20, Delhi, India, fell to British forces.
(AP, 9/20/07)
1857 The 1st madrasah, religious school, was founded in Deoband in the wake of a jihad against British colonial government.
(WSJ, 10/2/01, p.A1A14)
1858 Mar 21, British forces in India lifted the siege of Lucknow, ending the Indian Mutiny.
(HN, 3/21/99)
1858 The British colonized the Andaman Islands home to 10 tribes of the Great Andamanese comprising some 5,000 people. Most were killed or died of diseases brought by the colonizers. In 2010 the last speaker of Bo, one of the ten dialects used by the tribes, died.
(Reuters, 2/6/10)
1858 The East India Company was abolished and the British government assumed the administration of India.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)
1859 The Murray’s "Handbook for Travelers in India" was first published.
(SFEC,11/23/97, p.T5)
1860 A British seaman proposed digging a deeper, 19-mile shipping canal in the shallow Palk strait between India and Sri Lanka. In 2004 India planned to go ahead with the project.
(Econ, 11/6/04, p.44)
1861 In Bombay, India, the Magen David synagogue was erected at the sole expense of David Sasson Esq.
(WSJ, 9/17/98, p.A20)
1861 British colonial rulers framed an anti-homosexuality law for India.
(Reuters, 7/7/06)
1861 In India the Murree Brewery Co. Ltd. was founded by British colonialists. In 1947 it came under the control of Pakistan.
(SFC, 7/10/00, p.A8)
1861-1941 Sir Rabindranath Tagore, Indian Nobel Prize-winning poet: "Each child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man."
(AP, 10/26/00)
1862 Nov 7, The body of exiled Bahadur Shah Zafar II was lowered into an unmarked grave in Rangoon (Burma-Myanmar). Zafar II, the last Mughal emperor in India, was deposed in the 1857 sepoy mutiny. In 2006 William Dalrymple authored “The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi, 1857.”
(Econ, 11/11/06, p.96)
1863 George Richmond, R.A., painted the portrait "Maharani ‘Chund Kowr’ alias Rani Jindan" in India.
(SFEM, 2/1/98, p.14)(SFC, 2/7/98, p.E1)
1864 Oct 1, A cyclone struck Calcutta and 70,000 were killed. [see Oct 5]
(MC, 10/1/01)
1864 Oct 5, Calcutta, India, was denuded by a cyclone and some 70,000 people were killed.
(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1865 Dec 30, Rudyard Kipling (d.1936), British author and poet, best known for "Jungle Book" and "Soldiers Three," was born in Bombay, India. "There are only two classes of mankind in the world -- doctors and patients." He won the Nobel prize for literature in 1907.
(AP, 12/30/97)(HN, 12/30/98)(AP, 2/7/00)(MC, 12/30/01)
1865 During the Orissa famine in India the British political secretariat of the Bengal government refused to import rice to the stricken areas because it was “a breach of the laws of political economy.”
(WSJ, 2/23/06, p.D8)
1866 In India Mohammed Qasim Nanautawi founded the Darul Uloom school of Islam in Deoband to preserve Islamic culture in India. The school set austere roles for personal behavior and led to offshoots such as the Tablighi Jama’at and the Taliban.
(Econ, 5/2/09, p.60)(http://tinyurl.com/qzkshj)(AP, 2/21/11)
1867-1872 A census was held in India under the direction of the British. These years were spent in taking a census by the actual counting of heads in as much of the country as was practicable. This series, commonly known as the Census of 1872, was not a synchronous project, nor did it cover all territory possessed or controlled by the British.
(Econ, 2/26/11, p.48)
1868 Oct 16, Denmark ended its involvement in India by selling the rights to the Nicobar Islands to the British.
(SFC, 11/3/11, p.A2)
1868 Jamsetji Tata (1839-1904), Indian entrepreneur, started a trading company with a seed capital of Rs. 21,000. His company grew to become the Tata group of companies. In 2011 its global workforce numbered about 395,000 people.
(Econ, 3/5/11, p.76)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamsetji_Tata)
1868 In Darjeeling, India, English tea planters formed the Darjeeling Planters Club.
(SSFC, 7/15/07, p.G5)
1869 Oct 2, Mohandas Karamchad Gandhi (d.1948), called Mahatma, Hindu nationalist, political and spiritual leader was born in Porbandar, India. His nonviolent actions helped to eradicate British rule in India. He was assassinated in 1948. "Love is the strongest force the world possesses, and yet it is the humblest imaginable." "To enjoy life one should give up the lure of life." [see Oct 3]
(AHD, 1971, p.542)(HFA, ‘96, p.40)(SFC, 1/31/97, p.A13) (AP, 10/2/97) (AP, 1/12/98)(HN, 10/2/98)(AP, 1/12/98)(AP, 1/20/99)
1869 Oct 3, Mohandas Karamchad Gandhi (d.1948), called Mahatma, Hindu nationalist and spiritual leader was born. He was later assassinated. [see Oct 2]
(AHD, 1971, p.542)(HFA, ‘96, p.40)(SFC, 1/31/97, p.A13)
1871 In India the Leopold Café opened in Bombay (later Mumbai). It became an institution very popular with foreign tourists trading India stories over beer.
(AP, 11/27/08)
1871 In India the Raj introduced the Criminal Tribes Act, under which members of some 150 tribes were forced to register with the police, forbidden to move around freely and in many cases herded into barbed-wire camps.
(Econ, 4/24/10, p.42)
1872 A census, begun in 1867, was completed in India under the direction of the British.
(Econ, 2/26/11, p.48)
1873 India’s introduced into the Statue Book of the Bengal Births and Deaths Registration Act, to be followed later by the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act of 1886.
(http://tinyurl.com/5wdrbws)
1875 India’s Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) was established.
(Econ, 5/21/11, p.79)
1876 Oct 31, In India’s Megna River Delta a tidal wave caused by a cyclone flooded the river delta and the city of Backergunge. Some areas became covered with 40 feet of water. 100,000 people drowned and another 100,000 were reported to have perished from subsequent diseases caused by polluted water.
(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1876 Queen Victoria added the title of Empress of India.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)
1877-1879 India experienced a devastating famine that left 6-12 million people dead.
(http://sharpgary.org/1864-1895.html)(Econ, 1/29/05, p.74)
1878 In India construction began on the Chattrapati Shivaji Terminus, earlier known as Victoria Terminus Station. It was completed after 10 years. UNESCO included it in their list of world heritage sites in 2004.
(AP, 11/27/08)
1878 British officials recorded 624 human killings by wolves in the area of Banbirpur in the state of Uttar Pradesh.
(SFC, 9/1/96, p.A16)
1881 The first complete census of India’s population was conducted on a uniform basis providing the most complete and continuous demographic record for any comparable population.
(http://tinyurl.com/5wdrbws)
1882 Jun 6, Cyclone in Arabian Sea (Bombay India) drowned 100,000.
(MC, 6/6/02)
1884 In Bombay a Jewish synagogue was erected by Jacob Elias David Sasson and his brothers.
(WSJ, 9/17/98, p.A20)
1884 Dabur India Ltd. was established by a doctor who prescribed mint leaf remedies to cure stomach aches. It later became the largest company in Ayurvedic medicine.
(WSJ, 12/27/99, p.B9D)
1885 Mar 31, Madame Blavatsky was hoisted in an invalid chair onto a steamer in the Madras harbor of India and departed for London. In England she wrote "The Secret Doctrine" and had as guests to her salon William Butler Yeats, Annie Besant and the young Mohandas K. Gandhi.
(Smith., 5/95, p.127)
1886 The Congress Party of India was founded.
(SFC, 1/9/96, p.A10)
1886-1967 Mir Osman Ali Khan, 7th and last ruler of the Sif Jahi dynasty in India. He ruled Hyderabad up to 1948 and amassed a fortune from taxation. He donated to hundreds of universities and hospitals regardless of caste and religion. When he died rooms were found filled with bank notes eaten through by rats.
(WSJ, 1/11/98, p.R18)
1887 Feb 26, Sir Benegal Narsing Rau, president of UN Security Council (1950), was born in India.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1887 In Mumbai, India, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (aka Victoria Terminus) was completed in Gothic Revival style, designed by British architect F.W. Stevens.
(SSFC, 5/23/10, p.N4)
1887 Swami Sivananda (d.1963) was born as Kuppuswami in India. He became a doctor but opted for a spiritual path with 6 commands: Serve, Love, Give, Purify, Meditate, Realize.”
(SSFC, 10/3/04, p.D5)(www.yogamag.net/yogas/inspY.shtml)
1888 Apr 20, 246 people were reported killed by hail in Moradabad, India.
(MC, 4/20/02)
1889 Nov 14, Jawaharlal Nehru (d.1964), Indian nationalist leader (1947-1964), was born. "A man who is afraid will do anything."
(AP, 9/27/97)(HN, 11/14/00)(MC, 11/14/01)
1889 The Ahmadiyah sect of Islam was established in India and considered its founder Mirza Ghulam Ahmad to be a savior and messiah, counter to traditional Islamic teaching. By 2011 it had tens of millions of members worldwide and around 200,000 in Indonesia.
(AP, 8/9/11)
1889 A telegraph line connected Victoria, Canada, to India by way of an undersea cable from Bamfield.
(SSFC, 3/3/02, p.C8)
1890 Capt. Hamilton Bower, an Indian Army intelligence officer, returned to Calcutta with 51 birch-bark leaves of a manuscript acquired from a treasure hunter in Kucha, along the northern route of the Silk Road. They proved to be the oldest known Indian manuscripts.
(AM, 7/00, p.72)
1892 Plague hit China and spread throughout south Asia. It ended after killing 6 million people in India.
(SFC, 7/2/05, p.F9)
1893 The Durand line, drawn by British diplomat Sir Mortimer Durand, fixed the borders of Afghanistan with British India, splitting Pushtun tribal areas, leaving half of these Afghans in what is now Pakistan. By 2007 no Afghan government had yet accepted the border.
(www.afghan-web.com/history/)(Econ, 7/22/06, p.44)(Econ, 8/18/07, p.34)
1894 The British introduced the Land Acquisition Act in India in order to build railroads and canals. It obliged private owners to part with land required for a public purpose.
(Econ, 8/30/08, p.63)
1894 Mullah Powindah, an Afghan-backed Mehsud, led an attack on a British team demarcating the frontier between India and Afghanistan. Powindah took the title Badshah-Taliban (King of the Taliban) and became a 2-decade-long headache for the British.
(Econ, 1/2/10, p.19)
1895 The British began shipping thousands of Indians to east Africa to build a railway. Many settled there to become station masters, artisans, clerks and shopkeepers.
(Econ, 4/12/08, p.67)
1895-1986 Jiddu Krishnamurti, Indian author and philosopher: "To seek fulfillment is to invite frustration."
(AP, 6/19/98)
1897 Jun 12, Possibly the most severe quake in history struck Assam, India. Shock waves were felt over an area size of Europe.
(MC, 6/12/02)
1897 Nov 23, Nirad C. Chaudhuri (d.1999 at 101), author and scholar, was born in Kishorganj. At age 90 he published his 2nd autobiography "Thy Hand Great Anarch."
(SFC, 8/3/99, p.A20)
1898 British army officers began using the new portable Roorkhee chair. It was named in honor of the headquarters of the Indian Army corps of Engineers at Roorkhee.
(SSFM, 4/1/01, p.46)
1899-1905 Lord George Nathaniel Curzon served as Viceroy of India.
(SSFM, 4/1/01, p.43)
1900 The Maharajah of Patiala, Sir Bhupinder Singh, ascended the throne of Patiala at the age of 8. Patiala was a prominent Sikh state in northwestern India. He was known for his jeweled sarpech, a turban ornament.
(WSJ, 11/5/99, p.W16)
1900-1947 This period of India’s history is covered in the 2007 book “Indian summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire,” by Alex von Tunzelmann.
(SSFC, 8/12/07, p.M3)
1901 Rudyard Kipling published "Kim."
(WSJ, 7/17/98, p.W11)
1901 India’s population of about 300 million was secured and governed by a British contingent of some 154,000 including dependents. In 2005 David Gilmour authored “The Ruling Caste: Imperial Lives in the Victorian Raj.”
(Econ, 11/12/05, p.89)
1903 Jun 25, George Orwell (d.1950), English novelist, essayist and critic, was born in India as Eric Arthur Blair. He took his pen name in 1932. His books included "Animal Farm" (1945) and "1984" (1949), which attacked totalitarianism. "Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it."
(HN, 6/25/99)(AP, 9/23/00)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell)
1903 English Col. Francis Younghusband marched off from Darjeeling, India, with 1,000 British and Indian soldiers, 7,000 mules and 4,000 yaks to invade Tibet.
(SSFC, 7/15/07, p.G5)
1903 In India 110 the five-star Taj Mahal Palace and Tower was built in Bombay (later Mumbai).
(AP, 11/27/08)
1906 May 29, Terence Hanbury White (T.H. White), novelist (The Sword in the Stone, England Have My Bones), was born in Bombay, India.
(HN, 5/29/01)(SC, 5/29/02)
1906 Sep 11, Mohandas Gandhi addressed a meeting in Johannesburg on social protest against the Asiatic Law Amendment, a new law by the province of Transvaal that made it compulsory for all Indians over age 8 to register with the government and carry ID cards. In the India Opinion he published articles on what he called Satyagraha (Truth Force): "the vindication of truth not by infliction of suffering on the opponent but on one's self."
(ON, 9/03, p.1)
1907 Jul 1, The Asiatic Registration Act became law in the province of Transvaal, SA.
(ON, 9/03, p.1)
1907 India’s Tata firm opened an office in London to buy supplies for its Indian operations.
(Econ, 9/10/11, p.61)
1910 Feb 25, The Dalai Lama fled from the Chinese and took refuge in India.
(HN, 2/25/98)
1910 Aug 26, Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu (d.1997), later known as Mother Teresa and care-taker of the poor in Calcutta, was born to an ethnic Albanian family in Uskub (later Skopje, Macedonia). In 1950 she founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta and in 1979 was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for her work.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.C3)(AP, 9/26/04)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa)
1910 In India Laxmanrao Kirloskar banded together 25 workers and their families and succeeded in transforming a barren expanse in Aundh state into his dream village. Kirloskar Brothers Limited (KBL), the first Kirloskar venture at Kirloskarvadi was to become the base for all of the Kirloskar Group's subsequent enterprises. It began as the only Indian company with its own products, a fodder cutter and iron plough, which competed with British products.
(http://kirloskarapps.kirloskar.com/kirloskar/web/11$M1.html)(Econ, 6/3/06, Survey p.8)
1911 Dec 12, In northern India Britain’s King George V stood before princes and maharajahs, soldiers and bureaucrats, and made a surprise announcement that would change the fate of Delhi, an ancient fading city. The king said Delhi would be the new capital of India.
(AP, 12/11/11)
1911 King George V of Britain visited India. He went hunting in Nepal and from the back of an elephant bagged 21 tigers, 8 rhinos, and a bear.
(NG, 12/97, p.138)
1912 Jan 1, Kim Philby was born in India. He became a ringleader of a group of upper crust Englishmen who entered public service or, in many cases, the British Secret Service, then spied for the Soviets. Philby got away and spent his last years in Moscow.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Philby)
1912 In India the film “Pundalit,” the first result of an Indian’s use to tell a story, opened in Bombay. An ad for the film survived, but the film itself was lost.
(Econ, 12/2/06, p.87)
1913 Nov 6, Mohandas K. Gandhi was arrested as he led a march of Indian miners in South Africa.
(AP, 11/6/97)
1914 Jan, Gen. Smuts began negotiations with Mohandas Gandhi to eradicate many of the racist laws imposed on South African Indians.
(ON, 9/03, p.5)
1914 Sep 22, The German cruiser Emden shelled Madras, India, destroying 346,000 gallons of fuel and killing only five civilians.
(HN, 9/22/99)
1914 An 840km stretch of frontier between China and India (Arunachal Pradesh state), in effect independent at this time, was settled by the governments of India and Tibet and named the McMahon Line after Sir Henry McMahon, creator of the border line.
(Econ, 8/21/10, p.18)
1915 Nov 22, The Anglo-Indian army, led by British General Sir Charles Townshend, attacked a larger Turkish force under General Nur-ud-Din at Ctesiphon, Iraq, but was repulsed.
(HN, 11/22/98)
1917 Nov 19, Indira Gandhi was born in Allahabad. She served as prime minister of India from 1967 to 1977 and 1978 to 1984, when she was assassinated by her own guards.
(HN, 11/19/00)(AP, 11/19/07)
1919 Mar 30, Gandhi announced resistance against Rowlatt Act.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1919 Apr 13, In the Amritsar Massacre British forces under the command of General Reginald Dyer killed hundreds of Indian nationalists in the thickly crowded plaza at Jallianwala Bagh.
(HN, 4/13/98)(EWH, 4th ed., p.1101)
1919 Dec 23, Britain instituted a new constitution for India.
(HN, 12/23/98)
1919 Gilette Co. opened a sales office in Calcutta. Razor blades were sold from a plant in London.
(WSJ, 3/13/97, p.A1)
1919-1996 Pandit Pran Nath (1919-1996), Indian classical singer and teacher, moved to New York in 1972. He was a master of the 600-year-old kirana style of Hindustani music that involves very minute gradations of pitch. He also redesigned the tamboura.
(SFC, 6/18/96, p.A17)
1920 Mar 23, The Perserikatan Communist of India (PKI) political party formed.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1920 Apr 7, Ravi Shankar, sitar player, was born in Benares, India.
(MC, 4/7/02)
1920 Apr 26, Srinivasa Ramanujan (b.1887), Indian mathematician, died in India. In 1913 English mathematician G.H. Hardy recognized his brilliant work, and asked Ramanujan to study under him at Cambridge. In 2007 British playwright Simon McBurney created “A Disappearing Number,” for his theater group “Complicite,” based on Ramanujan’s 5 years a Cambridge.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan)(Econ, 9/1/07, p.76)
1920-1921 The Indus Valley, or Harrapan, civilization was discovered when engraved seals were discovered near present-day Sahiwal in Pakistani Punjab at a place called Harappa.
(EAWC, p.2)(http://inic.utexas.edu/asnic/subject/peoplesandlanguages.html)
1920s British architect Edward Luyten built New Delhi in the late 20s.
(Hem., 2/97, p.57)
1921 Feb 12, In Delhi, India, the Duke of Connaught laid the foundation stone of the Parliament building, designed by Herbert Baker.
(www.indfy.com/places-to-see-in-delhi/central-delhi/parliament-house.html)
1921 Mar 3, In India the Central Legislative Assembly opened. The Committee on Public Accounts was first set up in the wake of the Montague-Chelmsford Reforms. The Finance Member of the Executive Council used to be the Chairman of the Committee. The Secretariat assistance to the Committee was rendered by the then Finance Department (later the Ministry of Finance). This position continued right up to 1949.
(http://tinyurl.com/2tnbet)(www.parliamentofindia.nic.in/ls/intro/p14.htm)
1921 May 2, Satyajit Ray, Indian film director (Aparajito, The World of Apu), was born.
(HN, 5/2/02)
1921 Jun 28, P.V. Narasimha Rao (d.2004), later India’s Prime Minister (1991-1996), was born to an upper-caste farming family in Andhra Pradesh state.
(SFC, 12/24/04, p.B4)
1921 Mohandas Gandhi began peaceful the non-cooperation movement against British rule. The Non-cooperation Movement of 1920-'22 sought to induce the British government to grant self-government to India. The movement grew from the Amritsar massacre of April 1919, when the British killed some 400 Indians. The movement marked the transition of Indian nationalism from a middle class to a mass movement.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)(HNQ, 11/24/98)
1922 Mar 18, Mohandas K. Gandhi was sentenced in India to six years' imprisonment for civil disobedience. He was released after serving two years. [see Mar 22]
(AP, 3/18/97)(HN, 3/18/98)
1922 Mar 22, A British court sentenced Mahatma Gandhi to 6 years in prison. [see Mar 18]
(MC, 3/22/02)
1922 Civil disobedience demonstrators killed 22 police officers and Gandhi called off his campaign of disobedience.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)
1923 Apr 8, Death toll from plague reached 1,000 in India.
(HN, 4/8/98)
1924 Feb 24, Mahatma Gandhi was released from jail.
(MC, 2/24/02)
1924 The Gateway of India monument in Bombay was completed. It commemorated the 1st visit of a British monarch to India, King George V and Queen Mary in 1911.
(AP, 8/26/03)
1924 Gandhi undertook a fast to end Hindu-Muslim rioting. The rioting stopped after 21 days.
(SFC, 12/1/00, p.A12)
1924 Archeologists identified a writing system they called the Indus Valley Script.
(SFC, 9/15/06, p.A3)
1925 Jul 26, Tyeb Mehta, painter and film maker, was born in Gujarat, India. In 2005 one of his paintings fetched $1.58 million.
(Econ, 9/16/06, p.75)(www.iloveindia.com/indian-heroes/tyeb-mehta.html)
1925 In India the National Volunteer Corps, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), was founded. The Hindu revival group was highly disciplined and led its members in military style physical training. The corps spawned a political movement that coalesced as the BJP in 1980.
(WSJ, 5/16/96, p.A-10)(WSJ, 2/27/98, p.A1)
1925 Bombay, India, introduced a new commuter rail service.
(SFC, 11/12/04, p.W1)
1926 Apr 2, Riots took place between Moslems and Hindus in Calcutta.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1927 The book "Mother India" by Katherine Mayo demonized Indian civilization with images of widow burnings, untouchability and cow-worship.
(SFEC, 12/13/98, BR p.3)
1927 In India the Musalman Urdu-language newspaper began operating in Chennai. In 2008 the handwritten newspaper was still operating with some 23,000 subscribers.
(WSJ, 9/16/08, p.A20)
1927 In India the Deonar dumping ground opened in Bombay (later Mumbai).
(Econ, 2/28/09, SR p.8)
1928 Aug 30, Jawaharlal Nehru requested the independence of India.
(MC, 8/30/01)
1928 In India British colonial authorities began to print money.
(WSJ, 8/29/96, B1)
1929 Apr 26, First non-stop flight from England to India was completed.
(HN, 4/26/98)
1929 In India Karam Chand Thapar (1900-1962/3), founded what came to be known as the Thapar group of companies. In 2007 the group was rebranded as “Avantha” under the leadership of grandson Gautam Thapar.
(www.hrfolks.com/knowledgebank/businesshouses.htm)(Econ, 4/10/10, p.68)
1930 Mar 8, Mahatma Gandhi started civil disobedience in India. [see Mar 12]
(MC, 3/8/02)
1930 Mar 12, Indian political and spiritual leader Mohandas K. Gandhi began a 200-mile march to the sea to protest a British tax on salt. The march symbolized his defiance of British Rule over India.
(HN, 3/12/98)(AP, 3/12/98)
1930 Apr 5, Mahatma Ghandi defied British law by making salt in India instead of buying it from the British.
(HN, 4/5/99)
1930 May 4, Mahatma Gandhi was arrested by the British.
(HN, 5/4/98)
1930 Gandhi called for peaceful civil disobedience and the Indian National Congress issued a declaration of grievances against Britain.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)
1930 A competition began in India, known as the Empire Games. It gathered the British empire's athletes as a way to bind together the Britain’s vast dominions. The games later became known as the Commonwealth Games.
(AP, 10/1/10)
1930 Shyamaji Krishnavarma (b.1857), founder of a pro-independence monthly the India House, a hub for British-based Indian nationalists, died in Geneva. His ashes were returned to India in 2003.
(AP, 8/22/03)
1931-1933 In 2007 it was reported that British scientists began conducting experiments in the early 1930s to determine whether mustard gas damaged Indians' skin more than British soldiers'. They went on for more than 10 years at a military site in Rawalpindi (later a part of Pakistan).
(AP, 9/1/07)
1931 Feb 10, New Delhi became the capital of India. [see Mar 26]
(MC, 2/10/02)
1931 Mar 5, Gandhi and British viceroy Lord Irwin signed a pact.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1931 Mar 25, Fifty people were killed in riots that broke out in India. Gandhi was one of many people assaulted.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1931 Mar 26, New Delhi replaced Calcutta as capitol of British-India. [see Feb 10]
(SS, 3/26/02)
1931 Francis Ingall (d.1998 at 89) led his Lancers in a charge on horseback at the Battle of Karawal near the Khyber Pass against Afridi tribesmen. It was the final such attack by a regiment of the British Army. He later authored "The Last of the Bengal Lancers."
(SFC, 9/25/98, p.D4)
1931 The India Gate was built in New Delhi as tribute to the 90,000 Indian soldiers who died in WW I.
(SFEC, 5/21/00, p.T8)
1931 India held a census that measured castes, as colonial Britain still ruled. India’s 2010 census also included a question on caste.
(AP, 5/27/10)
1932 Sep 20, Gandhi began a hunger strike against the treatment of untouchables.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1933 May 18, H.D. Deve Gowda, later chief minister of the southern state of Karnataka and then prime minister in 1996, was born.
(WP, 6/29/96, p.A20)
1933 May 8, Gandhi began a hunger strike to protest British oppression in India.
(HN, 5/8/98)
1934 Jan 15, An 8.4 earthquake in India and Nepal killed some 15,000 people. It damaged the Mahabuddha Temple in Patan, Nepal, one of but 3 in the world.
(http://asc-india.org/menu/gquakes.htm)(WSJ, 1/22/98, p.A17)
1934 Apr 1, India’s Reserve Bank of India was established.
(Econ, 4/11/09, p.76)
1934 Apr 7, In India, Mahatma Gandhi suspended his campaign of civil disobedience.
(MC, 4/7/02)
1934 Oct 24, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, called Mahatma or "Great Soul," resigned from Congress in India.
(HN, 10/24/98)
1934 Margaret Sanger, US birth control pioneer, was invited to Trivandrum in Kerala.
(SFEM, 7/18/99, p.12)
1935 Mar 19, The British fired on 20,000 Moslems in India, killing 23.
(HN, 3/19/98)
1935 May 31, In Quetta, India (later Pakistan), a magnitude 7.5 earthquake killed some 50,000 people. The earthquake flattened Quetta, killing an estimated 26,000 people in the city alone, more than half its population.
(AP, 12/27/03)(AP, 10/15/05)
1935 R. K. Narayan (d.2001), age 29, published his 1st book: "Swami and Friends" in Britain.
(SFC, 5/14/01, p.B2)
1935 In India the Doon School was founded in Dehra Dun, 140 miles northeast of New Delhi, on the former site of Imperial Forest College & Research Institute.
(WSJ, 6/3/06, p.A1)
1935 Delhi, India, recorded minus 0.6 degrees Celsius.
(AP, 1/8/06)
1936 Feb 8, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru followed Gandhi as chairman of India Congress Party.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1936 Apr 29, Zubin Mehta, conductor (NY Philharmonic 1976), was born in Bombay, India.
(MC, 4/29/02)
1936-1947 Mirza Ali Khan (d.1960), a Wazir of North Waziristan known as the Faqir of Ipi, led a freedom struggle that at one point sucked in some 40,000 British Indian troops. The struggle was only quelled by brutal aerial bombing.
(Econ, 1/2/10, p.19)
1938 In India Lakireddy Bali Reddy was born in Velvadam in Andhra Pradesh state. The Reddy caste was traditionally made up of landowners. He later studied engineering at UC Berkeley and established land holdings valued at some $60 million.
(SFEC, 2/6/00, p.A12)
1938 In India Uday Shankar opened a school of dance in Almora to teach both Western and local traditions.
(TL, 1988, p.111)
1938 There was extensive flooding in India that was not rivaled until 1998.
(WSJ, 9/4/98, p.A1)
1938 In India Metro Cinema, built by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, opened in Bombay (later Mumbai). Initially the cinema showed only MGM films. In the 1970s an Indian business took over the cinema and it became a popular venue for Bollywood film premieres.
(AP, 11/27/08)
1938 In India the Larsen & Toubro engineering firm was founded in Bombay by two Danes. It came to be viewed as one of India’s best companies.
(Econ, 10/22/11, SR p.8)
1939 Mar 3, In Bombay, Ghandi began a fast to protest the state's autocratic rule.
(HN, 3/3/99)
1939 Mar 21, Ghandi called on the world to disarm, thinking that Hitler would follow.
(HN, 3/21/98)
1940 Mar 23, The All-India Muslim League called for a Muslim homeland.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1940 Jul 27, Bharati Mukherjee, Indian novelist (The Middleman and Other Stories), was born.
(HN, 7/27/01)
1940 The Muslim League demanded a separate homeland for the Muslim-majority regions of India.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)
1941 Apr 14, Julie Christie, actress (Dr Zhivago), was born in Assam, India.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1941 May 25, Some 5,000 drowned in a storm at Ganges Delta region in India.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1941 Nov 24, Indian infantry attacked German tanks at Sidi Omar.
(MC, 11/24/01)
1942 Jan 15, Jawaharlal Nehru succeeded Mohandas K. Gandhi as head of India's National Congress Party.
(AP, 1/15/02)
1942 Feb 9, Chiang Kai-shek met with Sir Stafford Cripps, the British viceroy in India. Detachment 101 harried the Japanese in Burma and provided close support for regular Allied forces.
(HN, 2/9/97)
1942 Feb 22, India’s Capt. Sam Manekshaw (1914-2008) was severely wounded in a counteroffensive against Japanese forces on the Sittong River in Burma. In 1969 Manekshaw became the 8th chief of the Indian army.
(SFC, 7/1/08, p.B5)
1942 May 5, General Joseph Stilwell learned that the Japanese had cut his railway out of China and was forced to lead his troops into India.
(HN, 5/5/99)
1942 May 14, The British, in retreat from Burma, reached India.
(HN, 5/14/98)
1942 Aug 9, Mahatma Gandhi and 50 others were arrested in Bombay after the passing of a "quit India" campaign by the All-India Congress.
(MC, 8/9/02)
1942 Oct 16, In India a cyclone devastated Bengal and about 40,000 lives were lost.
. (www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1942 Dec 20, 1st Japanese began the bombing of Calcutta.
(MC, 12/20/01)
1943 There was a major famine in Bengal that left 3 million people dead.
(SFC, 10/15/98, p.A2)
1943-1947 Archibald Wavell (1883-1950), British Field Marshal, served as the penultimate viceroy of India. In 2009 Adrian Fort authored “Archibald Wavell: The Life and Times of an Imperial Servant.”
(Econ, 1/17/09, p.82)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archibald_Wavell,_1st_Earl_Wavell)
1944 Feb 4, The Japanese attacked the Indian Seventh Army in Burma.
(HN, 2/4/99)
1944 Apr 1, Japanese troops conquered Jessami, East-India.
(MC, 4/1/02)
1944 May 5, Gandhi was freed from prison.
(MC, 5/5/02)
1944 Aug 19, The last Japanese troops were driven out of India.
(MC, 8/19/02)
1944 Aug 20, Rajiv Gandhi, Prime Minster of India (1984-89), was born.
(HN, 8/20/98)(MC, 8/20/02)
1945 May 3, Allied forces captured Rangoon, Burma, from the Japanese.
(AP, 5/3/07)
1945 Aug 18, Subhas Chandra Bose (b.1897), a leader of the Indian Independence Movement, died about this time. He attempted to drive the British out of India by force.
(Econ, 5/23/09, p.92)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subhas_Chandra_Bose)
1945 Nov 29, In India Bajaj Auto came into existence as M/s Bachraj Trading Corporation Private Limited.
(www.bajajauto.com/aboutbajaj/milestones.asp)(Econ, 6/3/06, Survey p.10)
c1945 The India Gate in New Delhi was built to memorialize the 85,000 Indians who died in WW II.
(Hem., 2/97, p.58)
1945 In Amalner Mohamed Hussain Premji (d.1966) founded Western India Vegetable Products Ltd. After 5 decades of bonuses and share splits one original share grew to over 12,000 shares of the Wipro high tech software firm.
(WSJ, 5/9/00, p.A16)
1945-1946 The British government organized elections for a constituent assembly.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)
1945-1949 A series of wars for independence during this period spread from India to Burma, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. In 2007 Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper authored “Forgotten Wars: Freedom and Revolution in Southeast Asia.”
(WSJ, 8/9/07, p.D7)
1946 Feb 23, Anti-British demonstration in India drew a crowd of 300,000.
(HN, 2/23/98)
1946 Mar 15, British premier Attlee agreed with India's right to independence.
(MC, 3/15/02)
1946 May 3, The International Military Tribunal for the Far East convened in Tokyo for Japanese War Crimes. 28 defendants were tried. Radhabinod Pal, the judge from India, was the only judge with an international law background and the only judge to find all the defendants innocent on all counts.
(WSJ, 4/30/98, p.A15)(MC, 5/3/02)
1946 Aug 16, A riot in Calcutta left some 3-4,000 Moslems and Hindus dead.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1946 Sep 2, Nehru formed a government in India.
(MC, 9/2/01)
1947 Jan 2, Mahatma Gandhi began a march for peace in East-Bengali.
(http://tinyurl.com/6sn3vf6)
1947 Feb 20, The British pledged to leave India by June 1948.
(HN, 2/20/98)
1947 Feb 20, Lord Louis Mountbatten was appointed the last viceroy of India.
(MC, 2/20/02)
1947 Mar 6, Winston Churchill opposed the withdrawal of troops from India.
(HN, 3/6/98)
1947 Jun 3, In Britain an announcement was made in the House of Commons that India was to be partitioned and that independence would follow. In 2007 Yasmin Khan authored “The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan.”
(Econ, 7/21/07, p.81)
1947 Jun 15, The All-Indian Congress accepted a British plan for the partition of India. Britain partitioned the subcontinent and Pakistan was founded as an independent country.
(SFC, 7/1/97, p.A9)(HN, 6/15/98)
1947 Jul 18, King George VI signed the Indian Independence Bill. In 2008 Peter Clarke authored “The Last Thousand Days of the British Empire.
(http://indiainteracts.com/columnist/2007/08/15/The-60-days-to-Aug-15-1947India-at-60/)(WSJ, 6/20/08, p.A11)
1947 Aug 15, India gained independence after some 200 years of British rule. Britain partitioned the subcontinent. Prior to independence, 565 princes ruled a third of India. After independence the government let the royals retain their titles and assets in return for incorporating their principalities into the new nation. The 664 princely states of India were given the choice of which country they wanted to join. Although most of the people of Kashmir were Muslim, the maharaja was Hindu and he appealed to India for help. Independence in Pakistan and India led to bloody conflicts and thousands died. In 1999 Fareed Zakaria published "Raj: The Making and Unmaking of British India." In 2006 David Gilmour authored “The Ruling Caste,” an account of Britain’s Indian Civil Service (ICS).
(WSJ, 1/9/95, A-8)(WSJ, 12/21/95, p.A-12)(WSJ, 5/16/96, p.A-10)(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)(AP, 8/15/97)(SFC, 6/4/98, p.C2)(WSJ, 1/29/99, p.W7)(WSJ, 2/23/06, p.D8)
1947 Sep 7, Battles took place between Hindus and Moslems in New Delhi.
(MC, 9/7/01)
1947 Oct 27, The Hindu maharajah of Muslim-majority Kashmir joined India. The accession, not recognized by Pakistan, led to a war.
(SSFC, 12/30/01, p.A22)(SFC, 6/8/02, p.A20)
1947 Nov 2, Jawaharlal Nehru said: "We have declared that the fate of Kashmir is ultimately to be decided by the people. That pledge we have given, and the Maharaja has supported it not only to the people of Kashmir but the world. We will not, and cannot back out of it. We are prepared when peace and law and order have been established to have a referendum held under international auspices like the United Nations. We want it to be a fair and just reference to the people, and we shall accept their verdict. I can imagine no fairer and juster offer."
(http://tinyurl.com/8sovl)
1947 In India the “Bombay Rents, Hotel and Lodging House Rates Control Act” was adopted to provide relief to the city’s migrants following partition with Pakistan. Rents were set to 1940 levels to prevent gouging. By 2006 the measure had been extended over 20 times and property development was severely impeded as tenants fought to hold on to rent-controlled apartments.
(WSJ, 6/5/06, p.A6)
1947 India passed an Industrial Disputes Act. Chapter 5B barred establishments with over 100 workers from laying off employees without the permission of the state government.
(Econ, 6/3/06, Survey p.12)
1947 At the time of India’s partition and the creation of Pakistan, many Muslim Biharis moved to what was then East Bengal. In 1971, when war broke out between West Pakistan and East Pakistan (or Bangladesh), the Biharis, who mostly considered themselves Pakistani, sided with West Pakistan.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biharis)
1947 Rajshri, an entertainment conglomerate, was founded.
(WWW, 1947)
1947 Vittal Mallya (d.1983), formed UB Group in India when he bought a controlling interest in Kingfisher Beer.
(SSFC, 10/26/03, p.I3)
1947 India’s population was about 340 million.
(SSFC, 6/24/01, p.A27)
1947 Britain withdrew from India. Pakistan was carved out of Indian and Afghan lands.
(www.afghan-web.com/history/)
1947 A Pushtun force of Wazirs and Mehsuds poured into Kashmir for the newly formed Islamic republic of Pakistan, sparking the first Indo-Pakistan war.
(Econ, 1/2/10, p.17)(Econ, 5/21/11, p.48)
1947-1990 This period in India came to be known as the “License Raj,” as the country operated a planned economy with extensive red tape.
(Econ, 11/15/08, SR p.9)
1947-1991 The was a socialist period in India. Firms faced claustrophobic restrictions from the state and tended to expand in any direction they could.
(Econ, 10/22/11, SR p.8)
1948 Jan 18, Ghandi broke a 121-hour fast after halting Moslem-Hindu riots.
(HN, 1/18/99)
1948 Jan 30, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (78) was assassinated by Nathuram Godse, a fellow Hindu while walking to a prayer meeting in New Delhi a few minutes after five o'clock in the evening. Godse felt that in trying to achieve reconciliation between Hindus and Muslims, Gandhi had betrayed the Hindu cause. Born into a family of merchants, Gandhi studied law in England, where he was inspired by Henry David Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience" and developed his own philosophy of peaceful resistance. After residing and practicing law in South Africa for 20 years, Gandhi returned to India to campaign for home rule and reconciliation of all classes and religious groups. Convinced that India would never be free as part of the British Empire, he demanded independence as payment for helping Britain win World War II. Indian independence was achieved in 1947, but riots broke out between Hindus and Muslims seeking the partition of the country into India and Pakistan. Mahatma ("Great Soul") Gandhi was on a hunger strike demanding an end to the violence when he was murdered. The book "Gandhi the Man" by Eknath Easwaran was published in 1972.
(AHD, 1971, p.542)(HFA, '96, p.40)(SFC, 1/31/97, p.A13)(SFC,12/24/97, p.C6) (HNPD, 1/309)
1948 The seven sins according to Mahatma Gandhi were: 1) wealth without work. 2) Pleasure without conscience. 3) Knowledge without character. 4) Commerce without morality. 5) Science without humanity. 6) Worship without sacrifice. 7) Politics without principal.
(SFEC, 1/23/00, Z1 p.2)
1948 Feb 28, The last British troops left India. The First Battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry passed through the Gateway of India monument in a ceremony.
(AP, 8/26/03)
1948 May, India and Pakistan went to war over the Himalayan region of Kashmir, which was divided between the two nations at partition. The Pakistani third was known as Jammu and Kashmir, while India controlled the eastern two-thirds where 8 million people lived.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)(WSJ, 5/22/98, p.A15)
1948 Jun 21, Lord Mountbatten resigned as Viceroy of India.
(MC, 6/21/02)
1948 The former kingdom of Ladakh and Kashmir, annexed in 1834 by the maharajah of Jammu, became the East Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.
(SFEC,12/14/97, p.T4)
1948 Electricity laws were passed that limited private involvement.
(WSJ, 8/27/96, p.A10)
1948 India established an Atomic Energy Commission.
(SFC, 5/28/98, p.A9)
1948-1951 The Communist Party was banned in India during this period.
(Econ, 1/23/10, p.82)
1949 Jan 1, The UN brokered a cease-fire in Kashmir. It granted Kashmir the right to vote on whether to remain in India or to join Pakistan. No vote took place.
(SSFC, 12/30/01, p.A22)(SFC, 6/8/02, p.A20)
1949 Jan 30, In India, 100,000 people prayed at the site of Gandhi's assassination on the first anniversary of his death.
(HN, 1/30/99)
1949 Feb 19, Mass arrests of communists took place in India.
(MC, 2/19/02)
1949 May 12, S.V.L. Pandit of India was received as the first foreign woman ambassador to the US.
(SC, internet, 5/12/97)
1949 Sep 21, Manipur merged with India. The former independent kingdom was strong-armed into joining India.
(http://manipuronline.com/Manipur/merger.htm)(Econ, 11/7/09, p.43)
1949 Nov 26, India adopted a constitution as a republic within the British Commonwealth. Pandit Nehru became Prime Minister. B.R. Ambedkar (1891-1956), a Dalit, was the chief architect of the constitution.
(HN, 11/26/98)(AP, 11/26/07)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._R._Ambedkar)
1949 Bhutan decided that its policies would be guided by relations with India.
(Econ, 12/18/04, p.55)
1950 Jan 26, India officially proclaimed itself a republic as Rajendra Prasad took the oath of office as president.
(AP, 1/26/98)
1950 Oct 7, Mother Teresa (1910-1997), known in India as the "saint of the gutters", received permission from the Vatican to start a diocesan congregation that would become the Missionaries of Charity order of nuns in Calcutta.
(AP, 9/26/04)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa)
1950 The Indian film "Barsaat" was a blockbuster written by Ramanand Sagar.
(WSJ, 4/22/98, p.A1)
1950 The Muslim Tablighi Ijtimah (Congregation of Preaching) movement was founded in India. They believed Islam should be spread by setting a good example, one of modesty and non-violence.
(SFC, 11/3/01, p.A7)
1950 Mysore became an Indian state. The former Maharaja became its rajpramukh, or governor, until 1975.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karnataka)
1950 India’s lowest castes and tribes were allowed claim to just over 20% of government and other public-sector jobs. A presidential order excluded any “person who professes a religion different from Hinduism” from entitlement to affirmative action programs. The rule was amended in 1956 to include Dalit Sikhs. The system was extended in 1990 to include another 27% for other backward castes.
(Econ, 4/29/06, p.46)(WSJ, 9/19/07, p.A18)
1950 The Indian Institutes of Technology was established. The first IIT was built on the site of a former British prison camp in Kharagpur. By 2007 the institute had 7 campuses taking in 4,500 new students each year.
(SSFC, 2/25/07, p.B1)
1950 A great earthquake measuring 8.5 ravaged half of northern India’s Assam state. Thousands of dead rats were caught in fisherman’s nets just before the quake.
(SFC, 8/17/96, p.A4)(SFC, 3/30/99, p.F2)
1950 Aurobindo Ghose, Bengalese-born and Western educated guru and yogi, died. "Man lives mostly in his surface mind, life and body, but there is an inner being within him with greater possibilities to which he has to awake to greater beauty, harmony, power and knowledge."
(SSFC, 6/16/02, p.A17)
1951 Jan 24, Indian leader Nehru assailed the U.S. and demanded the UN to name Peking as an aggressor in Korea.
(HN, 1/24/99)
1951 Nirad C. Chaudhuri (1897-1999) published "The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian."
(SFC, 8/3/99, p.A20)(WSJ, 4/4/09, p.W8)
1951 The film "Awaara" (The Vagabond) starred Leela Chitnis. She left India for the US in the 1980s and died in 2003 at age 93.
(SFC, 7/16/03, p.A19)
1951 Indian troops occupied Tawang, some 2000 square km. of valley and high mountains just south of the McMahon Line in northeast Arunachal Pradesh. This took place shortly after China dispatched troops to Tibet.
(Econ, 8/21/10, p.18)
1952 May 13, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru became premier of India.
(MC, 5/13/02)
1952 In India the criminal tribes, named in the 1871 Criminal Tribes Act, were de-notified. Discrimination against the de-notified tribes (DNTs) continued. In 2008 a government commission recommended positive discrimination measures covering some 60 million DNTs as well as 40 million other nomadic people.
(Econ, 4/24/10, p.42)
1953 Oct, Universal Children’s Day was first observed in India. It was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1954. It became observed on different days in different ways in more than 120 nations. In India, Children’s Day is celebrated on 14th November, the birth anniversary of PM Jawaharlal Nehru.
(www.indianchild.com/childrens_day_india.htm)
1953 Sripati Chandrasekhar authored "Hungry People and Empty Lands."
(SSFC, 6/24/01, p.A27)
1953 Durell Stone received a commission to design the American Embassy in New Delhi. From this time on his work incorporated the tropes of Mughal architecture.
(WSJ, 12/2/03, p.A1)
1954 Jun, India and China devised and embraced “five principles of peaceful coexistence.”
(Econ, 7/31/04, p.36)
1955 May 5, India’s parliament accepted Hindu divorce.
(MC, 5/5/02)
1955 The Indian film "Pather Panchali" by Satyajit Ray (d.1992) was produced. It was based on the Bengali novel by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay and was directly influenced by Vittorio De Sica’s “The Bicycle Thief” (1948).
(SFC, 4/30/97, p.E6)(Econ, 6/18/05, p.80)
1955 India established a policy that barred foreign print media from publishing within the country.
(WSJ, 8/13/96, p.A7)
1955 In India the ICICI Bank was founded as a state development bank. In 1994 it formed a commercial banking subsidiary.
(Econ, 5/20/06, Survey p.19)
1956 Sep 1, India’s region of Tripura became a territory. In 1972 it became a state.
(SC, 9/1/02)(http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Tripura)
1956 Dec 6, B.R. Ambedkar (b.1891), a Dalit and chief architect of India’s 1949 constitution, died. “What is the village but a sink of localism, a den of ignorance, narrow-mindedness and communalism.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._R._Ambedkar)(Econ, 12/18/10, p.60)
1956 Indian writer Khushwant Singh (b.1914) authored "Train to Pakistan," a short, powerful novel about the horrors of partition, when colonial India was carved into modern India and Pakistan and about 1 million people died amid the chaos. It became a classic.
(AP, 1/1/10)
1956 In India the princely dominion of Hyderabad was absorbed into the state of Andhra Pradesh.
(Econ, 12/19/09, p.74)
1956 The US and Canada agreed to help India build a nuclear research reactor for power generation. India rejected oversight by the new Int’l. Atomic Energy Agency.
(SFC, 5/28/98, p.A9)
1957 India passed legislation allowing the government to seize stray cattle.
(WSJ, 1/10/06, p.A1)
1958 Sep 11, India passed its Armed Forces Special Powers Act. It conferred special powers upon armed forces in what the language of the act calls "disturbed areas" in the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura. It allowed soldiers to search houses without warrants and shoot anyone suspected of being a terrorist.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armed_Forces_%28Special_Powers%29_Act,_1958)
1958 The Indian film “Mother India,” directed by Mehboob Khan, was nominated for an Oscar.
(Econ, 2/9/08, p.72)
1958 Jawaharlal Nehru, prime minister of India, trekked for a month to make a treaty with Bhutan. He demanded to be met at the border by someone of equal rank. King Wangchuk balked at making the trip and quickly appointed his aide, Jigme Palden Dorji, as prime minister to meet Nehru 127 miles away by mule and foot.
(WSJ, 3/6/97, p.A8)(Econ, 5/14/05, p.46)
1958 India began designing and buying equipment for a plutonium reprocessing plant at Trombay, which would provide it capability for atomic weapons.
(SFC, 5/28/98, p.A9)
1958 Dhirubhai Ambani (d.2002) founded India's project-building Reliance Corp. In 2002 its sales reached $16.8 billion.
(Econ, 12/20/03, p.98)(Econ, 11/27/04, p.69)
1959 Jan, In New Delhi, India, the Int’l. Commission of Jurists held a congress with the theme “The Rule of Law.” They drew up the “declaration of Delhi,” which developed the principles and procedures underlying the Rule of Law as well as defining and clarifying the concept itself.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Delhi)(Econ, 3/15/08, p.84)
1959 Mar 17, The Dalai Lama fled Tibet and went to India, triggering a flood of refugees escaping Chinese rule.
(HN 3/17/98)(WSJ, 8/30/08, p.A8)
1959 Mar 31, Dalai Lama fled the Chinese suppression of a national uprising in Tibet and crossed the border into India. India granted him political asylum.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1959 Oct 23, Chinese troops moved into India and 17 died.
(MC, 10/23/01)
1959 Dec 9-1959 Dec 14, Pres. Eisenhower visited India and met with President Prasad and Prime Minister Nehru. He addressed India’s Parliament and said: “ We who are free, and who prize our freedom above all other gifts of God and nature, must know each other better; trust each other more; support each other.”
(www.theamericanpresidency.us/34thvisitsabroad.htm)(Econ, 2/25/06, p.29)
1959 India kicked out Gillette Co. in order to protect its domestic blade makers.
(WSJ, 3/13/97, p.A1)
1960 May 1, India's Bombay state split into Gujarat and Maharashtra states.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maharashtra)
1960 Sep 19, India and Pakistan signed the Indus Waters Treaty.
(Econ, 5/22/10, SR p.18)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Waters_Treaty)
1960 Oct 10, A cyclone and tidal wave hit the Gulf of Bengal and killed about 6,000 in East Pakistan.
(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1960 In India the film "Mughal-e-Azam" (Emperor of the Moghuls) was released. It became one of Bollywood's greatest classics. In 2004 it was re-released in a color version. The film was set in Lahore at a time when Muslims ruled India. It was shown in Pakistan for the 1st time in 2006.
(AP, 11/8/04)(Reuters, 4/23/06)
1961 Apr 18, Pamella Bordes, British parliament prostitute, was born in New Delhi, India.
(MC, 4/18/02)
1961 Nov 5, India's premier Nehru arrived in NY.
(MC, 11/5/01)
1961 Nov 8, Pres. Kennedy concluded talks with India’s PM Nehru.
(www.historycentral.com/Documents/sixties/118.html)
1961 Nov, India’s PM Jawaharlal Nehru visited with Walt Disney in Disneyland.
(SSFC, 5/1/05, p.F3)
1961 India wrested Goa and Diu from Portugal.
(SSFC, 3/19/06, p.F6)
1961 India outlawed the dowry as an institutionalized marital custom to help reduce gender-driven abortions.
(SFC, 12/6/02, p.J1)
1961 India stopped public funding for Anglo schools.
(Econ, 10/23/10, p.51)
1961 M.S. Swaminathan, adviser to India’s minister of agriculture, invited Norman Borlaug, a plant geneticist who had improved the yield on Mexican wheat, to visit India.
(Econ, 12/24/05, p.29)
1961 Bharat Forge incorporated in India. By 2006 it was the world’s second biggest maker of forgings for car engine and chassis components.
(Econ, 6/3/06, Survey p.8)(www.bharatforge.com/insidepages/company/history.asp)
1961-1968 Octavio Paz, poet and Nobel laureate, served as the Mexican ambassador to India. In 1997 he published "In Light of India."
(SFEC, 8/31/97, BR p.9)
1962 Oct 20, A Chinese army landed in India for a brief border war in the Himalayas. The northeast Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, twice the size of Switzerland, was occupied in a week-long assault by China and closed to foreign tourists, due to the border war. Some 3,000 Indian officers and men were killed. China gained control from India of the northeast region of Kashmir known as Aksai Chin. Arunachal Pradesh re-opened in 1993.
(WSJ, 5/16/96, p.A-10)(SFC, 11/29/96, p.A1)(http://countrystudies.us/nepal/19.htm)(SSFC, 12/30/01, p.A22)(SSFC, 1/4/04, p.C10)(Econ, 7/5/08, p.95)(Econ, 8/21/10, p.17)
1962 Nov 21, China agreed to a cease-fire on India-China border.
(AP, 11/21/02)
1962 Kalpana Chawla, US astronaut, was born Karnal, India. She was among the 7 astronauts killed in the US Columbia space shuttle tragedy Feb 1, 2003.
(SSFC, 2/2/03, p.A8)
1962 China exacted control over western Tibet and many nomad refugees fled to Ladakh.
(SFEC,12/14/97, p.T4)
1963 Mar, Norman Borlaug, plant breeder, arrived in India and began testing new varieties of Mexican wheat, whose yields were shown to be 4-5 times better than Indian varieties. In 1970 he won the Nobel Prize for his development of high-yield wheat varieties for which he was dubbed father of the "Green Revolution."
(SFC, 10/15/97, p.A15)(WSJ, 12/3/02, p.A1)(Econ, 12/24/05, p.30)
1963 May 20-1963 May 23, In East Pakistan a cyclone killed about 22,000 along coast of the Bay of Bengal.
(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1963 Nov 21, India launched its first rocket from Thumba in Kerala state.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thumba_Equatorial_Rocket_Launching_Station)
1963 Dec 2, Sabu Sabu (39), actor (Sabu Dastagir), died of a heart attack in Chatsworth, California. He was born in Karapur, Mysore, India, on January 27, 1924, beginning his movie career at the age of 13. His films included “Elephant Boy” (1937); “Drums” (1938); “The Thief of Baghdad” (1940); “Jungle Book” (1942) and “Arabian Nights” (1942).
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0754942/)
1963 India’s huge Bhakra dam was built in Himachal Pradesh. It brought 7 million hectares of northwest India under irrigation.
(Econ, 9/12/09, p.28)
1963 Ray Dolby, while working in India, conceived of separating recorded sound into 2 channels as a means to strip away unwanted tape recording noise. His 1st prototype was completed in London in 1966.
(SFC, 3/29/04, p.D1)
1963 India’s space program began in Trivandrum, Kerala, in this year. The Vikram Sarabhai Space Center in Trivandrum was named for the father of Indian rocketry.
(NG, 5/88, p.598)
1964 Jan 10, Battles took place between Muslims & Hindus in Calcutta.
(MC, 1/10/02)
1964 May 27, Independent India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, died. In 2003 Judith M. Brown authored "Nehru: A Political Life."
(AP, 5/27/97)(Econ, 10/18/03, p.82)
1964 Dec 23, India and Ceylon were hit by a cyclone and 4,850 were killed.
(MC, 12/23/01)
1964 R. K. Narayan (d.2001) authored "Gods, Demons and Others." In it he retold stories from Sanskrit and Tamil epics
(SFC, 5/14/01, p.B2)
1964 In India the Communist Party split over India’s war with China.
(Econ, 1/23/10, p.82)
1964 The first Indian mutual fund, Unit Scheme-1964 aka US-64, was founded.
(WSJ, 10/15/98, p.A20)
1964-1968 In India’s "green revolution" the wheat crop increased from 10 million to 17 million tons following the use of dwarfing genes and fertilizer to increase the grains on each stalk. Chidambaram Subramaniam, minister of agriculture, convinced Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri to use new seeds, developed by Norman Borlaug (Nobel Prize 1970) in Mexico, for wheat production.
(SFC, 11/11/00, p.A26)(WSJ, 12/3/02, p.A1)
1965 Apr 5, The second Indo-Pakistani conflict began when fighting broke out in the Rann of Kachchh, a sparsely inhabited region along the West Pakistan-India border.
(Encyclopaedia.com, 2002)
1965 Aug 6, Indo-Pakistani fighting spread to Kashmir and to the Punjab, The 2nd Indo-Pakistani conflict started without a formal declaration of war. Skirmishes with Indian forces started as early as August 6 or 7.
(http://ph.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0858805.html)
1965 Apr 9, India and Pakistan engaged in a border fight.
(MC, 4/9/02)
1965 May 11-12, In East Pakistan a cyclone killed some 12,000.
(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1965 May 25, India and Pakistan engaged in border fights.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1965 Jun 1-2, The 2nd of 2 cyclones in less than a month killed 35,000 along the Ganges River in East Pakistan.
(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1965 Aug 6, Indian troops invaded Pakistan. Indo-Pakistani fighting spread to Kashmir and to the Punjab, The 2nd Indo-Pakistani conflict started without a formal declaration of war. Skirmishes with Indian forces started as early as August 6 or 7.
(http://ph.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0858805.html)(MC, 8/6/02)
1965 Aug 14, The first major engagement between the regular armed forces of India and Pakistan took place. The next day, Indian forces scored a major victory after a prolonged artillery barrage and captured three important mountain positions in the northern sector. Later in the month, the Pakistanis counterattacked, moving concentrations near Tithwal, Uri, and Punch. Their move, in turn, provoked a powerful Indian thrust into Azad Kashmir. Other Indian forces captured a number of strategic mountain positions and eventually took the key Haji Pir Pass, eight kilometers inside Pakistani territory.
(Encyclopaedia.com, 2002)(http://ph.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0858805.html)
1965 Sep 1-19, Indian gains led to a major Pakistani counterattack in the southern sector, in Punjab, where Indian forces were caught unprepared and suffered heavy losses. The sheer strength of the Pakistani thrust, which was spearheaded by seventy tanks and two infantry brigades, led Indian commanders to call in air support. Pakistan retaliated on September 2 with its own air strikes in both Kashmir and Punjab.
(http://www.onwar.com/aced/chrono/c1900s/yr65/fkashmir1965)
(WSJ, 6/11/96, p.A12)(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)(HN, 9/6/98)(SFC, 6/8/02, p.A20)(MC, 9/1/02)(Encyclopaedia.com, 2002)
1965 Sep 20, The India-Pakistani war was at the point of stalemate when the UN Security Council unanimously passed a resolution that called for a cease-fire. New Delhi accepted the cease-fire resolution on September 21 and Islamabad on September 22, and the war ended on September 23. The Indian side lost 3,000 while the Pakistani side suffered 3,800 battlefield deaths.
(http://www.onwar.com/aced/chrono/c1900s/yr65/fkashmir1965)
1965 Sep 22, Pakistan agreed to the UN brokered cease-fire that India affirmed the day before. [see Jan 10, 1966]
(HNQ, 4/26/99)
1965 The Oberoi Hotel opened and was India’s first luxury lodging.
(Hem., 2/97, p.57)
1965 The Narmada Valley Development Project began. It included the development of 30 large dams, 135 medium dams and 3,000 small dams.
(SFC, 1/17/02, p.A9)
1966 Jan 10, The Tashkent Agreement, was signed in the Soviet city of Tashkent, and officially ended a 17-day war between Pakistan and India. It required that both sides withdraw by February 26, 1966, to positions held prior to August 5, 1965, and observe the cease-fire line agreed to on June 30, 1965. The agreement was brokered by Soviet premier Aleksey Kosygin and signed by Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and Pakistan President Ayub Khan. The Indian prime minister died the day after signing the agreement.
(HNQ, 4/26/99)(www.onwar.com/aced/chrono/c1900s/yr65/fkashmir1965)
1966 Jan 11, India’s PM Lal Bahadur Shastri, the successor of Nehru and engineer of the Green Revolution, died.
(WSJ, 3/19/00, p.A19)
1966 Jan 19, Indira Gandhi, Nehru’s daughter, was elected the 3rd prime minister of India.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)(AP, 1/19/98)(MC, 1/19/02)
1966 Jun 24, A Bombay to NY Air India flight crashed into Mont Blanc (Switz) and 117 died.
(MC, 6/24/02)
1966 Dec 22, The United States announced the allocation of 900,000 tons of grain to fight the famine in India.
(HN, 12/22/98)
1966 Azim Premji took over the operations of the Western India Vegetable Product Ltd., later known as Wipro, following the death of his father. Political changes in 1977 banned many imports and allowed him to expand to manufacturing computers and other electronics.
(WSJ, 9/11/07, p.A16)
1967 Mar 6, Svetlana Alliluyeva, the daughter of Josef Stalin, appeared at the US Embassy in India and announced her intention to defect to the West. She arrived at New York in April and held a press conference during which she denounced her father's regime.
(AP, 3/6/07)(www.economicexpert.com/a/Svetlana:Alliluyeva.htm)
1967 Oct 12, In India a massive cyclone struck the rural Orissa state consisting of small villages. Basically all life (human and animal) and each structure was wiped out; the precise number of fatalities and destruction is unknown.
(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1967 In India Sripati Chandrasekhar was appointed health minister.
(SSFC, 6/24/01, p.A27)
1967 In India a Maoist-inspired rebel movement began in the West Bengal village of Naxalbari. Police action wiped the movement out over the next 8 years. It resurfaced in the 1980s as the People’s War Group in an area of Andra Pradesh called Telugana and supporters came to be called Naxalites.
(Econ, 4/15/06, p.45)
1967 India’s state-owned Uranium Corporation of India Limited (UCIL) opened the first of 7 uranium mines in Jaduguda, Jharkhand state. A 2007 report, by the non-profit Indian Doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD), showed a significant incidence of congenital abnormality, sterility, and cancer among people living within 2.5 km (1.5 miles) of the mines than those living 35 km away.
(AFP, 12/4/11)
1967 India’s population climbed to 500 million.
(SSFC, 6/24/01, p.A27)
1968 Feb 16, Beatles George Harrison & John Lennon flew to India with their wives for transcendental meditation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
(MC, 2/16/02)
1968 Jul 1, The United States, Britain, the Soviet Union and 58 other nations signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. India refused to sign.
(AP, 7/1/97)(SFC, 5/28/98, p.A9)(http://tinyurl.com/d5cf45)
1968 The Triennale-India art show began in New Delhi with shows held every 3 years.
(SFC,12/27/97, p.C16)
1968 In India Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) was founded. Public shares were offered in 2004 as sales hit %1.5 billion and employees numbered 28,000.
(Econ, 7/24/04, p.61)
1969 In India Hindustan Latex, a government enterprise, began making condoms to the government curb the rising population. In 2009 it was renamed to HLL Lifecare.
(Econ, 11/14/09, p.75)
1970 Nov 13, The Bhola Cyclone killed an estimated 300,000 in East Pakistan (Bangladesh). The highest loss of life and destruction occurred on the low lying islands of the Ganges Delta south of Dhaka. In particular the island and district of Bhola, where casualties may have exceeded 100,000 alone, with the towns of Charfasson and Tazumuddin being devastated. The city of Chittagong was also badly affected. The official death toll was put at 150,000, with 100,000 people missing. However many estimates put the true figure as high as 500,000.
(SFEC, 9/5/04, p.6)(http://banglapedia.search.com.bd/HT/C_0397.htm)
1970 India introduced “process” patents which allowed innovators to protect the way they made drugs, rather than the molecules themselves.
(Econ, 6/18/05, Survey p.17)
1970 Ahmedabad, the largest city in India’s state of Gujarat, was the capital of Gujarat from 1960 to 1970; the capital was shifted to Gandhinagar thereafter.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmedabad)
1970 The shooting of tigers was banned in India.
(NG, 12/97, p.13)
1971 Mar 21, Sheik Mujibur Rahman (Mujeeb-ur Rehman) declared East Pakistan (later Bangladesh) independent of Pakistan. Pakistani Pres. Yahya Khan ordered the army in; several million East Bengali refugees fled to India. Rahman was the father of later PM Hasina Wajid.
(WUD, 1994, p. 1688)(SFC, 12/31/00, p.B3)
1971 Mar 27, PM of India, Indira Gandhi, expressed full support of her government to the Bangladeshi struggle for independence. The Bangladesh-India border was opened to allow the Bangladeshi Refugees safe shelter in India.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Pakistani_War_of_1971)
1971 May, PM Indira Gandhi of India proclaimed the established royalty to be ordinary citizens and abolished their government perks. She made them pay taxes on their property or pass it to the state. The wealth tax doubled to 8% of net income.
(WSJ, 1/9/95, Aa-8)(www.indembsofia.org/shtml/en/includes/ind.html)
1971 Oct 29, On the east coast of India a tidal wave and cyclone struck Cuttack in Orissa state and killed some 10,000 people.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-1980_North_Indian_Ocean_cyclone_seasons#1971_Orissa_Cyclone)
1971 Nov 5, Nixon and Kissinger met in the Oval Office, to discuss Nixon's conversation with Gandhi the day before. "We really slobbered over the old witch," Nixon told Kissinger, according to a transcript of their conversation released in 2005 as part of a State Department compilation of significant documents involving American foreign policy.
(AP, 6/28/05)
1971 Dec 3, The 3rd Indo-Pakistani war began when India under Indira Gandhi intervened in the Pakistani civil war. Pakistan attacked Indian airfields and India mobilized its army after nearly 10 million refugees poured into India. The India-Pakistani civil war ended with independence for East Pakistan, which became known as Bangladesh.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)(SFC, 6/12/99, p.A12)(SSFC, 12/30/01, p.A22)
1971 Dec 6, India recognized the Democratic Republic of Bangladesh and Pakistan broke off diplomatic relations. Bangladesh later accused Pakistan of war atrocities that led to the death of some 3 million people during the 9-month war.
(WUD, 1994, p. 1688)(SFC, 12/31/00, p.B3)
1971 Dec 16, Pakistani forces in East Pakistan surrendered to the allied forces of India and Bangladesh, jointly known as the Mitro Bahini. Bangladesh gained independence. Bangladesh later accused Pakistan of war atrocities that led to the death of some 3 million people during the 9-month war.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Pakistani_War_of_1971)(SFC, 12/31/00, p.B3)
1971 Dec 17, A cease fire began between India and Pakistan in East Pakistan.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Pakistani_War_of_1971)
1971 Ram Dass (b.1931) published his best-seller "Be Here Now." It was about his trek through India. He was accompanied in part by Bhagavan Das, Michael Riggs. Riggs had set off for India in 1963 at age 18. Bhagavan Das wrote his own memoir in 1997 titled "It’s Here Now (Are You?): A Spiritual Memoir.
(SFC, 12/1/97, p.E5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_Dass)
1971 Following Pakistan’s defeated by India and Bangladesh in the Bangladesh war. Pakistan decided to develop a nuclear weapons program.
(SFC, 5/28/98, p.A9)
1971 Bikram yoga, developed by master yogi Bikram Choudhury (b.1946) in India, was brought to the US. The practice included exercises in sweat lodge conditions.
(SSFC, 4/29/01, p.C6)
1971 India numbered 16 states at this time. By 2009 the number rose 28.
(Econ, 12/19/09, p.74)
1972 Mar 19, India and Bangladesh signed a friendship treaty.
(http://banglapedia.search.com.bd/HT/I_0040.htm)
1972 Jul 10, During an extended drought a herd of stampeding elephants killed 24 in the Chandka Forest of India.
(http://tinyurl.com/3bppys)
1972 Jul 2, India and Pakistan signed the Simla Agreement that provided for a bilateral settlement of disputes and a "Line of Control" in Kashmir. Article 6 of the accord clearly states: "Both governments agree... to discuss further the modalities and arrangements for the establishment of durable peace and normalization of relations," including "a final settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimla_Agreement)(SSFC, 12/30/01, p.A22)
1972 Ela Bhatt founded the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA).
(SFEC, 2/8/98, Z1 p.5)
1972 India enacted a Wildlife Protection Act. It banned the hunting of tigers, the capture and sale of bears (dancing bears) as well as the catching of snakes. In 2001 animal performances on the streets were banned. Snake charmers felt their livelihood threatened.
(SFC, 7/8/02, p.A3)(SFC, 12/4/04, p.B10)(Econ, 6/25/05, p.41)
1973 Nov 1, In India the state of Mysore was renamed Karnataka.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karnataka)
1973 Dec 10, North Korea and India established diplomatic ties.
(AFP, 2/7/06)(http://tinyurl.com/4vzdbf)
1973 India began Project Tiger and established a network of tiger reserves. Under Indira Gandhi 9 national parks were set aside to protect tigers. 14 more were later added. By 2010 the tiger population dropped to 1,400 from 40,000 a century earlier.
(SFEC, 8/11/96, p.A16)(NG, 12/97, p.13)(http://projecttiger.nic.in/introduction.htm)(Econ, 9/11/10, p.52)
1973 Kashmir Singh (b.1941) was arrested for espionage in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi. His cover story was that he was a trader in electronic goods traveling on business. During his trial in the 1970s, Singh had repeatedly denied he was an agent for Indian military intelligence. Following his release in 2008 he admitted that he had been a spy.
(AP, 3/8/08)
1974 May 18, India became the sixth nation to explode an atomic bomb. India conducted its first nuclear tests and then halted testing. India had exploited the civilian nuclear help it received under America’s “Atoms for Peace” initiative.
(WSJ, 4/2/96, p.A-10)(SFC, 4/27/98, p.A12)(HN, 5/18/98)(Econ, 9/13/08, p.48)
1974 May, The Sikkimese Congress decided to put an end to monarchical rule, and the Sikkim assembly passed the Government of Sikkim Act 1974, for the progressive realization of a fully responsible government in Sikkim and for furthering its relationship with India.
(http://tinyurl.com/4gqykn6)
1974 Nov 30, India and Pakistan in accordance with the Simla Agreement, signed a Protocol for Trade. This Protocol ended a 10-year trade ban and expired in 1978.
(http://publishedforscholar.wordpress.com/2006/12/18/india-pakistan-relations/)
1974 The region of Ladakh opened to the outside world.
(SFEC,12/14/97, p.T1)
1975 Apr 19, India announced it had launched its 1st satellite, from the Soviet Union atop a Soviet rocket.
(AP, 4/19/05)
1975 May 16, India annexed the Principality of Sikkim. The people of Sikkim had revolted against the monarchy and Sikkim became India’s 22nd and second smallest state. The Lepchas are the original inhabitants of Sikkim.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikkim)(SSFC, 2/27/05, p.F5)(AFP, 11/6/11)
1975 Jun 12, In India the High Court of Allahabad declared Indira Gandhi's election invalid on grounds of alleged malpractices in an election petition filed by Raj Narain, who had repeatedly contested her Parliamentary constituency of Rae Bareli without success.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indira_Gandhi)
1975 Jun 26, Citing what she called a "deep and widespread conspiracy" against her government, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency, which lasted to 1977.
(AP, 6/26/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indira_Gandhi)
1975 In 2005 Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitokhin, a former KGB officer, authored “The Mitokhin Archive II: The KGB and the World," and said a high-ranking KGB officer used agents to persuade PM Indira Gandhi to declare a state of emergency in India in 1975. The officer was identified as Leonid Shebarshin, who served in New Delhi in the mid-1970s.
(AP, 9/18/05)
1975 India launched its Integrated Childhood Development Service (ICDS), an early childhood development scheme.
(Econ, 9/25/10, p.36)
1975 In eastern India mob killings left 11 people in a Muslim village. It was part of a campaign to gain political influence for tribal people in eastern India. In 2006 lawmaker Shibu Soren was indicted for his alleged role in the killings.
(AP, 12/7/06)
1975 Charles Sobhraj, aka "The Serpent," was jailed in India for forgery, fraud and murder. He was released in 1997 and admitted to killing young tourists.
(SFC, 3/11/97, p.B1)
1975 Mohan Lal Mittal, tired of India’s semi-socialism, bought a tiny steel firm in Indonesia. His son, Lakshmi (b.1950), soon led the operations there. In 2006 he created the world’s largest steel firm with the acquisition of Luxembourg-based Arcelor. In 2008 Tim Bouquet and Byron Ousey authored “Cold Steel: Britain’s Richest Man and the Multi-Billion-Dollar Battle for a Global Empire.
(Econ, 10/30/04, p.66)(Econ, 4/19/08, p.101)
1975 Smallpox was eradicated in India and Bangladesh.
(SFC, 10/19/01, p.A17)
1975-1977 During this period Indira Gandhi clamped down on India’s free-wheeling democracy, locked up her fractious opposition, censored the press and imposed police tyranny that included forced sterilization and slum demolitions. Over 8 million Indians were sterilized in a single year. The 22-month period is covered in a novel by Rohinton Mistry titled "A Fine Balance." His 1991 novel "Such A Long Journey" was set in the same period.
(WSJ, 4/29/96, p.A-20)(Econ, 5/24/08, p.107)
1976 India and China re-established diplomatic ties. PM Indira Gandhi chose K. R. Narayannan to serve as ambassador to Beijing.
(AP, 7/25/98)(SFC, 11/10/05, p.B8)(Econ, 8/21/10, p.17)
1976 Govindappa Venkataswamy (1918-2006), Indian eye surgeon, opened the Aravind Eye Hospital in Madurai, Tamil Nadu state. His low cost eye-care system catered to the poor and grew to become one of the largest eye-care systems in the world.
(WSJ, 8/5/06, p.A6)
1977 Mar 20, Premier Indira Gandhi lost her election in India.
(http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/1977-3/1977-03-20-CBS-2.html)
1977 Mar 22, Indira Gandhi revoked emergency rule and resigned as PM of India.
(http://tinyurl.com/32tg72)
1977 Mar 24, Morarji Desai, head of the Janata Party, became prime minister of India.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Minister_of_India)
1977 Oct 3, In India Indira Gandhi (1917-1984) was arrested for political corruption. She was released the next day.
(http://tinyurl.com/2xq3bt)
1977 Nov 14, Swami Srila Prabhupada, the founder of the Hare Krishna Hindu sect, died. He passed succession to 11 separate disciples.
(SFC, 2/13/01, p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._C._Bhaktivedanta_Swami_Prabhupada)
1977 Nov 19, A cyclone and tidal wave hit Andhra Pradesh, India. Entire villages were submerged by tidal waves with an estimated 10-20 thousand people killed.
(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)(SFC, 11/1/99, p.A11)(AP, 11/21/02)
1977 V.S. Naipaul, Trinidad born writer, authored “India: A Wounded Civilization,” recounting his travels there in 1975.
(WSJ, 4/4/09, p.W8)
1977 India had a non-Congress government but it fell before the end of its 5-year term. Democracy was restored following a 2-year emergency and Congress was swept from power.
(WSJ, 4/26/96, p.A-10)(Econ, 6/23/07, p.93)
1977 The Communist Party of India came to power in the state of West Bengal.
(Econ, 8/30/08, p.63)
1977 Coca-Cola left India when the new government ordered it to dilute its stake in an Indian unit and turn over its secret formula. An alternative cola was formulated by bottler Ramesh Chauhan of the Parle Group under the name Thums Up.
(WSJ, 4/29/98, p.B1)
1978 Jan 1, An Air India jet exploded in midair and killed 213 people near Bombay.
(WUD, 1994, p.1691)
1978 Jan 3, In India the Congress Party split and Indira Gandhi became head of the larger faction.
(WUD, 1994, p.1691)
1978 Apr 16, A tornado struck in Orissa, India, and killed 173 people.
(www.bangladeshtornadoes.org/climo/btorcli0.htm)
1978 Jul -1978 Sep, Floods in northern India killed 1,291 people.
(WUD, 1994, p.1691)
1978 Nov 5, Floods in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, India, killed 125 people.
(WUD, 1994, p.1691)
1978 Dec 20, India's former PM, Indira Gandhi, was arrested by police after India's Lower House of Parliament voted to expel her and have her jailed for breach of privilege and contempt of the Lower House. She was released after 6 days.
{India}
(http://archive.gulfnews.com/nation/Media/10176258.html)
1978-2008 India over this period exchanged 949 Pakistani fishermen in exchange for 2,304 Indian fishermen, which each side had apprehended for wandering into their respective waters in the disputed Sir Creek area. In early 2009 trade unions said India still held 357 Pakistani fishermen and that Pakistan held 48 Indian fishermen.
(WSJ, 1/13/08, p.A10)
1979 Apr 6, In India the United Liberation Front of Assam was created to fight for independence from India. The Ahom tribe was the major ethnic group of Assam.
(SFC, 4/5/00, p.A11)(AP, 4/6/09)
1979 Jun 7, Bhaskara 1, an Indian Earth resources meteorology satellite, was launched.
(www.csre.iitb.ac.in/isro/bhaskara1.html)
1979 Sep 22, Abul Ala Mawdudi (b.1903), Indian-born writer, died. He encouraged terrorism in the name of Jihad.
(WSJ, 4/4/08, p.W5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abul_Ala_Maududi)
1979 Oct 17, Mother Teresa of India, head of the Missionaries of Charity, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her years of work on behalf of the destitute in Calcutta.
(SFC, 3/14/97, p.A13)(AP, 10/17/97)
1979 "The Life and Crimes of Charles Sobhraj" was published as was "Serpentine." The 2 books covered the story of Charles Sobhraj, aka "The Serpent," a criminal jailed in 1975 in India for forgery, fraud and murder. He was released in 1997 and admitted to killing young tourists.
(SFC, 3/11/97, p.B1)
1979 Anil Agarwal (25), a scrap metal merchant in India, founded Vedanta Resources. In 2007 the company’s market cap reached $10 billion and his personal fortune was estimated at $5.4 billion.
(Econ, 7/28/07, p.72)
1980 Jan 6, Indira Gandhi's Congress Party won elections in India.
(http://tinyurl.com/3bgwny)
1980 Jun 23, Sanjay Gandhi (b.1946), Indian politician, died in an airplane crash shortly after his mother's return to power. Captain Subhas Saxena, the only passenger in the plane, was also killed in the crash.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanjay_Gandhi)
1980 Jul 18, India became the eighth country to demonstrate it could send a satellite to orbit above Earth with the launch of the satellite Rohini 1 on a Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV) rocket in the state of Andhra Pradesh.
(www.spacetoday.org/Satellites/Iran/IranianSat.html)(NG, 5/88, p.598)
1980 The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) coalesced from the Hindu revival group National Volunteer Corps, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), founded in 1925.
(WSJ, 5/16/96, p.A-10)(WSJ, 2/27/98, p.A1)
1981 Jun 6, In Bihar, India, a train crashed after a bridge collapsed in flash floods during the monsoon and some 400-800 people were killed in what was reportedly world's worst train disaster.
(SFC, 6/4/98, p.A15)(SFC, 8/3/99, p.A8)(AP, 4/23/04)
1981 The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) instituted the 80/20 rule for opium/poppy imports. 80% of the US need for opium was set to be imported from India and Turkey. Turkish farmers provided poppy heads while Indian farmers produced gum opium.
(WSJ, 4/3/00, p.A1,6)
1981 The Oregon commune leader, Bhagwan Sri Rajneesh (d.1990), was booted from the US for immigration fraud. He moved his free-love Tantra commune back to Pune, India. In 1985 he changed his name to Osho. His Tantric ruminations were later published by St. Martin’s Press: "The Book of Secrets." From the Pune school Marie Elizabeth Naslednikov (Margot Anand) published "The Art of Sexual Ecstasy."
(WSJ, 12/7/98, p.A1,6)(SFC, 12/13/02, p.K6)(SSFC, 8/29/04, p.E3)
1981 In India N.R. Narayana Murthy co-founded Infosys Technologies with 6 other software writers including Nandan Nilekani and S. Gopalakrishnan with some 10,000 rupees (about $1000) pooled from household money. In 1999 it became the first Indian company to list its shares in the US. Chairman Murthy retired in 2006 with Infosys employing 58,000 people. His 5.9% stake was valued at $1.2 billion.
(WSJ, 8/21/06, p.B7)(Econ, 10/7/06, Survey p.9)(SSFC, 6/29/08, p.C1)(Econ, 12/20/08, p.111)
1981 Subhash Chandra traveled to Zurich to land a $10 million deal to build a factory for toothpaste tubes. He went on to become a leading producer of laminated packaging and then expanded to a private TV network followed by mobile communications.
(WSJ, 5/18/00, p.A1)
1981 Phoolan Devi led a massacre of 22 high-caste men in the village of Behmai. A film was later made about her life titled "The Bandit Queen."
(WSJ, 8/3/01, p.A6)
1982 Oct 2, The Indian guru Swami Muktananda (b.1908) died. He had opened meditation centers in the US during the 1970s and attracted some 20,000 devotees. In 1983 he was charged posthumously with seducing young girls and stashing funds in a Swiss bank account.
(SFC, 6/15/05, p.A1)(www.leavingsiddhayoga.net/secret.htm)
1982-1992 India grew at an average annual rate of 5.2%.
(Econ, 12/13/08, SR p.8)
1983 Feb 16, In India a bomb wounded 13 people in the latest election violence in the northeastern state of Assam. The assassination pushed the death toll from 15 days of violence to at least 217 people.
(http://tinyurl.com/cer6x)
1983 Feb 18-1983 Feb 20, In India Hindu attacks against Moslems in Assam state left over 1500 dead.
(http://tinyurl.com/cer6x)
1983 India’s Supreme Court ordered that capital punishment only be used in the “rarest of rare” cases. From 1995-2010 only one convict was hanged.
(Econ, 10/1/11, p.43)
1983 The Indian guru Swami Muktananda (1908-1982) was charged posthumously with seducing young girls and stashing funds in a Swiss bank account.
(SFC, 6/15/05, p.A13)
1983 Vijay Mallya (27) inherited the UB Group of India when his father, Vittal Mallya, died of a heart attack. Sales for UB then grew from $100 million to $1.6 billion in 2003. Import duties on foreign liquor of up to 550% protected his business.
(SSFC, 10/26/03, p.I3)(WSJ, 6/8/07, p.A1)
1983 Maruti Suzuki India Ltd., a subsidiary company of Japanese automaker Suzuki Motor Corporation, began producing cars in Delhi.
(Econ, 10/22/11, SR p.12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maruti_Suzuki)
1984 Feb 11, Mohammad Maqbool Bhat, founder of the pro-independence Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), was hanged in New Delhi's Tihar jail for the murder of a policeman. Ravindra Mhatre, India's deputy high commissioner in Britain, had been murdered in Birmingham, England. A group calling itself the Kashmir Liberation Army claimed responsibility and demanded a ransom of 1 million pounds ($1.84 million) and the release of political prisoners in India. The Indian government hanged Maqbool Bhat, a leading Kashmiri dissident it had been holding in jail. In 2004 Mohammed Aslam (49) was charged with the kidnap, false imprisonment and murder of Mhatre.
(AP, 11/4/04)(AFP, 2/11/07)
1984 Apr, India sent troops to occupy the Siachen glacier following suspicious mountaineering expeditions from Pakistan. Over the next 15 years some 10,000 Indian and Pakistani casualties, largely due to frostbite and mountain sickness, resulted.
(SFEC, 5/16/99, p.A25)
1984 Jun 5, Indira Gandhi ordered an attack on Sikh's holiest site, the Golden Temple.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Blue_Star)
1984 Jun 6, In India government forces stormed the Golden Temple in Amritsar in an effort to crush Sikh extremists. At least 1,000 Sikhs and 200 soldiers were killed.
(AP, 6/6/04)
1984 Oct 31, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated near her residence in New Delhi by two Sikh members of her bodyguard. This sparked Hindu-Sikh clashes across the country. Four days of anti-Sikh rioting followed in India. The government said more than 2,700 people, mostly Sikhs, were killed, while newspapers and human-rights groups put the death toll between 10,000 and 17,000. In 2002 Katherine Frank authored the biography "Indira."
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)(AP, 10/31/97)(http://tinyurl.com/ypb6kl)(WSJ, 2/13/02, p.A18)
1984 Nov 3, In India some 2,733 people died nationwide over the last 3 days from attacks on Sikhs after Gandhi was shot dead. The bodyguards who killed her sought revenge for her decision to send the army to flush Sikh separatists out of the Golden Temple in Amritsar.
(AP, 10/31/04)(http://iref.homestead.com/Delhi84.html)
1984 Dec 3, More than 4,000 people died and 200,000 were injured after a gas escaped from a pesticide plant operated by a Union Carbide subsidiary in Bhopal, India. 40 tons of vaporous methyl isocyanate, hydrogen cyanide, monomethyl amine, carbon monoxide and possibly 20 other chemicals were released after an explosion. Over the years, according to the Indian government, some 15,000 people have died from effects of the gas. In 2011 India issued notices to Dow seeking payment of $1.7 billion, on top of $470 million already paid, due to the lingering effects of the poison.
(WSJ, 11/27/96, p.A1)(HN, 12/3/98)(SFEC, 3/5/00, p.A23)(AP, 12/3/04)(SFC, 3/1/11, p.A2)
1984 Dec 29, Indian PM Rajiv Gandhi claimed victory in parliamentary elections. The BJP entered the parliament for the first time with 2 seats.
(http://tinyurl.com/338zok)(SFC, 10/4/99, p.A12)
1984 Kanshi Ram (1934-2006) founded the Bahujan Samaj Party to promote the interests of India’s low caste Hindus, also known as dalits, or untouchables.
(SFC, 10/10/06, p.B7)
1984 Indian soldiers attacked the Golden Temple in Amritsar to flush out Sikh separatists.
(TMC, 1994, p.1984)(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)
1984-1995 It was estimated that thousands of Sikhs were killed by the Indian army and police during this period.
(Econ, 8/28/04, p.16)
1985 Apr 8, India filed suit against Union Carbide over Bhopal disaster.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_8)
1985 Jun 23, All 329 people aboard an Air India Boeing 747 were killed when Flight 182 from Montreal to London crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near Ireland, apparently because of a bomb. An hour earlier, a bomb in baggage intended for another Air India flight exploded in a Tokyo airport, killing two baggage handlers. In 2000 Canadian police arrested 2 men of Sikh origin for the bombing. In 2001 Canadian prosecutors filed murder charges against Inderjit Singh Reyat. In 2003 Reyat was sentenced to 5 years for his role in making the bomb. Reyat spent 10 years in prison for building the bomb that exploded at the Narita airport, and another five years for helping make the Flight 182 bomb. In 2005 a Canadian judge acquitted 2 men who had been accused of conspiring in the case. Talwinder Parmar (1944-1992) was later assumed to have been the mastermind behind the attacks. In 2010 Reyat was found guilty of perjury. In 2011 he was sentenced to an additional 9 years in prison.
(AP, 6/23/97)(SFC, 10/28/00, p.A13)(SFC, 6/6/01, p.C3)(AP, 2/11/03)(AP, 3/17/05)(Econ, 6/16/07, p.47)(Reuters, 9/18/10)(Reuters, 1/7/11)
1985 Aug 15, The Assam Accord was signed between Rajiv Gandhi and Assamese nationalists. A Congress government led by Hiteshwar Saikia, widely viewed in Assam as illegitimate, was dissolved as part of the terms of the Assam Accord. Under the accord the government promised to identify and deport people who had crossed the border since the creation of Bangladesh in 1971, but the promise went unfulfilled.
(http://tinyurl.com/ypjjgw)(Econ, 10/11/08, p.60)
1985 Aug 17, Rajiv Gandhi announced Punjab state elections in India.
(http://tinyurl.com/yru62e)
1985 India built up its nuclear capabilities and refused Pakistan’s offers of mutual inspections and nonproliferation pledges.
(SFEC, 5/17/98, p.A15)
1985 The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) was founded in Dhaka, Bangladesh, with the aim of promoting economic cooperation and alleviating poverty in South Asia. Members included Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
(AP, 11/13/05)
1986 Jan 26, In India a Sarbat Khalsa (general congregation of the Sikh people) was convened at the Akal Takht, the Sikh seat of temporal authority in Amritsar. The gathering passed a resolution favoring the creation of Khalistan. A militant Sikh separatist movement had emerged in the 1970s with the goal of carving out an independent Sikh state out of the Punjab called Khalistan.
(Econ, 3/19/05, p.46)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalistan)
1986 Feb 2, Dalai Lama met Pope John Paul II in India.
(MC, 2/2/02)
1986 Mar 24, A $15 billion contract between the Indian government and Swedish arms company AB Bofors was signed for supply of over 400 155mm Howitzer field guns.
(AP, 3/21/11)
1986 Mar 28, Extremist Sikhs killed 13 Hindus in Ludhiana, India.
(http://tinyurl.com/h5at2)
1986 Oct 2, Sikhs attempted to assassinate Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
(MC, 10/2/01)
1987 Apr 16, Swedish Radio claimed that Swedish arms company AB Bofors paid kickbacks to top Indian politicians and key defense officials to secure a deal.
(http://tinyurl.com/47jy7dp)
1987 Jun, Pakistan sentenced Gopal Das, an Indian man, to life in prison for alleged spying. In 2011 PM Zardari remitted Gopal Das' prison sentence on humanitarian grounds in response to an unusual appeal by the Indian Supreme Court.
(AP, 3/27/11)
1987 Jul 6, The first of three massacres by Sikh extremists over two days took place in India as gunmen attacked a bus with Hindu passengers. Seventy-two people were killed in the attacks in Punjab and Haryana.
(AP, 7/6/97)
1987 Jul 30, Some 50,000 Indian troops arrived in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, to disarm the Tamil Tigers and enforce a peace pact. After a time they began fighting the Tigers and in 1990 the government asked them to leave.
(SFC, 7/24/96, p.A9)(SFC, 11/2/96, p.A21)(Econ, 8/5/06, p.40)
1987 Dec 24, M.G. Ramachandran (b.1917), leading Tamil film actor and Chief Minister of the Tamil Nadu state from 1977, died. He was the first film actor to be a Chief Minister in India.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._G._Ramachandran)
1987 Bodo insurgents began attacking police and soldiers who protected the Muslim settlers in the tea-growing Assam state.
(SFC, 12/31/96, p.A10)
1987 Pantaloon chain began operations as India’s 1st formal trouser brand. By 2006 the retail chain employed 12,000 people in over 100 shops.
(Econ, 4/15/06, p.70)
1988 Aug 6, As many as 400 drowned in India when a ferry capsized in the Ganges River.
(AP, 2/3/06)
1988 Aug 21, More than 1,000 people were killed in an earthquake on the Nepal-India border.
(AP, 8/21/98)
1988 Oct 4, Indian professor Mithileshwar Singh, freed the day before by his Lebanese kidnappers, said his captors had treated him well during his 20 months of imprisonment, but acknowledged "there is no substitute for freedom."
(AP, 10/4/98)
1988 Pakistan's main spy agency (ISI) gave military training to Kashmiri rebels (JKLF) battling security forces in Indian-administered Kashmir. ISI training ended in 1989. The information was only made public in 2005 by JKLF leader Amanullah Khan in the 1st volume of his Urdu-language biography "Jehed-e-Musalsal" (Continuous Struggle).
(Reuters, 6/17/05)
1988 Bill Graham produced a worldwide tour on behalf of Amnesty Int’l. featuring Bruce Springsteen, Sting and Peter Gabriel. They toured Costa Rica, India and Zimbabwe.
(SFC,12/13/97, p.A15)
1988 Prannoy Roy set up New Delhi Television Ltd. (NDTV) in a rented 2-bedroom apartment and a staff of 8. In 1998 his operation inaugurated a 24-hour news channel on Rupert Murdoch's Star TV network.
(WSJ, 10/4/99, p.B1)
1988-1998 The fighting in Kashmir left 300,000 dead over this period.
(SFC, 6/4/98, p.C2)
1989 Feb 14, Union Carbide agreed to pay $470 million to the government of India in a court-ordered settlement of the 1984 Bhopal gas leak disaster.
(AP, 2/14/99)
1989 Mar 12, In India the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) was formed with Dhananjoy Reang (former Vice-President of the Tripura National Volunteers) as its "chairman."
(www.crwflags.com/fotw/Flags/in-tri.html)
1989 Nov 4, Typhoon Gay hit India. It claimed 69 lives there and destroyed or damaged some 20,000 homes. In total it caused 1,060 direct casualties.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon_Gay_(1989))
1989 Nov 29, India president Rajiv Gandhi resigned.
(http://tinyurl.com/grzg4)
1989 Nov, Rebellion erupted in India-held Kashmir and small arms sniping between Indian soldiers and rebels became routine. Many of the Islamic separatists trained in Pakistan. By 2007 over 68,000 people dead due to the insurgency.
(SFC, 6/12/99, p.A12)(SFC, 6/8/02, p.A20)(SSFC, 12/2/07, p.A17)
1989 Dec 2, V.P. Singh was sworn in as prime minister of India.
(AP, 12/2/99)
1989 The film "Enemy of the People" was directed by Satyajit Ray.
(SFC, 9/5/01, p.D2)
1989 India again had a non-Congress government but it fell before the end of its 5-year term.
(WSJ, 4/26/96, p.A-10)
1989 In India the Bofors scandal, centered on kickbacks for a 1986 contract between the Indian government and Swedish arms company AB Bofors, brought down the government.
(Econ, 3/12/11, p.18)
1989 Javed Hussain Shah completed 6 months of training in Afghanistan and led a Kashmiri insurgent group later dubbed the Jihad Force. He fought along with al Qaeda members and later became a Kashmiri legislator.
(SSFC, 6/23/02, p.A13)
1989 PepsiCo. Inc. began operations in India.
(WSJ, 9/12/06, p.A6)
1990 Jan 19, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (b.1931), Indian guru (Osho), died. [see 1981]
(SFC, 12/13/02, p.K6)(SFC, 6/15/05, p.A1)
1990 Jan, India opened fire in Kashmir. Over 30,000 people were killed over the next 12 years.
(SSFC, 12/30/01, p.A22)
1990 Feb 14, Ninety-four people were killed when an Indian Airlines passenger jet crashed while landing at a southern Indian airport.
(AP, 2/14/00)
1990 Mar 20, The last Indian peacekeepers left Sri Lanka.
(www.india-seminar.com/1999/479/479%20mehta.htm)
1990 May 9, A major cyclone made landfall on Andhra Pradesh, India. It dissipated 2 days later over central India. Strong flooding caused 510 human fatalities, but the effect on agriculture was substantial. More than 100,000 animals were killed,
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990-1994_North_Indian_Ocean_cyclone_seasons)
1990 Jul, India’s 1958 Armed Forces Special Powers Act, was extended to Kashmir. It allowed soldiers to search houses without warrants and shoot anyone suspected of being a terrorist.
(http://tinyurl.com/27uour9)(Econ, 9/18/10, p.58)
1990 Nov 10, Chandra Shekhar was sworn in as India’s new prime minister.
(AP, 11/10/00)
1990 In India Prime Minister V.P. Singh announced that the government would set aside 27% of public sector jobs for the backward castes. This caused riots by the upper castes and the toppling of his government.
(WSJ, 5/10/96, p.A-4)
1990 India enacted its Armed Forces Special Powers Act which made civilian courts powerless to initiate criminal prosecutions against security forces in disturbed areas without federal permission.
(SSFC, 12/2/07, p.A24)
1990 The Bargi Dam along India’s Narmada River was completed. Many uprooted families moved to the slums of Jabalpur.
(SFC, 1/17/02, p.A9)
1990 Bangladesh authorities were warned that arsenic was seeping from the subsoil into the water supply through the cheap surface wells. The adjoining Indian Province of West Bengal first noticed the problem. The wells were dug by UNICEF in an effort to provide clean water.
(SFC, 7/30/97, p.A8)(WSJ, 6/24/05, p.W9)
1991 May 21, A Tamil suicide bomber assassinated PM Rajiv Gandhi (46) at a campaign rally near Madras. Tamil leader Velupillai Prabhakaran ordered the assassination. Gandhi and 16 others were killed when the female Tamil bomber, Dhanu, presented him flowers hiding explosives packed with 10,000 metal pellets. 41 Indian and Sri Lankan suspects were charged with murder and conspiracy. 12 suspects later committed suicide when they were trapped by police. In 1999 4 of the 25 convicted had their death sentences confirmed. 3 death sentences were commuted to life in prison and 19 sentences were set aside. In 1999 3 Tamil men and a woman, convicted in 1991, were scheduled for execution.
(HFA, '96, p.30)(SFE, 9/16/96, p.A9)(SFC, 1/9/96, p.A10)(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15) (SFC, 1/29/98, p.A10)(WSJ, 5/12/99, p.A1)(SFC, 10/16/99, p.A16)(SFC, 5/30/00, p.A25)
1991 Jun, In India P.V. Narasimha Rao (1921-2004) assumed the post of prime minister. He launched a fast track program to attract private investment in the energy sector to reduce chronic power shortages. Rao led until 1996.
(WSJ, 11/22/95, p.A-3)(www.ceeby.com/people/PVNarasimhaRao.cfm)
1991 Jul 24, India’s finance minister Manmohan Singh presented a budget to parliament. Singh said “the room for maneuver, to live on borrowed money or time, does not exist anymore.” His speech marked India’s entry into global capitalism.
(Econ, 7/23/11, p.10, 59)
1991 Dec 26, Sikh separatists killed about 50 train passengers in Punab, most of them Hindus.
(AP, 12/26/01)
1991 The film "City of Joy" was based on a novel by Dominique Lapierre. It was about the street children of Calcutta and Mother Teresa.
(SFC, 8/19/97, p.E4)
1991 India launched economic reforms under finance minister Manmohan Singh. Previous to this the government controlled the market-place dictating everything from industrial output to import levels. PM P.V. Narasimha Rao launched free market policies. Its previous socialist-inspired "License Raj" system dated back to British rule and required government permits for almost every aspect of business. A flood of imported products followed.
(WSJ, 2/18/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 1/9/04, p.A1)(WSJ, 1/27/04, p.A1)(Econ, 8/27/05, p.35)(Econ, 3/18/06, p.64)
1991 The IMF foisted tariff cuts on India as one of the conditions attached to a $2.5 billion bailout package. Tariffs were cut from an average of 90% this year to 30% in 1997.
(Econ, 5/9/09, p.82)
1991 India’s federal government dismissed the state government of Tamil Nadu, controlled by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party, for aiding the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka.
(SFC, 9/22/97, p.A10)
1991 India banned shows featuring live snakes, but the shows persisted as snake charmers continued their performances.
(SFC, 2/18/09, p.A2)
1991 Ratan Tata succeeded his uncle, J.R.D. Tata, as chairman of the Tata Group’s holding company, just as India began liberalizing its economy. Uncle Tata had started Tata Airlines which later became India Air.
(Econ, 4/2/05, p.53)(Econ, 1/13/07, p.62)
1991-1996 Jayalalitha Jayaram, a former movie star, served as the chief minister of Tamil Nadu. She was voted out of office in disgrace. She allegedly embezzled million of rupees in kickbacks and faced trial on the charges.
(SFC, 8/21/98, p.D2)(SFEC, 4/18/99, p.A19)
(SFC, 12/16/08, p.A4)
67Mil BC In 1987 scientists in India found the fossilized remains of an 11½-foot snake, dating to about this time, coiled around a dinosaur egg.
(SFC, 3/3/10, p.A3)
65Mil BC In 2003 US and Indian scientists reported on a new dinosaur species from western India from this time. They named it Rajasaurus narmadensis, or "Regal reptile from the Narmada," after the Narmada River region where the bones were found.
(AP, 8/13/03)
65Mil BC Evidence in 2009 suggested that an object some 40km in diameter hit the Earth off the coast if India about this time and forced vast quantities of lava out of the Deccan Traps. The impact was suggested to be responsible for breaking the Seychelles away from India as well as for the dying off of dinosaurs. This impact was named Shiva and is believed to have coincided with the Chicxulub impact in the Yucatan.
(Econ, 10/24/09, p.91)
50Mil BC The Tibetan Plateau began to lift about this time as India thrust northward. This led to the creation of the Gobi Desert north of the plateau.
(SFC, 5/19/06, p.B7)
1.6Mil BC - 1Mil BC Stone age Acheulian tools dating to this period were found in southern India at the Attirampakkam site in Tamil Nadu state during excavations from 1999-2002. The site was discovered by British geologist Robert Bruce Foote in 1863 and was sporadically investigated for over a century.
(Econ, 3/26/11, p.93)(www.antiquity.ac.uk/projgall/pappu297/)
7500BC In 2001 Indian engineers began dredging operations in the Gulf of Khambhat (Cambay) and pulled up human fossil bones, fossil wood, stone tools, pieces of pottery and many other things that indicated that a human habitation site dating to about this time.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_archaeology_in_the_Gulf_of_Cambay)
c3000BCE Ayurveda, a holistic Indian science, had its beginnings. It later taught that the balancing of the mind, spirit and body is the secret of health, vitality, longevity and beauty.
(SFC, 4/25/00, p.C6)
c3000BCE Hatha Yoga, a combination of mind and body exercises, began in India about this time.
(SSFC, 4/18/04, p.D16)
2700BC-700BC The Harappan civilization flourished in the Indus and Ganges valleys.
(Reuters, 3/15/06)
c2,500 Excavations in 2000 revealed a walled city at the Dholavira site in Gujarat state.
(AM, 11/00, p.22)
2300-2000BC There was cultural exchange between the Indus Valley civilization and Mesopotamia. The Indus Valley, or Harrapan, civilization was discovered in 1920-21 when engraved seals were discovered near present-day Sahiwal in Pakistani Punjab at a place called Harappa.
(EAWC, p.2)(http://inic.utexas.edu/asnic/subject/peoplesandlanguages.html)
2000BC Balathal, outside the city of Udaipur, was a Chalcolithic village. The people used copper tools and weapons. Terra-cotta figurines of bulls have been found at the site. It was abandoned and reoccupied c340BC.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.B)
c2000BC Tantra, a quasireligious doctrine, dates back to this time. Its first texts were in Sanskrit and the original adherents practiced ritual copulation.
(WSJ, 12/7/98, p.A1)
2000-1500BC The events of the Indian Ramayana epic, written around 500BC, supposedly took place about this time period.
(AM, 7/04, p.50)
1600-1500BC In India the Aryans invaded the Indus Valley region. In 1999 researchers reported that gene patterns confirmed that Caucasoid invaders entered India between 1000 and 2000 BC.
(EAWC, p.3)(SFC, 5/26/99, p.C2)
1600-1000 In India the Early Vedic period of Indian civilization unfolded.
(EAWC, p.3)
1550BC In India writing disappeared for a time with the destruction of the Indus Valley civilization.
(EAWC, p.4)
1500BC The Laws of Manu, a Hindu sacred text, dated to about this time. It sanctified the caste system of India.
(www.fordham.edu/halsall/india/manu-full.html)(Econ, 10/6/07, p.15)
1500BC Before this time in India the sap of the palmyra palm was used to make a fermented drink later called a "toddy" by the English.
(SFEC, 6/22/97, Z1 p.5)
c1000BC The Rig Veda, the first Vedic literature was written.
(EAWC, p.6)
c1000 The original Hindu calendar was based on a lunar cycle and dated back to this time.
(SFC, 1/1/00, p.A18)
1000BC The Sushruta Samhita, an early text of Ayurvedic medicine, was compiled by Sushrut, the primary pupil of Dhanvantri, about this time. In 2003 India moved to assess the country’s herbs systematically in a program called the Golden Triangle Partnership.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayurveda)(www.ccras.nic.in/gtp.htm)
1000-600BC This was the late Vedic period in India. The Aryans were integrated into Indian culture and the caste system emerged.
(EAWC, p.6)
800-600BC The Brahmans, a priestly caste, began to emerge.
(EAWC, p.7)
800-500BC The Upanishadic philosophy began with the writing of the Upanishads. Doctrines of rebirth and the transmigration of souls began to appear.
(EAWC, p.7)
563BCE Apr 8, Buddha (d.483BCE), Siddhartha Gautama, was born in Northern India (later Nepal. Raja Suddhodana, king of the Sakyas in the 6th century BC, is best known as the father of Buddha. The kingdom of the Sakyas was on what is now the border of Nepal and India. The birthplace of the Indian prince Siddartha, who became the monk Buddha, was believed to have been discovered by archeologists in 1996. Lumbini, Nepal, the birthplace of Buddha, was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997. [see May 15]
(V.D.-H.K.p.21)(WSJ, 2/6/96, p.A-1)(SFC, 9/1/96, DB p.30)(SFC,12/5/97, p.B2)(AP, 5/17/11)
563BCE May 15, Wesak Day, also known as Buddha's birthday. [see Apr 8] His birthday was later celebrated in Nepal on the day of the first full moon in May. The same day is also observed as the anniversary of his enlightenment.
(SFC, 5/15/03, p.A3)(AP, 5/17/11)
543 BC Colonists from northern India subdued the indigenous Vaddahs (Veddah) of Sri Lanka, known in the ancient world as Taprobane and later called Serendip. Descendants of those colonists, the Buddhist Sinhalese, form most of the population of Sri Lanka.
(SFC, 6/20/96, p.A8)(SFC, 9/22/97, p.A10)
540-486BC Mahavira, the founder of Jainism, lived. [see 480BC]
(EAWC, p.9)
537BC Cyrus the Persian campaigned west of the Indus River.
(EAWC, p.9)
517-509BC Darius the Persian conquered the Indus Valley region.
(EAWC, p.10)
c500BC The Ramayana, a literary epic depicting the struggles of the god Ram, was composed.
(SFC, 3/8/96, p.A10)
c500BC The city of Varanasi was also known as Kashi and Benares and has been a center of civilization for 2,500 years. It is the home of the Hindu god Shiva.
(SFEC,11/23/97, p.T4)
c500-200BC In India the Mahabharata, of which the Bhagavad-Gita is a part, was put into its final form.
(PC Comp. 12/94, p.278)(EAWC, p.10)
483BC Gautama Siddhartha Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, died about this time in Kushinagar, in northern India.
(eawc, p.9)(SSFC, 10/14/07, p.A15)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gautama_Buddha)
c480BCE Vardhamana Mahavira, the semi-legendary teacher who reformed older doctrines and established Jainism, died. He is regarded as the 24th and latest Tirthankara, one of the people to have attained personal immortality through enlightenment. Jainism was founded as a dualistic, ascetic religion as a revolt against the caste system and the vague world spirit of Hinduism.
(WUD, 1994, p.762,1488,1580)
450BC In 2006 archaeologists in Bangladesh said they had uncovered part of a fortified citadel at Wari, northeast of Dhaka, dating back to this time that could have been a stopping off point along an ancient trade route.
(Reuters, 3/15/06)
400BC In India Panini’s "Sutra," the earliest Sanskrit grammar, was written.
(EAWC, p.12)
530BC-283BC Kautilya, Indian political advisor, lived about this time. He is generally called Chanakya (derived from his father's name "Chanak") but, in his capacity as author of the Arthashastra, is generally referred to as Kautilya derived from his clan's name "Kotil
" (Kautilya means "of Kotil"). He was a master of the shrewd act of diplomacy.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chanakya)
c340BC-200CE Balathal near Udaipur was reoccupied by a new people who built a massive rampart around the site and later abandoned it.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.B)
331BC Alexander conquered the Persian Empire and then made his way to India and conquered part of it.
(EAWC, p.13)
327BC-326BCE Alexander the Great passed through the Indus Valley and installed Greek officials in the area.
(EAWC, p.13)
323BCE The death of Alexander provided an opportunity for an independent state. Chandragupta Maurya founded the Maurya dynasty, the first Indian empire with its capital in Patna.
(eawc, p.13)(SC, 5/18/02)
304BC Chandragupta traded 500 war elephants to Seleucus in exchange for the Indus region and lands immediately to the West.
(EAWC, p.14)
300BC Kautilya (aka Chanakya), an Indian statesman and scholar, authored the Artha-Shastra (the Science of Material Gain) at the end of the 4th century BC. This is the first known treatise on government and economy.
(www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/History/Ancient/Kautilya.html)
c300BC Palur in eastern India near Chilika Lake has yielded red-and-black-ware potsherds, one of which had the image of a boat.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.B)
273-232 Ashoka, the grandson of Chandragupta Maurya, ruled India, an area of a million sq. miles, and 50 million people. He was the most impressive ruler of the Maurya dynasty and was strongly disposed in favor of Buddhism, which orientation showed positively in his public policy.
(V.D.-H.K.p.21)(EAWC, p.14)
260BCE Ashoka, the 3rd ruler of the Mauryan empire (India), converted to Buddhism after defeating the Kalinga region. He began promoting Buddhist teaching throughout the subcontinent and beyond to Sri Lanka and even Greece.
(www.metmuseum.org/toah/ht/04/ssa/ht04ssa.htm)
250BC In India a general council of Buddhist monks was held in Patna, where the canon of Buddhist scripture was selected.
(EAWC, p.14)
250BC In India Emperor Ashoka ordered a sculpture of four Asiatic lions about this time. The image later became a model emblazoned on India’s passports and currency.
(WSJ, 6/27/07, p.A9)
c200BC-650CE Caves at Ajanta were painted and sculpted during this period with court scenes and tales from the Jataka and Bodhisattvas.
(WSJ, 11/12/98, p.A28)
184BC In India the Maurya dynasty ended when the last ruler was assassinated by an ambitious army commander.
(EAWC, p.15)
78CE Mar 3, Origin of Saka Era in India.
(SC, 3/3/02)
79CE The Hindu calendar was updated to the solar year with this year as year 1. The original dated back to about 1000 BC.
(SFC, 1/1/00, p.A18)
100-200 Poompuhar (southern India) grew during the reign of Karikal Cholan, the second-century Chola king who established trade ties with China, Arabia and the Roman Empire. In the 20th century remnants of brick buildings, water reservoirs, a boat jetty and Roman coins were found during undersea excavations.
(AP, 1/14/05)
150-250 Acharya Nagarjuna, Indian philosopher, lived about this time. He founded the Madhyamaka school of Mahayana Buddhism.
(Econ, 1/8/11, p.43)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagarjuna)
c300 Vatsayana wrote the philosophical treatise "Kama Sutra" during the classical age of the Gupta period. One of its 35 chapters dealt with various sexual positions.
(SFEC, 3/2/97, DB p.32)
320 The Gupta state began with the accession of Chandragupta I. His son and grandson were successful conquerors and extended the state across Northern India from sea to sea. The journal of the Buddhist monk Fa-hsien provides most of our knowledge of Gupta society.
(MWH, 1994)
400 About this time sage-prince Kambu of the Cambodian legends, who belonged to the Kamboja lineage, appears to have sailed from Indian subcontinent, probably from Saurashtra/Gujarat on the west coast of India and established a small Kamboja kingdom in Bassac around Vat-Ph'u hill in Mekong Basin. The first Khmer or king, know as Kambu, founded Kambujadesa, which means the Sons of Kambu or Kambuja for short.
(SFEC, 10/20/96, T5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kambu_Svayambhuva)
c400-500 The Indian philosopher Yashomitra made commentaries on Buddhism and described it as "awakened" (vibuddha) and "full-bloomed" or "perfected" (prabuddha).
(SFEM,12/14/97, p.46)
427 The Nalanda Buddhist center of learning was established in Bihar state, India, and continued to 1197. It has been called one of the first great universities in recorded history.
(Econ, 9/4/10, p.46)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nalanda)
c500 The Indian monk Bodhidharma hit on the idea of Zen after staring at a wall for nine years.
(WSJ, 10/23/96, p.A1)
544 In India about this time Pulakeshin I instituted the Chalukyan kingdom and his son established Vatapi, identified as Badami, as the capital.
(http://tinyurl.com/mdkhf)
550 Aryabhata (b.476), Indian astronomer and mathematician, died. The Aryabhatiya, an astronomical treatise, is the magnum opus and only extant work of Aryabhata.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryabhata)
580-728 Pallava kings ruled in southern India, later Tamil Nadu state. The port town of Mahabalipuram was the capital of their ancient kingdom.
(AP, 9/21/05)
600-700CE The Tantras, Buddhist texts for generating deep religious experiences, were produced.
(SFEC,12/14/97, p.T5)
c600-700 The 7th century Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Hsuan-tsang sought out the sources of Buddhism in India.
(AM, 9/01, p.48)
c700-800 Padmasambhava was an 8th century sorcerer and saint who converted Tibet to Buddhism.
(SFEC,12/14/97, p.T5)
740 The Virupaksha temple in Pattadakal, an early capital of the Chalukyas of southern India, was built by Queen Lokamahadevi about this time to commemorate her husband's victory over the Pallavas.
(http://tinyurl.com/s6lck)
981 Adherents to the Jainist faith consecrated a 57-foot statue of their most important saint, Bahubali, in the town of Shravana Belgola, India.
(Sm, 3/06, p.23)
985-1014 The Brihadeshwarar temple was built in southeastern India’s Tamil Nadu state.
(WSJ, 10/1/04, p.A10)
985-1200 The Chola Kingdom prospered in southern India. Arts flourished and the economy prospered under expanding trade and military conquests. Ganesha, son of Shiva, was the first god invoked at the beginning of a new enterprise.
(WSJ, 10/8/99, p.W14)(WSJ, 10/8/99, p.W14)
990 A set of instructions on chess, the Versus de Scachis (Poem About Chess), emerged in Switzerland about this time. The game had begun in India before the 6th century.
(Arch, 1/05, p.40)(Econ, 10/29/11, p.97)
993 The south Indian Cola Empire captured Anuradhapura (Sri Lanka).
(Arch, 7/02, p.34)
1000 The Gypsy people (Romany) migrated from Rajasthan, India, about this time. They call themselves Rom, which is derived from their original Indian caste name Dom.
(Wired, 9/96, p.46)(SFC, 2/28/97, p.A24)(Econ, 6/21/08, p.35)
1000-1100 An 11th century temple was constructed in Thanjavur in southern India.
(WSJ, 6/9/97, p.A1)
1000-1100 The sandstone sculpture "Uma Maheshvara" is a variant of the archetypal couple Shiva and Parvati.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.E1)
1019 Machmud of Ghazni, a kingdom in central Asia, invaded India and took so many captives that the prices of slaves plummeted for several years. He invade India annually for 25 years.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R4)
1026-1756 http://www.itihaas.com/medieval/index.html
1100-1200 The bronze sculpture "Shiva Nataraya" depicted the Hindu god of creation and destruction doing the dance that sustains the universe.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.E1)
1100-1200 The comic man-elephant "Ganesha" sculpture was carved in schist.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.E1)
1100-1200 There was a Muslim victory over the Rajputs. It was commemorated by the 240-foot tower in Delhi known as Qutb Minar.
(SFEC, 5/21/00, p.T8)
1140 Ghorid leaders from central Afghanistan captured and burned Ghazni, then moved on to conquer India.
(www.afghan, 5/25/98)
1166 El-Idrisi (b.1099), a Muslim geographer, died. The Arab geographer Idrisi claimed that Indians preferred iron from East Africa over their own because of its malleability.
(SSFC, 9/2/07, p.A18)(NH, 6/97, p.44)
1192-1198 Time of the Quwwatul Islam Masjid.
(SFEC, 5/21/00, p.T8)
1193 The Nalanda Buddhist learning center in Bihar state was sacked by Turkic Muslim invaders under Bakhtiyar Khalji, a milestone in the decline of Buddhism in India. Khalji was a member of the Muslim Turkic Khilji, or the Khalaj tribe as it is known in Iran and Afghanistan.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nalanda)(www.spiritus-temporis.com/bakhtiyar-khalji/)
1209 The Delhi Sultanate established Muslim rule in northern India.
(AM, 7/04, p.51)
1274 Lal Shahbaz Qalandar (b.1177), born as Seyyed Shah Hussain Marandi in Marand (near the city of Tabriz) in Azerbaijan (then part of Iran), died. He had migrated to Sindh and settled in Sehwan and was buried there. He is also known as Shaikh Hussain Marandi. He was a Sufi in the regions that lie in the Sindh province of Pakistan.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahbaz_Qalander)
1298 Tamerlane plundered Delhi.
(SFEC, 5/21/00, p.T8)
c1300-1700 Vijayanagra (aka Hampi) in southern India was the capital of a great empire during this time.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vijayanagara)
1350-1500 There was cold and drought during this period in Central Asia as temperatures came down with low rainfall and low productivity. The climatic effect on Sindh was that Jam Banbhniyo Samma, tried to capture some areas of Delhi Sultanate in the Multan Sarkar and also south in Gujarat.
(http://panhwar.com/Article129.htm)
c1396 The tabla, a 600-year-old invention, was evolved from Arabian drums to accompany a fusion of Islamic Qawali singing and Dhrupad music composed for Sanskrit couplets usually recited in temples.
(SFC, 5/19/96,Mag, p.25)
c1396 The kirana style of Hindustani music began.
(SFC, 6/18/96, p.A17)
1399 Dec 17, Tamerlane's Mongols destroyed the army of Mahmud Tughluk, Sultan of Delhi, at Panipat.
(HN, 12/17/98)
1405 Admiral Zheng He, a Muslim eunuch, led a Ming dynasty fleet with 28,000 men through Southeast Asia to India and on to Africa and the Middle East. From 1405 to 1433 Zheng He led 7 voyages to promote trade and recognition of the Ming dynasty.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R51)(WSJ, 11/18/06, p.P11)(AP, 2/26/10)
1451 An Afghan named Buhlul invaded Delhi, and seized the throne. He founded the Lodi dynasty.
(www.afghan, 5/25/98)
1459 May 12, Sun City, India, was founded by Rao Jodhpur.
(MC, 5/12/02)
1469 Apr 15, The guru Nanak (d.1539), 1st guru of Sikhs, was born to Hindu parents in Lahore. Nanak assimilated tenets of pantheistic Hinduism and monotheistic Islam and founded Sikhism in the Punjab. He refused to accept the caste system and the supremacy of the Brahmanical priests and forbade magic, idolatry and pilgrimages. Brahma is the Hindu god of creation. Turbaned followers would sport the main of the lion, Singha or Sikh. The sacred Sikh book, Granth Sahib, was compiled by the 5th guru, Arjun, in 1605.
(WUD, 1994, p.1326)(Hem., 3/97, p.28)(SFEM, 9/19/99, p.74)(SFC, 9/22/99, p.E1)(WSJ, 10/12/01, p.W17)
1483 Feb 14, Zahir al-Din Mohammed Babur Shah, prince, founder Mughal dynasty in India (1526-30), was born.
(MC, 2/14/02)
1497 Jul 8, Vasco da Gama, Portuguese explorer, departed on a trip to India. He sailed from Lisbon enroute to Calicut, India. His journey took him around South Africa and opened the Far East to European trade and colonial expansion.
(V.D.-H.K.p.143)(WUD, 1994, p.1672)(www.indhistory.com/vasco-da-gama.html)
1498 May 20, Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama arrived at Calicut (Kozhikkode) in Kerala, India.
(www.indhistory.com/vasco-da-gama.html)
1499 In India Guru Nanak Dev Ji (1469-1539) started Sikhism. The monotheistic religion rejected most of the tenets of Hinduism, but teaches rebirth and liberation through the spiritual path and also accepts yoga practice.
(www.sikhism.com/singh/articles/clean_shaven)
1504 Babur, founder of the Mughal dynasty in India, captured Kabul in Afghanistan and maintained control to 1519. Babur’s mother descended from Genghis Khan and his father from Timur (Tamerlane).
(TL-MB, 1988, p.8)(www.afghan, 5/25/98)(WSJ, 10/24/00, p.A12)
1513 Portugal captured Goa, India.
(SSFC, 3/19/06, p.F7)
1519 Nanak (1469-1539) founded Sikhism, a combination of Hinduism and Buddhism. Sikhs revere 10 gurus. "Be in the world, but not worldly."
(TL-MB, 1988, p.11)(WSJ, 10/12/01, p.W17)
1524 Dec 24, Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama (~55), who had discovered a sea route around Africa to India, died in Cochin, India. He had served as Viceroy in India.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.12)(AP, 12/24/97)(MC, 12/24/01)
1525 Babur, a warrior with an Islamic Persian background, invaded Hindu India. He took Delhi and Agra and made Agra his capital.
(HT, 4/97, p.22)
1526 Apr 21, Mongol Emperor Zahir-ud-din Babur annihilated Indian Army of Ibrahim Lodi at the Battle of Panipat. Babar, King of Kabul, established in this year the Mughal dynasty at Delhi.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.13)(SFEC, 5/21/00, p.T8)(WSJ, 3/31/07, p.P10)
1526-1712 In northern India the Mughal Dynasty was the last great dynasty to rule.
(Hem., 2/97, p.55)
1527 Mar 16, The Emperor Babur defeated the Rajputs at the Battle of Kanvaha, removing the main Hindu rivals in Northern India.
(HN, 3/16/99)
1528 Babar the Great ordered a large mosque built in Ayodha, 2 years after he established the Mogul Empire in India. The Babri Mosques was destroyed by a Hindu mob in 1992.
(AM, 7/04, p.49)
1529 May 6, Babur defeated the Afghan Chiefs in the Battle of Ghagra, India.
(HN, 5/6/98)
1530 Dec 26, (OS) Zahir al-Din Mohammed Babur Shah (47), founder Moguls dynasty (India), died. Babur left power to his son Humayun, who built a royal city called Purana Qila that is part of Delhi today. His memoirs, known as the Baburnama, are considered the first true autobiography in Islamic literature. The first English translation was made in 1922 by Annette Beveridge.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babur)(Econ, 12/18/10, p.80)
1537 In India Bangalore was founded on the Deccan Plateau by a king who was lost and given a bowl of boiled beans (Bendakalooru means town of boiled beans) by women in the area.
(WSJ, 3/25/98, p.B10)
1538 Portugal captured Diu, India, and established it as part of a fortified trade network.
(SSFC, 3/19/06, p.F7)
1542 Oct 14, Abul-Fath Djalal-ud-Din, 3rd Mogul emperor of India (1556-1605), was born.
(MC, 10/14/01)
1542-1605 Emperor Akbar, godfather of Shah Jahan, ruled as the 3rd Grand Moghul of India. Akbar commissioned an illustrated manuscript of the Hamzanama (Story of Hamza, the paternal uncle of the prophet Mohammed). The 1,400 painted folios took over 100 artists 15 years to complete.
(WSJ, 8/8/02, p.D10)
1556 Nov 5, The Emperor Akbar defeated the Hindus in a 2nd Battle at Panipat and secured control of the Mogul Empire. Akbar the Great became Mogul Emperor of India and defeated the Afghans at the Battle of Panipat in the Punjab.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.19)(HN, 11/5/98)
1556 Humayun, son of Babur, fell down the library steps in Purana Qila and died. This put his 14-year-old son, Akbar, on the throne.
(HT, 4/97, p.22)
1565 Humayun’s tomb was completed in Delhi.
(SFEC, 5/21/00, p.T8)
1565 Akbar had the Red Fort built in Agra along the Yamuna River.
(HT, 4/97, p.22)
1569-1627 Jehangir, later successor to Akbar. He commissioned the artist Manohar for the painting "King David Playing the Harp."
(SFEM, 2/1/98, p.14)
1569-1583 Akbar was informed by a holy man that he would soon be a father. A Muslim wife bore him a son and Akbar built a walled city, Fatehpur Siskri, in Sikri, the home village of the holyman. The local water table could not meet the demands of the city and after about 14 years the capital was moved back to Agra.
(HT, 4/97, p.23)
1571 Mughal emperor Akbar moved his court from Agra (India), to Fatehpur Sikri, where he built a sandstone palace in the middle of nowhere.
(Econ, 3/7/09, p.82)
1574 The 4th Sikh guru founded the city of Amritsar.
(WSJ, 10/12/01, p.W17)
c1575 Mahesa painted "Rustam Kills a Demon."
(WSJ, 4/10/01, p.A20)
1579 Portuguese merchants set up trading stations in Bengal.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.22)
1581 Akbar, Mughal Emperor of India, conquered Afghanistan.
(TL-MB, p.23)
1586 Akbar, the greatest Mughal Emperor of India, attempted to establish "Din Illahl" as a universal religion acceptable to his many Hindu subjects. The movement eventually collapsed under the 18th-century Muslim revival.
(TL-MB, p.24)
1592 Jan 5, Shah Jahan, Mughal emperor of India (1628-58), was born. He later built the Taj Mahal.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1600 Dec 31, The British East India Company (d.1874) was chartered by Queen Elizabeth I in London to carry on trade in the East Indies in competition with the Dutch, who controlled nutmeg from the Banda Islands.
(WUD, 1994, p.449)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R49)(www.theeastindiacompany.com/history.html)
c1600 Christian missionaries arrived in India with the first European traders.
(SFC, 11/6/99, p.A14)
1600-1700 The Hindu state of Kotah later became part of the modern state of Rajasthan.
(AM, May/Jun 97 p.62)
c1600-1700 The 17th century Sikh guru Gobind Singh said: "Oh Shiva, bless me, that nothing deters me from doing good deeds, and where I am obliged to fight, I fight for sure to win."
(SFC, 4/12/99, p.A12)
c1604 Arjun, the 5th Sikh guru, compiled the sacred book "Granth Sahib," a compilation of over 6,000 hymns meant to be sung to classical Indian ragas. Arjun was responsible for the Harimandir (temple of God) in the city of Amritsar. Arjun was later executed by Muslim rulers in Lahore. In 2004 Sikhs marked the 400th anniversary of the book’s arrival to Amritsar.
(WSJ, 10/12/01, p.W17)(AP, 9/1/04)
1605 Akbar the Great died. He was succeeded by Juhangir (Jahangir, Jehangir, 1569-1627) the ineffectual and his "evil queen" Nur Jahan.
(WUD, 1994, p.762)(HT, 4/97, p.23)
1610 Ustad Mansur, a seventeenth century Mughal painter, painted a picture depicting the Dodo bird. As a court artist of Jehangir (1605-1627) Mansur specialized in depicting plants and animals.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ustad_Mansur)
1615 Prince Shah Jahan, son of Jehangir, returned home after a successful military campaign.
(WSJ, 12/16/97, p.A16)
1618-1707 Aurangzeb, Moghul ruler of India. His wealth was said to be 10 times that of Louis XIV. The empire reached its greatest size during his rule but his persecution of Hindu subjects weakened Muslim Moghul control.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R8)
1620 Jehangir, successor of Akbar, visited the gardens of Kashmir and adopted the "flower style" as opposed to the previous bestiaries.
(WSJ, 12/16/97, p.A16)
1627 Oct 28, Djehangir (Jahangir), great mogul of India, died.
(MC, 10/28/01)
1628-1658 Shah Jahan (1592-1666), a descendent of the Moghuls, ruled India. He was India’s 3rd Mughal emperor. The manuscript "Padshahnama" (King of the World) by Abdul-Hamid Lahawri documents the reign of Shah Jahan. In 1997 Wheeler Thackston made a new translation.
(WUD, 1994, p.1309)(HT, 4/97, p.22)(WSJ, 12/4/97, p.A20)
1630 The Spiti Valley, a part of western Tibet, became part of India.
(SFEC, 7/23/00, p.T9)
1630-1631 There was a great famine in India. Records indicate that cannibalism became so rampant that human flesh was sold on the open market.
(SFC, 7/6/96, p.E4)
1631 Jun 17, Mumtax Mahal, wife of Shah Jahan of India, her tomb (Taj Mahal), died. Arjumand Shah Begum (aka Mumtaz Mahal -Jewel of the Palace), was the 2nd wife of Shah Jahan. She had bore him 14 children and died in childbirth. He build the Taj Mahal (1654) in her memory. The project took 22 years and cost $18 million.
(HT, 4/97, p.22)(SFEC, 5/21/00, p.T8)(SC, 6/7/02)
1639 The walled city of Old Delhi, the 6th Delhi city, was erected by Shah Jahan. It came to be called Shajahanabad after the construction of new Delhi by the British.
(SFEC, 5/21/00, p.T1)
1642 A diamond, said to be stolen from a Hindu statue, was acquired in India by Jean Baptiste Tavernier, a noted French traveler. The 45.52 carat steel blue diamond was found in India back in remote times as a rough crystal weighing 112 carats. Tavernier later sold to King Louis XIV of France. The diamond, known as the French Blue or the Tavernier Blue, disappeared. For many years it was not heard from at all. In 1830, a large steel blue diamond of a different shape, and weighing only 44.50 carats appeared on the market in England and was purchased by Henry Thomas Hope, an English banker. It changed hands a number of times and in 1911 it was sold to Evelyn Walsh McLean of Washington, DC, who had it placed in a Cartier setting.
(http://famousdiamonds.tripod.com/hopediamond.html)(SSFC, 12/20/09, p.N7)
1643 The great marble dome of the Taj Mahal was first completed.
(WSJ, 3/31/07, p.P10)
1648 The Lal Qila (Red Fort) was built by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan. [see 1565]
(Hem., 2/97, p.58)
1653 Shah Jahan completed the Taj Mahal. Master builders, masons, calligraphers, etc. along with more than 20,000 laborers, worked for 22 years under orders of Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan to complete the great mausoleum for the shah's beloved wife. In 2007 Diana and Michael Preston authored “Taj Mahal” and Ebba Koch authored “the Complete Taj Mahal.”
(WSJ, 3/31/07, p.P10)(www.tribuneindia.com/2003/20030713/spectrum/heritage.htm)
1654-1656 Rembrandt painted a medallion portrait of Muhammed Adil Shah of Bijapur.
(SFEM, 2/1/98, p.16)(SFC, 2/7/98, p.E8)
1658 Jun 15, The Mogul emperor Aurangzeb imprisoned his father the Shah, after winning a battle at Samgarh.
(HT, 6/15/00)
1658 Jun 25, In India Aurangzeb proclaimed himself emperor of the Moghuls. Aurangzeb, son of Shah Jahan, overthrew his father and locked him up in the Jasmine tower.
(HT, 4/97, p.24)(HN, 6/25/98)
1658 The Jami Masjid (Friday Mosque) was completed in Delhi.
(SFEC, 5/21/00, p.T8)
1662 Dutch fortune seekers killed over 400 members of the Nayar warrior caste in Kerala.
(SFEM, 7/18/99, p.12)
1664 Michael Sweerts (b.1618), Belgium-born artist, died in Goa, India. He did much of his important work in Rome, moved to the Netherlands, and traveled in Asia with a band of missionaries. His major work included a series depicting the Seven Acts of Mercy.
(WSJ, 7/2/02, p.D7)
1666 Jan 22, Shah Jahan died.
(HT, 4/97, p.24)
1668 Mar 26, England took control of Bombay, India.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1668 Mar 27, English king Charles II gave Bombay to the East India Company.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1674 Jun 6, Sivaji crowned himself King of India.
(HN, 6/6/98)
1675 The 9th Sikh guru was executed in Delhi. His son, Gobind Rai, took up arms and organized a new fraternity called the Khalsa (the pure), and gave them the common surname Singh (lion), and changed his own name to Gobind Singh.
(WSJ, 10/12/01, p.W17)
1680 Apr 3, Shivaji Raje Bhosle (b.1627), warrior king and founder of the Maratha empire of western India, died.
(Econ, 7/12/08, p.73)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shivaji)
c1694/5 Devidas painted "The Awakening of Trust."
(WSJ, 4/10/01, p.A20)
1695 Henry Avery (b.~1653), former Royal Navyman turned pirate, captured the Ganj-i-Sawai, the largest ship of the Mogul emperor in India.
(WSJ, 11/22/08, p.W2)
1699 The Sikhs were founded by a series of 10 prophets or gurus and believe in one God but many paths to heaven. [see Nanak c1500, 1519] In 1999 some 20,000 thousands of Sikhs gathered to march in SF on the 300th anniversary of their religion.
(SFEC, 4/25/99, p.C1)
1700 India, with a population of some 165 million, was the world’s biggest economy and leading cotton producer.
(Econ, 9/24/11, SR p.4)
1707 Mar 3, Aurangzeb (88), Emperor of India (1658-1707), died.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1708 Gobind Singh, the 10th Sikh guru died in India. He named the “Granth Sahib” holy book as his eternal successor before his death.
(AP, 9/1/04)
1725-1774 Sir Robert Clive, soldier of fortune. Known as "Clive of India" he wrested Bengal away from the French on behalf of the British East India Co. [see 1757]
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R8)
1737 Sep 19, In India’s Bay of Bengal a cyclone destroyed some 20,000 ships. It was estimated that more than 300,000 people died in the densely populated area called the Sundarbans. Later research indicated the population of Calcutta at the time to be around 20,000. An estimate of the number of deaths was revised down to about 3,000.
(http://cires.colorado.edu/~bilham/gif_images/1737Calcutta.pdf)
1739 Mar 20, In India, Nadir Shah of Persia occupied Delhi and took possession of the Peacock thrown. King Nadir Shah later took the golden Peacock Throne back to Persia.
(HN, 3/20/99)(SFEC, 5/21/00, p.T8)
1746 Sep 21, A French expeditionary army occupied Labourdonnais. Colonial governor Joseph Francois Dupleix occupied Madras.
(PCh, 1992, p.298)(MC, 9/21/01)
1747-1773 Rule of Ahmad Shah Abdali (Durrani). Ahmad Shah consolidated and enlarged Afghanistan. He defeated the Moghuls in the west of the Indus, and he takes Herat away from the Persians. Ahmad Shah Durrani's empire extended from Central Asia to Delhi, from Kashmir to the Arabian sea. It became the greatest Muslim empire in the second half of the 18th century.
(www.afghan, 5/25/98)
c1750 By this time the British East India Company had gained virtual control of India.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)
1751 Aug 31, English troops under sir Robert Clive occupied Arcot, India.
(MC, 8/31/01)
1756 Jun 20, In India rebels defeated the British army at Calcutta. British soldiers were imprisoned in a suffocating cell that gained notoriety as the "Black Hole of Calcutta." Most of them died. The exact circumstances of this incident, such as the number of prisoners, originally put at 146, are disputed.
(HN, 6/20/98)(AP, 6/20/07)
1756 Dec 6, British troops under Robert Clive occupied Fulta, India.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1757 Jan 2, British troops occupied Calcutta, India.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Clive,_1st_Baron_Clive)
1757 Jan 28, Ahmed Shah, the first King of Afghanistan, occupied Delhi and annexed the Punjab.
(HN, 1/28/99)
1757 Jun 23, Forces of the East India Company led by Robert Clive (1725-1774) defeated Indians at Plassey and won control of Bengal. Lord Clive defeated Siraj-ud-daula, the Nawab of Bengal and exacted a payment of $140 million from Moghul ruler Mir Jafar and a Moghul title of nobility and rights to land around Calcutta. This effectively marked the beginning of British colonial rule in India. Clive served 2 terms as the governor of Bengal.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R8)(SSFM, 4/1/01, p.40)(AP, 6/23/07)
1758 Jan 2, The French began bombardment of Madras, India.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1763 The "Jnaneshvari" manuscript, a commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, was completed. In this period Hindu books began to vie with Muslim texts in the perfection of their paper, calligraphy, illustration and binding.
(WSJ, 12/11/01, p.A17)
1767 Robert Clive returned to England with a huge fortune and was accused of embezzlement.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R8)
1767 George Hodgeson, British entrepreneur, cut a deal with the East India Company to start providing beer to the British Civil-service and merchant classes in the India colonies. He doubled the hop content to help preserve the beer on its long voyage.
(WSJ, 8/13/04, p.W6)
1768-1834 The brigand, Amir Khan Pindari, was finally bribed by the British to retire with a grant of sovereignty over 4 territories.
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.E8)
1773-1785 Warren Hastings served as the British governor-general of India. [see 1787]
(WSJ, 5/1/00, p.A24)(WSJ, 2/22/00, p.A20)
1780-1839 The Maharajah Ranjit Singh. He consolidated Sikh rule after splintering conflicts with Punjab's Mughal court and Afghan and Persian invaders.
(SFC, 9/22/99, p.E1)
1782 Zayn al-Din, the John James Audubon of Indian art, painted "A Painted Stork."
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.E1)
1783 May 4, In India Tipu Sultan was enthroned as the ruler of Mysore after the death of Haider Ali in a simple ceremony at Bednur.
(www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20080048779)
1785 Apr, Elizabeth Marsh (b.1735), traveler and writer, died of breast cancer in Calcutta, India. In 1769 she had published “The Female Captive,” an account of her captivity in a Muslim court. In 2007 Linda Colley authored “The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh: A Woman in World History.”
(Econ, 7/14/07, p.89)(www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n12/mant01_.html)
1786 Feb 24, Charles Cornwallis, whose armies had surrendered to US at Yorktown, was appointed governor-general of India. [see Sep 12]
(MC, 2/24/02)
1786 Sep 12, Despite his failed efforts to suppress the American Revolution, Lord Cornwallis was appointed governor general of India. [see Feb 24]
(HN, 9/12/98)
1787 There was an effort to impeach the governor-general of India. Edmund Burke indicted Warren Hastings, governor-general of India (1773-1785), on 21 charges for high crimes and misdemeanors. The trial lasted 7 years and Hastings was acquitted on all charges.
(SFEC, 11/1/98, BR p.11)(WSJ, 5/1/00, p.A24)
1789 Dec, In India’s city of Coringa 3 tidal waves caused by a cyclone destroyed the harbor city at the mouth of the Ganges river. Most ships were sunk and some 20,000 people drowned.
(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1789 Thomas Daniell, R.A., painted his "South View of the Taj Mahal."
(SFEM, 2/1/98, p.16)
1795 Mar 11, Battle at Kurdla, India: Mahratten beat Moguls.
(MC, 3/12/02)
1798 Lord Wellesley decided to build a new British Government House in Calcutta and chose the neo-classical Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire as a model.
(SSFM, 4/1/01, p.43)
1799 May 4, In India Tipu Sultan was killed in a battle against 5,000 British soldiers who stormed and razed his capital, Seringapatanam. British forces defeated the sultan of Mysore at the Battle of Seringapatam.
(www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20080048779)(SSFM, 4/1/01, p.42)
1799 In Jaipur, India, the Hawa Mahal (the palace of wind) a five-storied sandstone building, was built by a Hindu king for his queen.
(Reuters, 5/14/08)
1803 Sep 23, British Major General Sir Arthur Wellesley defeated the Marathas at Assaye, India.
(HN, 9/23/98)
1805 Lord Charles Cornwallis, governor general of India, died in India.
(HNQ, 9/9/02)
1809 In southern Kerala their was a rise against British control in Travancore.
(SFEM, 7/18/99, p.10)
1812 May, William Moorcroft, East India Co. head of 5,000 acre horse farm at Pusa, departed for Tibet in search of horses to improve his stock.
(ON, 1/02, p.3)
1817 In Kerala the Maharani of Travancore issued an edict that the state should defray the whole cost of education of its people.
(SFEM, 7/18/99, p.10)
1818 Jun 2, The British army defeated the Maratha alliance in Bombay, India.
(HN, 6/2/98)
1819 William Moorcroft, East India Co. head of 5,000 acre horse farm at Pusa, India, set out for Bukhara, Uzbekistan, to trade for horses.
(ON, 1/02, p.5)
1819 A British hunting party discovered the painted caves at Ajanta that dated from c200BC-650CE.
(WSJ, 11/12/98, p.A28)
1820 A "Skinner Artist" painted "Thakur Daulat Singh in a Council."
(SFEM, 2/1/98, p.14)
1820 The Prince of Baroda was forbidden to increase his daily number of canon salutes by the British Raj, so instead he had his fort's canons made from solid gold at 28 pounds each.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R4)
1820-1821 Sita Ram painted "West View of a Mosque and Gateway."
(SFEM, 2/1/98, p.16)
1820-1825 Ghulam Ali Khan painted his gouache and watercolor: "Assembly of Ascetics and Yogins around a Fire."
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.E8)
1827 "Nawab Nasir ud Din Haidar, King of Oudh in his palace" was painted by a local artist.
(SFEM, 2/1/98, p.16)
1829 Nov 8, Lord William Bentinck, Governor-General of the East India Company, called for the abolition of sati (suttee), the practice of a widow burning herself to death on her husband's funeral pyre. [see Dec 4]
(www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1829bentinck.html)
1829 Dec 4, British colonial rulers abolished "suttee" (Sati) in India. This was the practice of a widow burning herself to death on her husband's funeral pyre.
(http://chnm.gmu.edu/wwh/p/103.html)(Reuters, 9/21/06)
1830s Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859), English essayist, historian and politician, served as a member of the British Supreme Council in India.
(www.britannica.com)(Econ, 10/30/04, p.48)
1831 Muslim warrior Sayeed Ahmad Shaheed was slain in Balakot (later part of Pakistan) while failing to repel Sikh invaders.
(AP, 4/6/06)
1834 The maharaja of Jammu was able to annex Ladakh, a West Tibetan kingdom.
(SFEC,12/14/97, p.T4)
1834 William Bentinck, India's governor-general, wrote to his superiors in London that Indian cloth-makers were suffering severe hardship due to the efficiency of the English textile industry.
(WSJ, 3/29/04, p.A1)
1836 Feb 18, Swami Ramakrishna [Gadadhar Chatterji], Indian mystic, Hindu leader, was born.
(MC, 2/18/02)
1838 Jun 27, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Bengali novelist (Anandamath), was born.
(SC, 6/27/02)
1838 Oct 1, Lord Auckland, British governor general in India, issued the Simla Manifesto, setting forth the necessary reasons for British intervention in Afghanistan. This led to the 1st Anglo-Afghan War.
(Econ, 10/7/06, p.18)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Anglo-Afghan_War)
1838 Dec, India’s British governor general dispatched to Kabul the Army of the Indus to protect British interests from growing Russian influence.
(SSFC, 10/28/01, p.C8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Anglo-Afghan_War)
1838 Emily Eden painted her portrait of "Hira Singh."
(SFEM, 2/1/98, p.16)
1839 Nov, In India’s city Coringa a gigantic 40-foot tidal wave caused by an enormous cyclone wiped out the harbor city that was never entirely rebuilt; 20,000 vessels in the bay were destroyed and some 300,000 people died.
(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1839 A Sikh kingdom under Ranjit Singh ruled the Punjab until this time.
(WSJ, 10/12/01, p.W17)
1844 The maharaja of Jammu purchased Kashmir from the East India Company.
(SFEC,12/14/97, p.T4)
1846 Feb 10, British General Sir Hugh Gough decisively routed Tej Singh’s Sikhs in the Battle of Sobraon.
(HN, 2/10/97)
1846 Lt. Harry Lumsden in the heat of India’s Punjab dyed his PJs a tawny color. They were made of cotton and called khaki in Hindi.
(NH, 6/96, p.7)
1849 Feb 21, In the Second Sikh War, Sir Hugh Gough’s well placed guns won a victory over a Sikh force twice the size of his at Gujerat on the Chenab River, assuring British control of the Punjab for years to come.
(HN, 2/21/98)
1849 Britain annexed the Punjab, the vast territories of what later became known as eastern Pakistan and northern western India. This put them on the edge of the tribal territories, mostly claimed by Afghanistan, and forced them to launch military campaigns almost every year for the next half century to keep the tribes at bay.
(Econ, 1/2/10, p.18)
1853 Apr 16, India's 1st steam locomotive pulled 14 cars and 400 people 34 km. from Bombay to Thane.
(NG, 5/95, p.140)(Econ, 12/6/03, p.61)
1856 Jun 14, Ahmad Raza Khan was born in Bareilly, Rohilkhand, British India, a city now in Uttar Pradesh, India. He later founded the Barelvi tradition of Islam. Deobandis and Barelvis are the two major groups of Muslims in the Subcontinent apart from the Shia. Barelvi Hanafis deem Deobandis to be kaafir. Those hostile to the Barelvis deprecated them as the shrine-worshipping, the grave-worshiping, ignorant Barelvis.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Raza_Khan)(Econ, 5/2/09, p.61)
1856 In northeast India the East India Company first moved its troops to the border of the Awadh (Oudh) kingdom and then annexed the state (later part of Uttar Pradesh state). In 1857 rebels took control of Awadh, and it took the British 18 months to reconquer the region, a period which included the famous Siege of Lucknow. Oudh was placed back under a chief commissioner, and was governed as a British province. The descendants of the ruler, the Nawab, remained in the city as powerful landlords, living off the family's riches.
(AP, 12/11/10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awadh)
1857 May 10, The Seepoys of India revolted against the British Army. The Bengal Army, Indian soldiers in the British army, staged a revolt in what is viewed as the first attempt at independence. The Rani of Jhansi, a charismatic female strategist, led the Hindu revolt.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)(HN, 5/10/98)(SSFC, 11/9/03, p.C9)
1857 May 11, Indian mutineers against the British seized Delhi.
(HN, 5/11/98)
1857 Jul 15, British women and children were murdered in the second Cawnpore Massacre during the Indian Mutiny.
(HN, 7/15/98)
1857 Sep 20, Delhi, India, fell to British forces.
(AP, 9/20/07)
1857 The 1st madrasah, religious school, was founded in Deoband in the wake of a jihad against British colonial government.
(WSJ, 10/2/01, p.A1A14)
1858 Mar 21, British forces in India lifted the siege of Lucknow, ending the Indian Mutiny.
(HN, 3/21/99)
1858 The British colonized the Andaman Islands home to 10 tribes of the Great Andamanese comprising some 5,000 people. Most were killed or died of diseases brought by the colonizers. In 2010 the last speaker of Bo, one of the ten dialects used by the tribes, died.
(Reuters, 2/6/10)
1858 The East India Company was abolished and the British government assumed the administration of India.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)
1859 The Murray’s "Handbook for Travelers in India" was first published.
(SFEC,11/23/97, p.T5)
1860 A British seaman proposed digging a deeper, 19-mile shipping canal in the shallow Palk strait between India and Sri Lanka. In 2004 India planned to go ahead with the project.
(Econ, 11/6/04, p.44)
1861 In Bombay, India, the Magen David synagogue was erected at the sole expense of David Sasson Esq.
(WSJ, 9/17/98, p.A20)
1861 British colonial rulers framed an anti-homosexuality law for India.
(Reuters, 7/7/06)
1861 In India the Murree Brewery Co. Ltd. was founded by British colonialists. In 1947 it came under the control of Pakistan.
(SFC, 7/10/00, p.A8)
1861-1941 Sir Rabindranath Tagore, Indian Nobel Prize-winning poet: "Each child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man."
(AP, 10/26/00)
1862 Nov 7, The body of exiled Bahadur Shah Zafar II was lowered into an unmarked grave in Rangoon (Burma-Myanmar). Zafar II, the last Mughal emperor in India, was deposed in the 1857 sepoy mutiny. In 2006 William Dalrymple authored “The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi, 1857.”
(Econ, 11/11/06, p.96)
1863 George Richmond, R.A., painted the portrait "Maharani ‘Chund Kowr’ alias Rani Jindan" in India.
(SFEM, 2/1/98, p.14)(SFC, 2/7/98, p.E1)
1864 Oct 1, A cyclone struck Calcutta and 70,000 were killed. [see Oct 5]
(MC, 10/1/01)
1864 Oct 5, Calcutta, India, was denuded by a cyclone and some 70,000 people were killed.
(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1865 Dec 30, Rudyard Kipling (d.1936), British author and poet, best known for "Jungle Book" and "Soldiers Three," was born in Bombay, India. "There are only two classes of mankind in the world -- doctors and patients." He won the Nobel prize for literature in 1907.
(AP, 12/30/97)(HN, 12/30/98)(AP, 2/7/00)(MC, 12/30/01)
1865 During the Orissa famine in India the British political secretariat of the Bengal government refused to import rice to the stricken areas because it was “a breach of the laws of political economy.”
(WSJ, 2/23/06, p.D8)
1866 In India Mohammed Qasim Nanautawi founded the Darul Uloom school of Islam in Deoband to preserve Islamic culture in India. The school set austere roles for personal behavior and led to offshoots such as the Tablighi Jama’at and the Taliban.
(Econ, 5/2/09, p.60)(http://tinyurl.com/qzkshj)(AP, 2/21/11)
1867-1872 A census was held in India under the direction of the British. These years were spent in taking a census by the actual counting of heads in as much of the country as was practicable. This series, commonly known as the Census of 1872, was not a synchronous project, nor did it cover all territory possessed or controlled by the British.
(Econ, 2/26/11, p.48)
1868 Oct 16, Denmark ended its involvement in India by selling the rights to the Nicobar Islands to the British.
(SFC, 11/3/11, p.A2)
1868 Jamsetji Tata (1839-1904), Indian entrepreneur, started a trading company with a seed capital of Rs. 21,000. His company grew to become the Tata group of companies. In 2011 its global workforce numbered about 395,000 people.
(Econ, 3/5/11, p.76)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamsetji_Tata)
1868 In Darjeeling, India, English tea planters formed the Darjeeling Planters Club.
(SSFC, 7/15/07, p.G5)
1869 Oct 2, Mohandas Karamchad Gandhi (d.1948), called Mahatma, Hindu nationalist, political and spiritual leader was born in Porbandar, India. His nonviolent actions helped to eradicate British rule in India. He was assassinated in 1948. "Love is the strongest force the world possesses, and yet it is the humblest imaginable." "To enjoy life one should give up the lure of life." [see Oct 3]
(AHD, 1971, p.542)(HFA, ‘96, p.40)(SFC, 1/31/97, p.A13) (AP, 10/2/97) (AP, 1/12/98)(HN, 10/2/98)(AP, 1/12/98)(AP, 1/20/99)
1869 Oct 3, Mohandas Karamchad Gandhi (d.1948), called Mahatma, Hindu nationalist and spiritual leader was born. He was later assassinated. [see Oct 2]
(AHD, 1971, p.542)(HFA, ‘96, p.40)(SFC, 1/31/97, p.A13)
1871 In India the Leopold Café opened in Bombay (later Mumbai). It became an institution very popular with foreign tourists trading India stories over beer.
(AP, 11/27/08)
1871 In India the Raj introduced the Criminal Tribes Act, under which members of some 150 tribes were forced to register with the police, forbidden to move around freely and in many cases herded into barbed-wire camps.
(Econ, 4/24/10, p.42)
1872 A census, begun in 1867, was completed in India under the direction of the British.
(Econ, 2/26/11, p.48)
1873 India’s introduced into the Statue Book of the Bengal Births and Deaths Registration Act, to be followed later by the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act of 1886.
(http://tinyurl.com/5wdrbws)
1875 India’s Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) was established.
(Econ, 5/21/11, p.79)
1876 Oct 31, In India’s Megna River Delta a tidal wave caused by a cyclone flooded the river delta and the city of Backergunge. Some areas became covered with 40 feet of water. 100,000 people drowned and another 100,000 were reported to have perished from subsequent diseases caused by polluted water.
(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1876 Queen Victoria added the title of Empress of India.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)
1877-1879 India experienced a devastating famine that left 6-12 million people dead.
(http://sharpgary.org/1864-1895.html)(Econ, 1/29/05, p.74)
1878 In India construction began on the Chattrapati Shivaji Terminus, earlier known as Victoria Terminus Station. It was completed after 10 years. UNESCO included it in their list of world heritage sites in 2004.
(AP, 11/27/08)
1878 British officials recorded 624 human killings by wolves in the area of Banbirpur in the state of Uttar Pradesh.
(SFC, 9/1/96, p.A16)
1881 The first complete census of India’s population was conducted on a uniform basis providing the most complete and continuous demographic record for any comparable population.
(http://tinyurl.com/5wdrbws)
1882 Jun 6, Cyclone in Arabian Sea (Bombay India) drowned 100,000.
(MC, 6/6/02)
1884 In Bombay a Jewish synagogue was erected by Jacob Elias David Sasson and his brothers.
(WSJ, 9/17/98, p.A20)
1884 Dabur India Ltd. was established by a doctor who prescribed mint leaf remedies to cure stomach aches. It later became the largest company in Ayurvedic medicine.
(WSJ, 12/27/99, p.B9D)
1885 Mar 31, Madame Blavatsky was hoisted in an invalid chair onto a steamer in the Madras harbor of India and departed for London. In England she wrote "The Secret Doctrine" and had as guests to her salon William Butler Yeats, Annie Besant and the young Mohandas K. Gandhi.
(Smith., 5/95, p.127)
1886 The Congress Party of India was founded.
(SFC, 1/9/96, p.A10)
1886-1967 Mir Osman Ali Khan, 7th and last ruler of the Sif Jahi dynasty in India. He ruled Hyderabad up to 1948 and amassed a fortune from taxation. He donated to hundreds of universities and hospitals regardless of caste and religion. When he died rooms were found filled with bank notes eaten through by rats.
(WSJ, 1/11/98, p.R18)
1887 Feb 26, Sir Benegal Narsing Rau, president of UN Security Council (1950), was born in India.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1887 In Mumbai, India, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (aka Victoria Terminus) was completed in Gothic Revival style, designed by British architect F.W. Stevens.
(SSFC, 5/23/10, p.N4)
1887 Swami Sivananda (d.1963) was born as Kuppuswami in India. He became a doctor but opted for a spiritual path with 6 commands: Serve, Love, Give, Purify, Meditate, Realize.”
(SSFC, 10/3/04, p.D5)(www.yogamag.net/yogas/inspY.shtml)
1888 Apr 20, 246 people were reported killed by hail in Moradabad, India.
(MC, 4/20/02)
1889 Nov 14, Jawaharlal Nehru (d.1964), Indian nationalist leader (1947-1964), was born. "A man who is afraid will do anything."
(AP, 9/27/97)(HN, 11/14/00)(MC, 11/14/01)
1889 The Ahmadiyah sect of Islam was established in India and considered its founder Mirza Ghulam Ahmad to be a savior and messiah, counter to traditional Islamic teaching. By 2011 it had tens of millions of members worldwide and around 200,000 in Indonesia.
(AP, 8/9/11)
1889 A telegraph line connected Victoria, Canada, to India by way of an undersea cable from Bamfield.
(SSFC, 3/3/02, p.C8)
1890 Capt. Hamilton Bower, an Indian Army intelligence officer, returned to Calcutta with 51 birch-bark leaves of a manuscript acquired from a treasure hunter in Kucha, along the northern route of the Silk Road. They proved to be the oldest known Indian manuscripts.
(AM, 7/00, p.72)
1892 Plague hit China and spread throughout south Asia. It ended after killing 6 million people in India.
(SFC, 7/2/05, p.F9)
1893 The Durand line, drawn by British diplomat Sir Mortimer Durand, fixed the borders of Afghanistan with British India, splitting Pushtun tribal areas, leaving half of these Afghans in what is now Pakistan. By 2007 no Afghan government had yet accepted the border.
(www.afghan-web.com/history/)(Econ, 7/22/06, p.44)(Econ, 8/18/07, p.34)
1894 The British introduced the Land Acquisition Act in India in order to build railroads and canals. It obliged private owners to part with land required for a public purpose.
(Econ, 8/30/08, p.63)
1894 Mullah Powindah, an Afghan-backed Mehsud, led an attack on a British team demarcating the frontier between India and Afghanistan. Powindah took the title Badshah-Taliban (King of the Taliban) and became a 2-decade-long headache for the British.
(Econ, 1/2/10, p.19)
1895 The British began shipping thousands of Indians to east Africa to build a railway. Many settled there to become station masters, artisans, clerks and shopkeepers.
(Econ, 4/12/08, p.67)
1895-1986 Jiddu Krishnamurti, Indian author and philosopher: "To seek fulfillment is to invite frustration."
(AP, 6/19/98)
1897 Jun 12, Possibly the most severe quake in history struck Assam, India. Shock waves were felt over an area size of Europe.
(MC, 6/12/02)
1897 Nov 23, Nirad C. Chaudhuri (d.1999 at 101), author and scholar, was born in Kishorganj. At age 90 he published his 2nd autobiography "Thy Hand Great Anarch."
(SFC, 8/3/99, p.A20)
1898 British army officers began using the new portable Roorkhee chair. It was named in honor of the headquarters of the Indian Army corps of Engineers at Roorkhee.
(SSFM, 4/1/01, p.46)
1899-1905 Lord George Nathaniel Curzon served as Viceroy of India.
(SSFM, 4/1/01, p.43)
1900 The Maharajah of Patiala, Sir Bhupinder Singh, ascended the throne of Patiala at the age of 8. Patiala was a prominent Sikh state in northwestern India. He was known for his jeweled sarpech, a turban ornament.
(WSJ, 11/5/99, p.W16)
1900-1947 This period of India’s history is covered in the 2007 book “Indian summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire,” by Alex von Tunzelmann.
(SSFC, 8/12/07, p.M3)
1901 Rudyard Kipling published "Kim."
(WSJ, 7/17/98, p.W11)
1901 India’s population of about 300 million was secured and governed by a British contingent of some 154,000 including dependents. In 2005 David Gilmour authored “The Ruling Caste: Imperial Lives in the Victorian Raj.”
(Econ, 11/12/05, p.89)
1903 Jun 25, George Orwell (d.1950), English novelist, essayist and critic, was born in India as Eric Arthur Blair. He took his pen name in 1932. His books included "Animal Farm" (1945) and "1984" (1949), which attacked totalitarianism. "Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it."
(HN, 6/25/99)(AP, 9/23/00)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell)
1903 English Col. Francis Younghusband marched off from Darjeeling, India, with 1,000 British and Indian soldiers, 7,000 mules and 4,000 yaks to invade Tibet.
(SSFC, 7/15/07, p.G5)
1903 In India 110 the five-star Taj Mahal Palace and Tower was built in Bombay (later Mumbai).
(AP, 11/27/08)
1906 May 29, Terence Hanbury White (T.H. White), novelist (The Sword in the Stone, England Have My Bones), was born in Bombay, India.
(HN, 5/29/01)(SC, 5/29/02)
1906 Sep 11, Mohandas Gandhi addressed a meeting in Johannesburg on social protest against the Asiatic Law Amendment, a new law by the province of Transvaal that made it compulsory for all Indians over age 8 to register with the government and carry ID cards. In the India Opinion he published articles on what he called Satyagraha (Truth Force): "the vindication of truth not by infliction of suffering on the opponent but on one's self."
(ON, 9/03, p.1)
1907 Jul 1, The Asiatic Registration Act became law in the province of Transvaal, SA.
(ON, 9/03, p.1)
1907 India’s Tata firm opened an office in London to buy supplies for its Indian operations.
(Econ, 9/10/11, p.61)
1910 Feb 25, The Dalai Lama fled from the Chinese and took refuge in India.
(HN, 2/25/98)
1910 Aug 26, Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu (d.1997), later known as Mother Teresa and care-taker of the poor in Calcutta, was born to an ethnic Albanian family in Uskub (later Skopje, Macedonia). In 1950 she founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta and in 1979 was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for her work.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.C3)(AP, 9/26/04)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa)
1910 In India Laxmanrao Kirloskar banded together 25 workers and their families and succeeded in transforming a barren expanse in Aundh state into his dream village. Kirloskar Brothers Limited (KBL), the first Kirloskar venture at Kirloskarvadi was to become the base for all of the Kirloskar Group's subsequent enterprises. It began as the only Indian company with its own products, a fodder cutter and iron plough, which competed with British products.
(http://kirloskarapps.kirloskar.com/kirloskar/web/11$M1.html)(Econ, 6/3/06, Survey p.8)
1911 Dec 12, In northern India Britain’s King George V stood before princes and maharajahs, soldiers and bureaucrats, and made a surprise announcement that would change the fate of Delhi, an ancient fading city. The king said Delhi would be the new capital of India.
(AP, 12/11/11)
1911 King George V of Britain visited India. He went hunting in Nepal and from the back of an elephant bagged 21 tigers, 8 rhinos, and a bear.
(NG, 12/97, p.138)
1912 Jan 1, Kim Philby was born in India. He became a ringleader of a group of upper crust Englishmen who entered public service or, in many cases, the British Secret Service, then spied for the Soviets. Philby got away and spent his last years in Moscow.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Philby)
1912 In India the film “Pundalit,” the first result of an Indian’s use to tell a story, opened in Bombay. An ad for the film survived, but the film itself was lost.
(Econ, 12/2/06, p.87)
1913 Nov 6, Mohandas K. Gandhi was arrested as he led a march of Indian miners in South Africa.
(AP, 11/6/97)
1914 Jan, Gen. Smuts began negotiations with Mohandas Gandhi to eradicate many of the racist laws imposed on South African Indians.
(ON, 9/03, p.5)
1914 Sep 22, The German cruiser Emden shelled Madras, India, destroying 346,000 gallons of fuel and killing only five civilians.
(HN, 9/22/99)
1914 An 840km stretch of frontier between China and India (Arunachal Pradesh state), in effect independent at this time, was settled by the governments of India and Tibet and named the McMahon Line after Sir Henry McMahon, creator of the border line.
(Econ, 8/21/10, p.18)
1915 Nov 22, The Anglo-Indian army, led by British General Sir Charles Townshend, attacked a larger Turkish force under General Nur-ud-Din at Ctesiphon, Iraq, but was repulsed.
(HN, 11/22/98)
1917 Nov 19, Indira Gandhi was born in Allahabad. She served as prime minister of India from 1967 to 1977 and 1978 to 1984, when she was assassinated by her own guards.
(HN, 11/19/00)(AP, 11/19/07)
1919 Mar 30, Gandhi announced resistance against Rowlatt Act.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1919 Apr 13, In the Amritsar Massacre British forces under the command of General Reginald Dyer killed hundreds of Indian nationalists in the thickly crowded plaza at Jallianwala Bagh.
(HN, 4/13/98)(EWH, 4th ed., p.1101)
1919 Dec 23, Britain instituted a new constitution for India.
(HN, 12/23/98)
1919 Gilette Co. opened a sales office in Calcutta. Razor blades were sold from a plant in London.
(WSJ, 3/13/97, p.A1)
1919-1996 Pandit Pran Nath (1919-1996), Indian classical singer and teacher, moved to New York in 1972. He was a master of the 600-year-old kirana style of Hindustani music that involves very minute gradations of pitch. He also redesigned the tamboura.
(SFC, 6/18/96, p.A17)
1920 Mar 23, The Perserikatan Communist of India (PKI) political party formed.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1920 Apr 7, Ravi Shankar, sitar player, was born in Benares, India.
(MC, 4/7/02)
1920 Apr 26, Srinivasa Ramanujan (b.1887), Indian mathematician, died in India. In 1913 English mathematician G.H. Hardy recognized his brilliant work, and asked Ramanujan to study under him at Cambridge. In 2007 British playwright Simon McBurney created “A Disappearing Number,” for his theater group “Complicite,” based on Ramanujan’s 5 years a Cambridge.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan)(Econ, 9/1/07, p.76)
1920-1921 The Indus Valley, or Harrapan, civilization was discovered when engraved seals were discovered near present-day Sahiwal in Pakistani Punjab at a place called Harappa.
(EAWC, p.2)(http://inic.utexas.edu/asnic/subject/peoplesandlanguages.html)
1920s British architect Edward Luyten built New Delhi in the late 20s.
(Hem., 2/97, p.57)
1921 Feb 12, In Delhi, India, the Duke of Connaught laid the foundation stone of the Parliament building, designed by Herbert Baker.
(www.indfy.com/places-to-see-in-delhi/central-delhi/parliament-house.html)
1921 Mar 3, In India the Central Legislative Assembly opened. The Committee on Public Accounts was first set up in the wake of the Montague-Chelmsford Reforms. The Finance Member of the Executive Council used to be the Chairman of the Committee. The Secretariat assistance to the Committee was rendered by the then Finance Department (later the Ministry of Finance). This position continued right up to 1949.
(http://tinyurl.com/2tnbet)(www.parliamentofindia.nic.in/ls/intro/p14.htm)
1921 May 2, Satyajit Ray, Indian film director (Aparajito, The World of Apu), was born.
(HN, 5/2/02)
1921 Jun 28, P.V. Narasimha Rao (d.2004), later India’s Prime Minister (1991-1996), was born to an upper-caste farming family in Andhra Pradesh state.
(SFC, 12/24/04, p.B4)
1921 Mohandas Gandhi began peaceful the non-cooperation movement against British rule. The Non-cooperation Movement of 1920-'22 sought to induce the British government to grant self-government to India. The movement grew from the Amritsar massacre of April 1919, when the British killed some 400 Indians. The movement marked the transition of Indian nationalism from a middle class to a mass movement.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)(HNQ, 11/24/98)
1922 Mar 18, Mohandas K. Gandhi was sentenced in India to six years' imprisonment for civil disobedience. He was released after serving two years. [see Mar 22]
(AP, 3/18/97)(HN, 3/18/98)
1922 Mar 22, A British court sentenced Mahatma Gandhi to 6 years in prison. [see Mar 18]
(MC, 3/22/02)
1922 Civil disobedience demonstrators killed 22 police officers and Gandhi called off his campaign of disobedience.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)
1923 Apr 8, Death toll from plague reached 1,000 in India.
(HN, 4/8/98)
1924 Feb 24, Mahatma Gandhi was released from jail.
(MC, 2/24/02)
1924 The Gateway of India monument in Bombay was completed. It commemorated the 1st visit of a British monarch to India, King George V and Queen Mary in 1911.
(AP, 8/26/03)
1924 Gandhi undertook a fast to end Hindu-Muslim rioting. The rioting stopped after 21 days.
(SFC, 12/1/00, p.A12)
1924 Archeologists identified a writing system they called the Indus Valley Script.
(SFC, 9/15/06, p.A3)
1925 Jul 26, Tyeb Mehta, painter and film maker, was born in Gujarat, India. In 2005 one of his paintings fetched $1.58 million.
(Econ, 9/16/06, p.75)(www.iloveindia.com/indian-heroes/tyeb-mehta.html)
1925 In India the National Volunteer Corps, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), was founded. The Hindu revival group was highly disciplined and led its members in military style physical training. The corps spawned a political movement that coalesced as the BJP in 1980.
(WSJ, 5/16/96, p.A-10)(WSJ, 2/27/98, p.A1)
1925 Bombay, India, introduced a new commuter rail service.
(SFC, 11/12/04, p.W1)
1926 Apr 2, Riots took place between Moslems and Hindus in Calcutta.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1927 The book "Mother India" by Katherine Mayo demonized Indian civilization with images of widow burnings, untouchability and cow-worship.
(SFEC, 12/13/98, BR p.3)
1927 In India the Musalman Urdu-language newspaper began operating in Chennai. In 2008 the handwritten newspaper was still operating with some 23,000 subscribers.
(WSJ, 9/16/08, p.A20)
1927 In India the Deonar dumping ground opened in Bombay (later Mumbai).
(Econ, 2/28/09, SR p.8)
1928 Aug 30, Jawaharlal Nehru requested the independence of India.
(MC, 8/30/01)
1928 In India British colonial authorities began to print money.
(WSJ, 8/29/96, B1)
1929 Apr 26, First non-stop flight from England to India was completed.
(HN, 4/26/98)
1929 In India Karam Chand Thapar (1900-1962/3), founded what came to be known as the Thapar group of companies. In 2007 the group was rebranded as “Avantha” under the leadership of grandson Gautam Thapar.
(www.hrfolks.com/knowledgebank/businesshouses.htm)(Econ, 4/10/10, p.68)
1930 Mar 8, Mahatma Gandhi started civil disobedience in India. [see Mar 12]
(MC, 3/8/02)
1930 Mar 12, Indian political and spiritual leader Mohandas K. Gandhi began a 200-mile march to the sea to protest a British tax on salt. The march symbolized his defiance of British Rule over India.
(HN, 3/12/98)(AP, 3/12/98)
1930 Apr 5, Mahatma Ghandi defied British law by making salt in India instead of buying it from the British.
(HN, 4/5/99)
1930 May 4, Mahatma Gandhi was arrested by the British.
(HN, 5/4/98)
1930 Gandhi called for peaceful civil disobedience and the Indian National Congress issued a declaration of grievances against Britain.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)
1930 A competition began in India, known as the Empire Games. It gathered the British empire's athletes as a way to bind together the Britain’s vast dominions. The games later became known as the Commonwealth Games.
(AP, 10/1/10)
1930 Shyamaji Krishnavarma (b.1857), founder of a pro-independence monthly the India House, a hub for British-based Indian nationalists, died in Geneva. His ashes were returned to India in 2003.
(AP, 8/22/03)
1931-1933 In 2007 it was reported that British scientists began conducting experiments in the early 1930s to determine whether mustard gas damaged Indians' skin more than British soldiers'. They went on for more than 10 years at a military site in Rawalpindi (later a part of Pakistan).
(AP, 9/1/07)
1931 Feb 10, New Delhi became the capital of India. [see Mar 26]
(MC, 2/10/02)
1931 Mar 5, Gandhi and British viceroy Lord Irwin signed a pact.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1931 Mar 25, Fifty people were killed in riots that broke out in India. Gandhi was one of many people assaulted.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1931 Mar 26, New Delhi replaced Calcutta as capitol of British-India. [see Feb 10]
(SS, 3/26/02)
1931 Francis Ingall (d.1998 at 89) led his Lancers in a charge on horseback at the Battle of Karawal near the Khyber Pass against Afridi tribesmen. It was the final such attack by a regiment of the British Army. He later authored "The Last of the Bengal Lancers."
(SFC, 9/25/98, p.D4)
1931 The India Gate was built in New Delhi as tribute to the 90,000 Indian soldiers who died in WW I.
(SFEC, 5/21/00, p.T8)
1931 India held a census that measured castes, as colonial Britain still ruled. India’s 2010 census also included a question on caste.
(AP, 5/27/10)
1932 Sep 20, Gandhi began a hunger strike against the treatment of untouchables.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1933 May 18, H.D. Deve Gowda, later chief minister of the southern state of Karnataka and then prime minister in 1996, was born.
(WP, 6/29/96, p.A20)
1933 May 8, Gandhi began a hunger strike to protest British oppression in India.
(HN, 5/8/98)
1934 Jan 15, An 8.4 earthquake in India and Nepal killed some 15,000 people. It damaged the Mahabuddha Temple in Patan, Nepal, one of but 3 in the world.
(http://asc-india.org/menu/gquakes.htm)(WSJ, 1/22/98, p.A17)
1934 Apr 1, India’s Reserve Bank of India was established.
(Econ, 4/11/09, p.76)
1934 Apr 7, In India, Mahatma Gandhi suspended his campaign of civil disobedience.
(MC, 4/7/02)
1934 Oct 24, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, called Mahatma or "Great Soul," resigned from Congress in India.
(HN, 10/24/98)
1934 Margaret Sanger, US birth control pioneer, was invited to Trivandrum in Kerala.
(SFEM, 7/18/99, p.12)
1935 Mar 19, The British fired on 20,000 Moslems in India, killing 23.
(HN, 3/19/98)
1935 May 31, In Quetta, India (later Pakistan), a magnitude 7.5 earthquake killed some 50,000 people. The earthquake flattened Quetta, killing an estimated 26,000 people in the city alone, more than half its population.
(AP, 12/27/03)(AP, 10/15/05)
1935 R. K. Narayan (d.2001), age 29, published his 1st book: "Swami and Friends" in Britain.
(SFC, 5/14/01, p.B2)
1935 In India the Doon School was founded in Dehra Dun, 140 miles northeast of New Delhi, on the former site of Imperial Forest College & Research Institute.
(WSJ, 6/3/06, p.A1)
1935 Delhi, India, recorded minus 0.6 degrees Celsius.
(AP, 1/8/06)
1936 Feb 8, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru followed Gandhi as chairman of India Congress Party.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1936 Apr 29, Zubin Mehta, conductor (NY Philharmonic 1976), was born in Bombay, India.
(MC, 4/29/02)
1936-1947 Mirza Ali Khan (d.1960), a Wazir of North Waziristan known as the Faqir of Ipi, led a freedom struggle that at one point sucked in some 40,000 British Indian troops. The struggle was only quelled by brutal aerial bombing.
(Econ, 1/2/10, p.19)
1938 In India Lakireddy Bali Reddy was born in Velvadam in Andhra Pradesh state. The Reddy caste was traditionally made up of landowners. He later studied engineering at UC Berkeley and established land holdings valued at some $60 million.
(SFEC, 2/6/00, p.A12)
1938 In India Uday Shankar opened a school of dance in Almora to teach both Western and local traditions.
(TL, 1988, p.111)
1938 There was extensive flooding in India that was not rivaled until 1998.
(WSJ, 9/4/98, p.A1)
1938 In India Metro Cinema, built by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, opened in Bombay (later Mumbai). Initially the cinema showed only MGM films. In the 1970s an Indian business took over the cinema and it became a popular venue for Bollywood film premieres.
(AP, 11/27/08)
1938 In India the Larsen & Toubro engineering firm was founded in Bombay by two Danes. It came to be viewed as one of India’s best companies.
(Econ, 10/22/11, SR p.8)
1939 Mar 3, In Bombay, Ghandi began a fast to protest the state's autocratic rule.
(HN, 3/3/99)
1939 Mar 21, Ghandi called on the world to disarm, thinking that Hitler would follow.
(HN, 3/21/98)
1940 Mar 23, The All-India Muslim League called for a Muslim homeland.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1940 Jul 27, Bharati Mukherjee, Indian novelist (The Middleman and Other Stories), was born.
(HN, 7/27/01)
1940 The Muslim League demanded a separate homeland for the Muslim-majority regions of India.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)
1941 Apr 14, Julie Christie, actress (Dr Zhivago), was born in Assam, India.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1941 May 25, Some 5,000 drowned in a storm at Ganges Delta region in India.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1941 Nov 24, Indian infantry attacked German tanks at Sidi Omar.
(MC, 11/24/01)
1942 Jan 15, Jawaharlal Nehru succeeded Mohandas K. Gandhi as head of India's National Congress Party.
(AP, 1/15/02)
1942 Feb 9, Chiang Kai-shek met with Sir Stafford Cripps, the British viceroy in India. Detachment 101 harried the Japanese in Burma and provided close support for regular Allied forces.
(HN, 2/9/97)
1942 Feb 22, India’s Capt. Sam Manekshaw (1914-2008) was severely wounded in a counteroffensive against Japanese forces on the Sittong River in Burma. In 1969 Manekshaw became the 8th chief of the Indian army.
(SFC, 7/1/08, p.B5)
1942 May 5, General Joseph Stilwell learned that the Japanese had cut his railway out of China and was forced to lead his troops into India.
(HN, 5/5/99)
1942 May 14, The British, in retreat from Burma, reached India.
(HN, 5/14/98)
1942 Aug 9, Mahatma Gandhi and 50 others were arrested in Bombay after the passing of a "quit India" campaign by the All-India Congress.
(MC, 8/9/02)
1942 Oct 16, In India a cyclone devastated Bengal and about 40,000 lives were lost.
. (www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1942 Dec 20, 1st Japanese began the bombing of Calcutta.
(MC, 12/20/01)
1943 There was a major famine in Bengal that left 3 million people dead.
(SFC, 10/15/98, p.A2)
1943-1947 Archibald Wavell (1883-1950), British Field Marshal, served as the penultimate viceroy of India. In 2009 Adrian Fort authored “Archibald Wavell: The Life and Times of an Imperial Servant.”
(Econ, 1/17/09, p.82)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archibald_Wavell,_1st_Earl_Wavell)
1944 Feb 4, The Japanese attacked the Indian Seventh Army in Burma.
(HN, 2/4/99)
1944 Apr 1, Japanese troops conquered Jessami, East-India.
(MC, 4/1/02)
1944 May 5, Gandhi was freed from prison.
(MC, 5/5/02)
1944 Aug 19, The last Japanese troops were driven out of India.
(MC, 8/19/02)
1944 Aug 20, Rajiv Gandhi, Prime Minster of India (1984-89), was born.
(HN, 8/20/98)(MC, 8/20/02)
1945 May 3, Allied forces captured Rangoon, Burma, from the Japanese.
(AP, 5/3/07)
1945 Aug 18, Subhas Chandra Bose (b.1897), a leader of the Indian Independence Movement, died about this time. He attempted to drive the British out of India by force.
(Econ, 5/23/09, p.92)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subhas_Chandra_Bose)
1945 Nov 29, In India Bajaj Auto came into existence as M/s Bachraj Trading Corporation Private Limited.
(www.bajajauto.com/aboutbajaj/milestones.asp)(Econ, 6/3/06, Survey p.10)
c1945 The India Gate in New Delhi was built to memorialize the 85,000 Indians who died in WW II.
(Hem., 2/97, p.58)
1945 In Amalner Mohamed Hussain Premji (d.1966) founded Western India Vegetable Products Ltd. After 5 decades of bonuses and share splits one original share grew to over 12,000 shares of the Wipro high tech software firm.
(WSJ, 5/9/00, p.A16)
1945-1946 The British government organized elections for a constituent assembly.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)
1945-1949 A series of wars for independence during this period spread from India to Burma, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. In 2007 Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper authored “Forgotten Wars: Freedom and Revolution in Southeast Asia.”
(WSJ, 8/9/07, p.D7)
1946 Feb 23, Anti-British demonstration in India drew a crowd of 300,000.
(HN, 2/23/98)
1946 Mar 15, British premier Attlee agreed with India's right to independence.
(MC, 3/15/02)
1946 May 3, The International Military Tribunal for the Far East convened in Tokyo for Japanese War Crimes. 28 defendants were tried. Radhabinod Pal, the judge from India, was the only judge with an international law background and the only judge to find all the defendants innocent on all counts.
(WSJ, 4/30/98, p.A15)(MC, 5/3/02)
1946 Aug 16, A riot in Calcutta left some 3-4,000 Moslems and Hindus dead.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1946 Sep 2, Nehru formed a government in India.
(MC, 9/2/01)
1947 Jan 2, Mahatma Gandhi began a march for peace in East-Bengali.
(http://tinyurl.com/6sn3vf6)
1947 Feb 20, The British pledged to leave India by June 1948.
(HN, 2/20/98)
1947 Feb 20, Lord Louis Mountbatten was appointed the last viceroy of India.
(MC, 2/20/02)
1947 Mar 6, Winston Churchill opposed the withdrawal of troops from India.
(HN, 3/6/98)
1947 Jun 3, In Britain an announcement was made in the House of Commons that India was to be partitioned and that independence would follow. In 2007 Yasmin Khan authored “The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan.”
(Econ, 7/21/07, p.81)
1947 Jun 15, The All-Indian Congress accepted a British plan for the partition of India. Britain partitioned the subcontinent and Pakistan was founded as an independent country.
(SFC, 7/1/97, p.A9)(HN, 6/15/98)
1947 Jul 18, King George VI signed the Indian Independence Bill. In 2008 Peter Clarke authored “The Last Thousand Days of the British Empire.
(http://indiainteracts.com/columnist/2007/08/15/The-60-days-to-Aug-15-1947India-at-60/)(WSJ, 6/20/08, p.A11)
1947 Aug 15, India gained independence after some 200 years of British rule. Britain partitioned the subcontinent. Prior to independence, 565 princes ruled a third of India. After independence the government let the royals retain their titles and assets in return for incorporating their principalities into the new nation. The 664 princely states of India were given the choice of which country they wanted to join. Although most of the people of Kashmir were Muslim, the maharaja was Hindu and he appealed to India for help. Independence in Pakistan and India led to bloody conflicts and thousands died. In 1999 Fareed Zakaria published "Raj: The Making and Unmaking of British India." In 2006 David Gilmour authored “The Ruling Caste,” an account of Britain’s Indian Civil Service (ICS).
(WSJ, 1/9/95, A-8)(WSJ, 12/21/95, p.A-12)(WSJ, 5/16/96, p.A-10)(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)(AP, 8/15/97)(SFC, 6/4/98, p.C2)(WSJ, 1/29/99, p.W7)(WSJ, 2/23/06, p.D8)
1947 Sep 7, Battles took place between Hindus and Moslems in New Delhi.
(MC, 9/7/01)
1947 Oct 27, The Hindu maharajah of Muslim-majority Kashmir joined India. The accession, not recognized by Pakistan, led to a war.
(SSFC, 12/30/01, p.A22)(SFC, 6/8/02, p.A20)
1947 Nov 2, Jawaharlal Nehru said: "We have declared that the fate of Kashmir is ultimately to be decided by the people. That pledge we have given, and the Maharaja has supported it not only to the people of Kashmir but the world. We will not, and cannot back out of it. We are prepared when peace and law and order have been established to have a referendum held under international auspices like the United Nations. We want it to be a fair and just reference to the people, and we shall accept their verdict. I can imagine no fairer and juster offer."
(http://tinyurl.com/8sovl)
1947 In India the “Bombay Rents, Hotel and Lodging House Rates Control Act” was adopted to provide relief to the city’s migrants following partition with Pakistan. Rents were set to 1940 levels to prevent gouging. By 2006 the measure had been extended over 20 times and property development was severely impeded as tenants fought to hold on to rent-controlled apartments.
(WSJ, 6/5/06, p.A6)
1947 India passed an Industrial Disputes Act. Chapter 5B barred establishments with over 100 workers from laying off employees without the permission of the state government.
(Econ, 6/3/06, Survey p.12)
1947 At the time of India’s partition and the creation of Pakistan, many Muslim Biharis moved to what was then East Bengal. In 1971, when war broke out between West Pakistan and East Pakistan (or Bangladesh), the Biharis, who mostly considered themselves Pakistani, sided with West Pakistan.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biharis)
1947 Rajshri, an entertainment conglomerate, was founded.
(WWW, 1947)
1947 Vittal Mallya (d.1983), formed UB Group in India when he bought a controlling interest in Kingfisher Beer.
(SSFC, 10/26/03, p.I3)
1947 India’s population was about 340 million.
(SSFC, 6/24/01, p.A27)
1947 Britain withdrew from India. Pakistan was carved out of Indian and Afghan lands.
(www.afghan-web.com/history/)
1947 A Pushtun force of Wazirs and Mehsuds poured into Kashmir for the newly formed Islamic republic of Pakistan, sparking the first Indo-Pakistan war.
(Econ, 1/2/10, p.17)(Econ, 5/21/11, p.48)
1947-1990 This period in India came to be known as the “License Raj,” as the country operated a planned economy with extensive red tape.
(Econ, 11/15/08, SR p.9)
1947-1991 The was a socialist period in India. Firms faced claustrophobic restrictions from the state and tended to expand in any direction they could.
(Econ, 10/22/11, SR p.8)
1948 Jan 18, Ghandi broke a 121-hour fast after halting Moslem-Hindu riots.
(HN, 1/18/99)
1948 Jan 30, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (78) was assassinated by Nathuram Godse, a fellow Hindu while walking to a prayer meeting in New Delhi a few minutes after five o'clock in the evening. Godse felt that in trying to achieve reconciliation between Hindus and Muslims, Gandhi had betrayed the Hindu cause. Born into a family of merchants, Gandhi studied law in England, where he was inspired by Henry David Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience" and developed his own philosophy of peaceful resistance. After residing and practicing law in South Africa for 20 years, Gandhi returned to India to campaign for home rule and reconciliation of all classes and religious groups. Convinced that India would never be free as part of the British Empire, he demanded independence as payment for helping Britain win World War II. Indian independence was achieved in 1947, but riots broke out between Hindus and Muslims seeking the partition of the country into India and Pakistan. Mahatma ("Great Soul") Gandhi was on a hunger strike demanding an end to the violence when he was murdered. The book "Gandhi the Man" by Eknath Easwaran was published in 1972.
(AHD, 1971, p.542)(HFA, '96, p.40)(SFC, 1/31/97, p.A13)(SFC,12/24/97, p.C6) (HNPD, 1/309)
1948 The seven sins according to Mahatma Gandhi were: 1) wealth without work. 2) Pleasure without conscience. 3) Knowledge without character. 4) Commerce without morality. 5) Science without humanity. 6) Worship without sacrifice. 7) Politics without principal.
(SFEC, 1/23/00, Z1 p.2)
1948 Feb 28, The last British troops left India. The First Battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry passed through the Gateway of India monument in a ceremony.
(AP, 8/26/03)
1948 May, India and Pakistan went to war over the Himalayan region of Kashmir, which was divided between the two nations at partition. The Pakistani third was known as Jammu and Kashmir, while India controlled the eastern two-thirds where 8 million people lived.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)(WSJ, 5/22/98, p.A15)
1948 Jun 21, Lord Mountbatten resigned as Viceroy of India.
(MC, 6/21/02)
1948 The former kingdom of Ladakh and Kashmir, annexed in 1834 by the maharajah of Jammu, became the East Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.
(SFEC,12/14/97, p.T4)
1948 Electricity laws were passed that limited private involvement.
(WSJ, 8/27/96, p.A10)
1948 India established an Atomic Energy Commission.
(SFC, 5/28/98, p.A9)
1948-1951 The Communist Party was banned in India during this period.
(Econ, 1/23/10, p.82)
1949 Jan 1, The UN brokered a cease-fire in Kashmir. It granted Kashmir the right to vote on whether to remain in India or to join Pakistan. No vote took place.
(SSFC, 12/30/01, p.A22)(SFC, 6/8/02, p.A20)
1949 Jan 30, In India, 100,000 people prayed at the site of Gandhi's assassination on the first anniversary of his death.
(HN, 1/30/99)
1949 Feb 19, Mass arrests of communists took place in India.
(MC, 2/19/02)
1949 May 12, S.V.L. Pandit of India was received as the first foreign woman ambassador to the US.
(SC, internet, 5/12/97)
1949 Sep 21, Manipur merged with India. The former independent kingdom was strong-armed into joining India.
(http://manipuronline.com/Manipur/merger.htm)(Econ, 11/7/09, p.43)
1949 Nov 26, India adopted a constitution as a republic within the British Commonwealth. Pandit Nehru became Prime Minister. B.R. Ambedkar (1891-1956), a Dalit, was the chief architect of the constitution.
(HN, 11/26/98)(AP, 11/26/07)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._R._Ambedkar)
1949 Bhutan decided that its policies would be guided by relations with India.
(Econ, 12/18/04, p.55)
1950 Jan 26, India officially proclaimed itself a republic as Rajendra Prasad took the oath of office as president.
(AP, 1/26/98)
1950 Oct 7, Mother Teresa (1910-1997), known in India as the "saint of the gutters", received permission from the Vatican to start a diocesan congregation that would become the Missionaries of Charity order of nuns in Calcutta.
(AP, 9/26/04)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa)
1950 The Indian film "Barsaat" was a blockbuster written by Ramanand Sagar.
(WSJ, 4/22/98, p.A1)
1950 The Muslim Tablighi Ijtimah (Congregation of Preaching) movement was founded in India. They believed Islam should be spread by setting a good example, one of modesty and non-violence.
(SFC, 11/3/01, p.A7)
1950 Mysore became an Indian state. The former Maharaja became its rajpramukh, or governor, until 1975.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karnataka)
1950 India’s lowest castes and tribes were allowed claim to just over 20% of government and other public-sector jobs. A presidential order excluded any “person who professes a religion different from Hinduism” from entitlement to affirmative action programs. The rule was amended in 1956 to include Dalit Sikhs. The system was extended in 1990 to include another 27% for other backward castes.
(Econ, 4/29/06, p.46)(WSJ, 9/19/07, p.A18)
1950 The Indian Institutes of Technology was established. The first IIT was built on the site of a former British prison camp in Kharagpur. By 2007 the institute had 7 campuses taking in 4,500 new students each year.
(SSFC, 2/25/07, p.B1)
1950 A great earthquake measuring 8.5 ravaged half of northern India’s Assam state. Thousands of dead rats were caught in fisherman’s nets just before the quake.
(SFC, 8/17/96, p.A4)(SFC, 3/30/99, p.F2)
1950 Aurobindo Ghose, Bengalese-born and Western educated guru and yogi, died. "Man lives mostly in his surface mind, life and body, but there is an inner being within him with greater possibilities to which he has to awake to greater beauty, harmony, power and knowledge."
(SSFC, 6/16/02, p.A17)
1951 Jan 24, Indian leader Nehru assailed the U.S. and demanded the UN to name Peking as an aggressor in Korea.
(HN, 1/24/99)
1951 Nirad C. Chaudhuri (1897-1999) published "The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian."
(SFC, 8/3/99, p.A20)(WSJ, 4/4/09, p.W8)
1951 The film "Awaara" (The Vagabond) starred Leela Chitnis. She left India for the US in the 1980s and died in 2003 at age 93.
(SFC, 7/16/03, p.A19)
1951 Indian troops occupied Tawang, some 2000 square km. of valley and high mountains just south of the McMahon Line in northeast Arunachal Pradesh. This took place shortly after China dispatched troops to Tibet.
(Econ, 8/21/10, p.18)
1952 May 13, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru became premier of India.
(MC, 5/13/02)
1952 In India the criminal tribes, named in the 1871 Criminal Tribes Act, were de-notified. Discrimination against the de-notified tribes (DNTs) continued. In 2008 a government commission recommended positive discrimination measures covering some 60 million DNTs as well as 40 million other nomadic people.
(Econ, 4/24/10, p.42)
1953 Oct, Universal Children’s Day was first observed in India. It was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1954. It became observed on different days in different ways in more than 120 nations. In India, Children’s Day is celebrated on 14th November, the birth anniversary of PM Jawaharlal Nehru.
(www.indianchild.com/childrens_day_india.htm)
1953 Sripati Chandrasekhar authored "Hungry People and Empty Lands."
(SSFC, 6/24/01, p.A27)
1953 Durell Stone received a commission to design the American Embassy in New Delhi. From this time on his work incorporated the tropes of Mughal architecture.
(WSJ, 12/2/03, p.A1)
1954 Jun, India and China devised and embraced “five principles of peaceful coexistence.”
(Econ, 7/31/04, p.36)
1955 May 5, India’s parliament accepted Hindu divorce.
(MC, 5/5/02)
1955 The Indian film "Pather Panchali" by Satyajit Ray (d.1992) was produced. It was based on the Bengali novel by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay and was directly influenced by Vittorio De Sica’s “The Bicycle Thief” (1948).
(SFC, 4/30/97, p.E6)(Econ, 6/18/05, p.80)
1955 India established a policy that barred foreign print media from publishing within the country.
(WSJ, 8/13/96, p.A7)
1955 In India the ICICI Bank was founded as a state development bank. In 1994 it formed a commercial banking subsidiary.
(Econ, 5/20/06, Survey p.19)
1956 Sep 1, India’s region of Tripura became a territory. In 1972 it became a state.
(SC, 9/1/02)(http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Tripura)
1956 Dec 6, B.R. Ambedkar (b.1891), a Dalit and chief architect of India’s 1949 constitution, died. “What is the village but a sink of localism, a den of ignorance, narrow-mindedness and communalism.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._R._Ambedkar)(Econ, 12/18/10, p.60)
1956 Indian writer Khushwant Singh (b.1914) authored "Train to Pakistan," a short, powerful novel about the horrors of partition, when colonial India was carved into modern India and Pakistan and about 1 million people died amid the chaos. It became a classic.
(AP, 1/1/10)
1956 In India the princely dominion of Hyderabad was absorbed into the state of Andhra Pradesh.
(Econ, 12/19/09, p.74)
1956 The US and Canada agreed to help India build a nuclear research reactor for power generation. India rejected oversight by the new Int’l. Atomic Energy Agency.
(SFC, 5/28/98, p.A9)
1957 India passed legislation allowing the government to seize stray cattle.
(WSJ, 1/10/06, p.A1)
1958 Sep 11, India passed its Armed Forces Special Powers Act. It conferred special powers upon armed forces in what the language of the act calls "disturbed areas" in the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura. It allowed soldiers to search houses without warrants and shoot anyone suspected of being a terrorist.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armed_Forces_%28Special_Powers%29_Act,_1958)
1958 The Indian film “Mother India,” directed by Mehboob Khan, was nominated for an Oscar.
(Econ, 2/9/08, p.72)
1958 Jawaharlal Nehru, prime minister of India, trekked for a month to make a treaty with Bhutan. He demanded to be met at the border by someone of equal rank. King Wangchuk balked at making the trip and quickly appointed his aide, Jigme Palden Dorji, as prime minister to meet Nehru 127 miles away by mule and foot.
(WSJ, 3/6/97, p.A8)(Econ, 5/14/05, p.46)
1958 India began designing and buying equipment for a plutonium reprocessing plant at Trombay, which would provide it capability for atomic weapons.
(SFC, 5/28/98, p.A9)
1958 Dhirubhai Ambani (d.2002) founded India's project-building Reliance Corp. In 2002 its sales reached $16.8 billion.
(Econ, 12/20/03, p.98)(Econ, 11/27/04, p.69)
1959 Jan, In New Delhi, India, the Int’l. Commission of Jurists held a congress with the theme “The Rule of Law.” They drew up the “declaration of Delhi,” which developed the principles and procedures underlying the Rule of Law as well as defining and clarifying the concept itself.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Delhi)(Econ, 3/15/08, p.84)
1959 Mar 17, The Dalai Lama fled Tibet and went to India, triggering a flood of refugees escaping Chinese rule.
(HN 3/17/98)(WSJ, 8/30/08, p.A8)
1959 Mar 31, Dalai Lama fled the Chinese suppression of a national uprising in Tibet and crossed the border into India. India granted him political asylum.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1959 Oct 23, Chinese troops moved into India and 17 died.
(MC, 10/23/01)
1959 Dec 9-1959 Dec 14, Pres. Eisenhower visited India and met with President Prasad and Prime Minister Nehru. He addressed India’s Parliament and said: “ We who are free, and who prize our freedom above all other gifts of God and nature, must know each other better; trust each other more; support each other.”
(www.theamericanpresidency.us/34thvisitsabroad.htm)(Econ, 2/25/06, p.29)
1959 India kicked out Gillette Co. in order to protect its domestic blade makers.
(WSJ, 3/13/97, p.A1)
1960 May 1, India's Bombay state split into Gujarat and Maharashtra states.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maharashtra)
1960 Sep 19, India and Pakistan signed the Indus Waters Treaty.
(Econ, 5/22/10, SR p.18)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Waters_Treaty)
1960 Oct 10, A cyclone and tidal wave hit the Gulf of Bengal and killed about 6,000 in East Pakistan.
(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1960 In India the film "Mughal-e-Azam" (Emperor of the Moghuls) was released. It became one of Bollywood's greatest classics. In 2004 it was re-released in a color version. The film was set in Lahore at a time when Muslims ruled India. It was shown in Pakistan for the 1st time in 2006.
(AP, 11/8/04)(Reuters, 4/23/06)
1961 Apr 18, Pamella Bordes, British parliament prostitute, was born in New Delhi, India.
(MC, 4/18/02)
1961 Nov 5, India's premier Nehru arrived in NY.
(MC, 11/5/01)
1961 Nov 8, Pres. Kennedy concluded talks with India’s PM Nehru.
(www.historycentral.com/Documents/sixties/118.html)
1961 Nov, India’s PM Jawaharlal Nehru visited with Walt Disney in Disneyland.
(SSFC, 5/1/05, p.F3)
1961 India wrested Goa and Diu from Portugal.
(SSFC, 3/19/06, p.F6)
1961 India outlawed the dowry as an institutionalized marital custom to help reduce gender-driven abortions.
(SFC, 12/6/02, p.J1)
1961 India stopped public funding for Anglo schools.
(Econ, 10/23/10, p.51)
1961 M.S. Swaminathan, adviser to India’s minister of agriculture, invited Norman Borlaug, a plant geneticist who had improved the yield on Mexican wheat, to visit India.
(Econ, 12/24/05, p.29)
1961 Bharat Forge incorporated in India. By 2006 it was the world’s second biggest maker of forgings for car engine and chassis components.
(Econ, 6/3/06, Survey p.8)(www.bharatforge.com/insidepages/company/history.asp)
1961-1968 Octavio Paz, poet and Nobel laureate, served as the Mexican ambassador to India. In 1997 he published "In Light of India."
(SFEC, 8/31/97, BR p.9)
1962 Oct 20, A Chinese army landed in India for a brief border war in the Himalayas. The northeast Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, twice the size of Switzerland, was occupied in a week-long assault by China and closed to foreign tourists, due to the border war. Some 3,000 Indian officers and men were killed. China gained control from India of the northeast region of Kashmir known as Aksai Chin. Arunachal Pradesh re-opened in 1993.
(WSJ, 5/16/96, p.A-10)(SFC, 11/29/96, p.A1)(http://countrystudies.us/nepal/19.htm)(SSFC, 12/30/01, p.A22)(SSFC, 1/4/04, p.C10)(Econ, 7/5/08, p.95)(Econ, 8/21/10, p.17)
1962 Nov 21, China agreed to a cease-fire on India-China border.
(AP, 11/21/02)
1962 Kalpana Chawla, US astronaut, was born Karnal, India. She was among the 7 astronauts killed in the US Columbia space shuttle tragedy Feb 1, 2003.
(SSFC, 2/2/03, p.A8)
1962 China exacted control over western Tibet and many nomad refugees fled to Ladakh.
(SFEC,12/14/97, p.T4)
1963 Mar, Norman Borlaug, plant breeder, arrived in India and began testing new varieties of Mexican wheat, whose yields were shown to be 4-5 times better than Indian varieties. In 1970 he won the Nobel Prize for his development of high-yield wheat varieties for which he was dubbed father of the "Green Revolution."
(SFC, 10/15/97, p.A15)(WSJ, 12/3/02, p.A1)(Econ, 12/24/05, p.30)
1963 May 20-1963 May 23, In East Pakistan a cyclone killed about 22,000 along coast of the Bay of Bengal.
(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1963 Nov 21, India launched its first rocket from Thumba in Kerala state.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thumba_Equatorial_Rocket_Launching_Station)
1963 Dec 2, Sabu Sabu (39), actor (Sabu Dastagir), died of a heart attack in Chatsworth, California. He was born in Karapur, Mysore, India, on January 27, 1924, beginning his movie career at the age of 13. His films included “Elephant Boy” (1937); “Drums” (1938); “The Thief of Baghdad” (1940); “Jungle Book” (1942) and “Arabian Nights” (1942).
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0754942/)
1963 India’s huge Bhakra dam was built in Himachal Pradesh. It brought 7 million hectares of northwest India under irrigation.
(Econ, 9/12/09, p.28)
1963 Ray Dolby, while working in India, conceived of separating recorded sound into 2 channels as a means to strip away unwanted tape recording noise. His 1st prototype was completed in London in 1966.
(SFC, 3/29/04, p.D1)
1963 India’s space program began in Trivandrum, Kerala, in this year. The Vikram Sarabhai Space Center in Trivandrum was named for the father of Indian rocketry.
(NG, 5/88, p.598)
1964 Jan 10, Battles took place between Muslims & Hindus in Calcutta.
(MC, 1/10/02)
1964 May 27, Independent India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, died. In 2003 Judith M. Brown authored "Nehru: A Political Life."
(AP, 5/27/97)(Econ, 10/18/03, p.82)
1964 Dec 23, India and Ceylon were hit by a cyclone and 4,850 were killed.
(MC, 12/23/01)
1964 R. K. Narayan (d.2001) authored "Gods, Demons and Others." In it he retold stories from Sanskrit and Tamil epics
(SFC, 5/14/01, p.B2)
1964 In India the Communist Party split over India’s war with China.
(Econ, 1/23/10, p.82)
1964 The first Indian mutual fund, Unit Scheme-1964 aka US-64, was founded.
(WSJ, 10/15/98, p.A20)
1964-1968 In India’s "green revolution" the wheat crop increased from 10 million to 17 million tons following the use of dwarfing genes and fertilizer to increase the grains on each stalk. Chidambaram Subramaniam, minister of agriculture, convinced Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri to use new seeds, developed by Norman Borlaug (Nobel Prize 1970) in Mexico, for wheat production.
(SFC, 11/11/00, p.A26)(WSJ, 12/3/02, p.A1)
1965 Apr 5, The second Indo-Pakistani conflict began when fighting broke out in the Rann of Kachchh, a sparsely inhabited region along the West Pakistan-India border.
(Encyclopaedia.com, 2002)
1965 Aug 6, Indo-Pakistani fighting spread to Kashmir and to the Punjab, The 2nd Indo-Pakistani conflict started without a formal declaration of war. Skirmishes with Indian forces started as early as August 6 or 7.
(http://ph.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0858805.html)
1965 Apr 9, India and Pakistan engaged in a border fight.
(MC, 4/9/02)
1965 May 11-12, In East Pakistan a cyclone killed some 12,000.
(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1965 May 25, India and Pakistan engaged in border fights.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1965 Jun 1-2, The 2nd of 2 cyclones in less than a month killed 35,000 along the Ganges River in East Pakistan.
(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1965 Aug 6, Indian troops invaded Pakistan. Indo-Pakistani fighting spread to Kashmir and to the Punjab, The 2nd Indo-Pakistani conflict started without a formal declaration of war. Skirmishes with Indian forces started as early as August 6 or 7.
(http://ph.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0858805.html)(MC, 8/6/02)
1965 Aug 14, The first major engagement between the regular armed forces of India and Pakistan took place. The next day, Indian forces scored a major victory after a prolonged artillery barrage and captured three important mountain positions in the northern sector. Later in the month, the Pakistanis counterattacked, moving concentrations near Tithwal, Uri, and Punch. Their move, in turn, provoked a powerful Indian thrust into Azad Kashmir. Other Indian forces captured a number of strategic mountain positions and eventually took the key Haji Pir Pass, eight kilometers inside Pakistani territory.
(Encyclopaedia.com, 2002)(http://ph.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0858805.html)
1965 Sep 1-19, Indian gains led to a major Pakistani counterattack in the southern sector, in Punjab, where Indian forces were caught unprepared and suffered heavy losses. The sheer strength of the Pakistani thrust, which was spearheaded by seventy tanks and two infantry brigades, led Indian commanders to call in air support. Pakistan retaliated on September 2 with its own air strikes in both Kashmir and Punjab.
(http://www.onwar.com/aced/chrono/c1900s/yr65/fkashmir1965)
(WSJ, 6/11/96, p.A12)(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)(HN, 9/6/98)(SFC, 6/8/02, p.A20)(MC, 9/1/02)(Encyclopaedia.com, 2002)
1965 Sep 20, The India-Pakistani war was at the point of stalemate when the UN Security Council unanimously passed a resolution that called for a cease-fire. New Delhi accepted the cease-fire resolution on September 21 and Islamabad on September 22, and the war ended on September 23. The Indian side lost 3,000 while the Pakistani side suffered 3,800 battlefield deaths.
(http://www.onwar.com/aced/chrono/c1900s/yr65/fkashmir1965)
1965 Sep 22, Pakistan agreed to the UN brokered cease-fire that India affirmed the day before. [see Jan 10, 1966]
(HNQ, 4/26/99)
1965 The Oberoi Hotel opened and was India’s first luxury lodging.
(Hem., 2/97, p.57)
1965 The Narmada Valley Development Project began. It included the development of 30 large dams, 135 medium dams and 3,000 small dams.
(SFC, 1/17/02, p.A9)
1966 Jan 10, The Tashkent Agreement, was signed in the Soviet city of Tashkent, and officially ended a 17-day war between Pakistan and India. It required that both sides withdraw by February 26, 1966, to positions held prior to August 5, 1965, and observe the cease-fire line agreed to on June 30, 1965. The agreement was brokered by Soviet premier Aleksey Kosygin and signed by Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and Pakistan President Ayub Khan. The Indian prime minister died the day after signing the agreement.
(HNQ, 4/26/99)(www.onwar.com/aced/chrono/c1900s/yr65/fkashmir1965)
1966 Jan 11, India’s PM Lal Bahadur Shastri, the successor of Nehru and engineer of the Green Revolution, died.
(WSJ, 3/19/00, p.A19)
1966 Jan 19, Indira Gandhi, Nehru’s daughter, was elected the 3rd prime minister of India.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)(AP, 1/19/98)(MC, 1/19/02)
1966 Jun 24, A Bombay to NY Air India flight crashed into Mont Blanc (Switz) and 117 died.
(MC, 6/24/02)
1966 Dec 22, The United States announced the allocation of 900,000 tons of grain to fight the famine in India.
(HN, 12/22/98)
1966 Azim Premji took over the operations of the Western India Vegetable Product Ltd., later known as Wipro, following the death of his father. Political changes in 1977 banned many imports and allowed him to expand to manufacturing computers and other electronics.
(WSJ, 9/11/07, p.A16)
1967 Mar 6, Svetlana Alliluyeva, the daughter of Josef Stalin, appeared at the US Embassy in India and announced her intention to defect to the West. She arrived at New York in April and held a press conference during which she denounced her father's regime.
(AP, 3/6/07)(www.economicexpert.com/a/Svetlana:Alliluyeva.htm)
1967 Oct 12, In India a massive cyclone struck the rural Orissa state consisting of small villages. Basically all life (human and animal) and each structure was wiped out; the precise number of fatalities and destruction is unknown.
(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1967 In India Sripati Chandrasekhar was appointed health minister.
(SSFC, 6/24/01, p.A27)
1967 In India a Maoist-inspired rebel movement began in the West Bengal village of Naxalbari. Police action wiped the movement out over the next 8 years. It resurfaced in the 1980s as the People’s War Group in an area of Andra Pradesh called Telugana and supporters came to be called Naxalites.
(Econ, 4/15/06, p.45)
1967 India’s state-owned Uranium Corporation of India Limited (UCIL) opened the first of 7 uranium mines in Jaduguda, Jharkhand state. A 2007 report, by the non-profit Indian Doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD), showed a significant incidence of congenital abnormality, sterility, and cancer among people living within 2.5 km (1.5 miles) of the mines than those living 35 km away.
(AFP, 12/4/11)
1967 India’s population climbed to 500 million.
(SSFC, 6/24/01, p.A27)
1968 Feb 16, Beatles George Harrison & John Lennon flew to India with their wives for transcendental meditation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
(MC, 2/16/02)
1968 Jul 1, The United States, Britain, the Soviet Union and 58 other nations signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. India refused to sign.
(AP, 7/1/97)(SFC, 5/28/98, p.A9)(http://tinyurl.com/d5cf45)
1968 The Triennale-India art show began in New Delhi with shows held every 3 years.
(SFC,12/27/97, p.C16)
1968 In India Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) was founded. Public shares were offered in 2004 as sales hit %1.5 billion and employees numbered 28,000.
(Econ, 7/24/04, p.61)
1969 In India Hindustan Latex, a government enterprise, began making condoms to the government curb the rising population. In 2009 it was renamed to HLL Lifecare.
(Econ, 11/14/09, p.75)
1970 Nov 13, The Bhola Cyclone killed an estimated 300,000 in East Pakistan (Bangladesh). The highest loss of life and destruction occurred on the low lying islands of the Ganges Delta south of Dhaka. In particular the island and district of Bhola, where casualties may have exceeded 100,000 alone, with the towns of Charfasson and Tazumuddin being devastated. The city of Chittagong was also badly affected. The official death toll was put at 150,000, with 100,000 people missing. However many estimates put the true figure as high as 500,000.
(SFEC, 9/5/04, p.6)(http://banglapedia.search.com.bd/HT/C_0397.htm)
1970 India introduced “process” patents which allowed innovators to protect the way they made drugs, rather than the molecules themselves.
(Econ, 6/18/05, Survey p.17)
1970 Ahmedabad, the largest city in India’s state of Gujarat, was the capital of Gujarat from 1960 to 1970; the capital was shifted to Gandhinagar thereafter.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmedabad)
1970 The shooting of tigers was banned in India.
(NG, 12/97, p.13)
1971 Mar 21, Sheik Mujibur Rahman (Mujeeb-ur Rehman) declared East Pakistan (later Bangladesh) independent of Pakistan. Pakistani Pres. Yahya Khan ordered the army in; several million East Bengali refugees fled to India. Rahman was the father of later PM Hasina Wajid.
(WUD, 1994, p. 1688)(SFC, 12/31/00, p.B3)
1971 Mar 27, PM of India, Indira Gandhi, expressed full support of her government to the Bangladeshi struggle for independence. The Bangladesh-India border was opened to allow the Bangladeshi Refugees safe shelter in India.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Pakistani_War_of_1971)
1971 May, PM Indira Gandhi of India proclaimed the established royalty to be ordinary citizens and abolished their government perks. She made them pay taxes on their property or pass it to the state. The wealth tax doubled to 8% of net income.
(WSJ, 1/9/95, Aa-8)(www.indembsofia.org/shtml/en/includes/ind.html)
1971 Oct 29, On the east coast of India a tidal wave and cyclone struck Cuttack in Orissa state and killed some 10,000 people.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-1980_North_Indian_Ocean_cyclone_seasons#1971_Orissa_Cyclone)
1971 Nov 5, Nixon and Kissinger met in the Oval Office, to discuss Nixon's conversation with Gandhi the day before. "We really slobbered over the old witch," Nixon told Kissinger, according to a transcript of their conversation released in 2005 as part of a State Department compilation of significant documents involving American foreign policy.
(AP, 6/28/05)
1971 Dec 3, The 3rd Indo-Pakistani war began when India under Indira Gandhi intervened in the Pakistani civil war. Pakistan attacked Indian airfields and India mobilized its army after nearly 10 million refugees poured into India. The India-Pakistani civil war ended with independence for East Pakistan, which became known as Bangladesh.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)(SFC, 6/12/99, p.A12)(SSFC, 12/30/01, p.A22)
1971 Dec 6, India recognized the Democratic Republic of Bangladesh and Pakistan broke off diplomatic relations. Bangladesh later accused Pakistan of war atrocities that led to the death of some 3 million people during the 9-month war.
(WUD, 1994, p. 1688)(SFC, 12/31/00, p.B3)
1971 Dec 16, Pakistani forces in East Pakistan surrendered to the allied forces of India and Bangladesh, jointly known as the Mitro Bahini. Bangladesh gained independence. Bangladesh later accused Pakistan of war atrocities that led to the death of some 3 million people during the 9-month war.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Pakistani_War_of_1971)(SFC, 12/31/00, p.B3)
1971 Dec 17, A cease fire began between India and Pakistan in East Pakistan.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Pakistani_War_of_1971)
1971 Ram Dass (b.1931) published his best-seller "Be Here Now." It was about his trek through India. He was accompanied in part by Bhagavan Das, Michael Riggs. Riggs had set off for India in 1963 at age 18. Bhagavan Das wrote his own memoir in 1997 titled "It’s Here Now (Are You?): A Spiritual Memoir.
(SFC, 12/1/97, p.E5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_Dass)
1971 Following Pakistan’s defeated by India and Bangladesh in the Bangladesh war. Pakistan decided to develop a nuclear weapons program.
(SFC, 5/28/98, p.A9)
1971 Bikram yoga, developed by master yogi Bikram Choudhury (b.1946) in India, was brought to the US. The practice included exercises in sweat lodge conditions.
(SSFC, 4/29/01, p.C6)
1971 India numbered 16 states at this time. By 2009 the number rose 28.
(Econ, 12/19/09, p.74)
1972 Mar 19, India and Bangladesh signed a friendship treaty.
(http://banglapedia.search.com.bd/HT/I_0040.htm)
1972 Jul 10, During an extended drought a herd of stampeding elephants killed 24 in the Chandka Forest of India.
(http://tinyurl.com/3bppys)
1972 Jul 2, India and Pakistan signed the Simla Agreement that provided for a bilateral settlement of disputes and a "Line of Control" in Kashmir. Article 6 of the accord clearly states: "Both governments agree... to discuss further the modalities and arrangements for the establishment of durable peace and normalization of relations," including "a final settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimla_Agreement)(SSFC, 12/30/01, p.A22)
1972 Ela Bhatt founded the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA).
(SFEC, 2/8/98, Z1 p.5)
1972 India enacted a Wildlife Protection Act. It banned the hunting of tigers, the capture and sale of bears (dancing bears) as well as the catching of snakes. In 2001 animal performances on the streets were banned. Snake charmers felt their livelihood threatened.
(SFC, 7/8/02, p.A3)(SFC, 12/4/04, p.B10)(Econ, 6/25/05, p.41)
1973 Nov 1, In India the state of Mysore was renamed Karnataka.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karnataka)
1973 Dec 10, North Korea and India established diplomatic ties.
(AFP, 2/7/06)(http://tinyurl.com/4vzdbf)
1973 India began Project Tiger and established a network of tiger reserves. Under Indira Gandhi 9 national parks were set aside to protect tigers. 14 more were later added. By 2010 the tiger population dropped to 1,400 from 40,000 a century earlier.
(SFEC, 8/11/96, p.A16)(NG, 12/97, p.13)(http://projecttiger.nic.in/introduction.htm)(Econ, 9/11/10, p.52)
1973 Kashmir Singh (b.1941) was arrested for espionage in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi. His cover story was that he was a trader in electronic goods traveling on business. During his trial in the 1970s, Singh had repeatedly denied he was an agent for Indian military intelligence. Following his release in 2008 he admitted that he had been a spy.
(AP, 3/8/08)
1974 May 18, India became the sixth nation to explode an atomic bomb. India conducted its first nuclear tests and then halted testing. India had exploited the civilian nuclear help it received under America’s “Atoms for Peace” initiative.
(WSJ, 4/2/96, p.A-10)(SFC, 4/27/98, p.A12)(HN, 5/18/98)(Econ, 9/13/08, p.48)
1974 May, The Sikkimese Congress decided to put an end to monarchical rule, and the Sikkim assembly passed the Government of Sikkim Act 1974, for the progressive realization of a fully responsible government in Sikkim and for furthering its relationship with India.
(http://tinyurl.com/4gqykn6)
1974 Nov 30, India and Pakistan in accordance with the Simla Agreement, signed a Protocol for Trade. This Protocol ended a 10-year trade ban and expired in 1978.
(http://publishedforscholar.wordpress.com/2006/12/18/india-pakistan-relations/)
1974 The region of Ladakh opened to the outside world.
(SFEC,12/14/97, p.T1)
1975 Apr 19, India announced it had launched its 1st satellite, from the Soviet Union atop a Soviet rocket.
(AP, 4/19/05)
1975 May 16, India annexed the Principality of Sikkim. The people of Sikkim had revolted against the monarchy and Sikkim became India’s 22nd and second smallest state. The Lepchas are the original inhabitants of Sikkim.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikkim)(SSFC, 2/27/05, p.F5)(AFP, 11/6/11)
1975 Jun 12, In India the High Court of Allahabad declared Indira Gandhi's election invalid on grounds of alleged malpractices in an election petition filed by Raj Narain, who had repeatedly contested her Parliamentary constituency of Rae Bareli without success.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indira_Gandhi)
1975 Jun 26, Citing what she called a "deep and widespread conspiracy" against her government, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency, which lasted to 1977.
(AP, 6/26/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indira_Gandhi)
1975 In 2005 Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitokhin, a former KGB officer, authored “The Mitokhin Archive II: The KGB and the World," and said a high-ranking KGB officer used agents to persuade PM Indira Gandhi to declare a state of emergency in India in 1975. The officer was identified as Leonid Shebarshin, who served in New Delhi in the mid-1970s.
(AP, 9/18/05)
1975 India launched its Integrated Childhood Development Service (ICDS), an early childhood development scheme.
(Econ, 9/25/10, p.36)
1975 In eastern India mob killings left 11 people in a Muslim village. It was part of a campaign to gain political influence for tribal people in eastern India. In 2006 lawmaker Shibu Soren was indicted for his alleged role in the killings.
(AP, 12/7/06)
1975 Charles Sobhraj, aka "The Serpent," was jailed in India for forgery, fraud and murder. He was released in 1997 and admitted to killing young tourists.
(SFC, 3/11/97, p.B1)
1975 Mohan Lal Mittal, tired of India’s semi-socialism, bought a tiny steel firm in Indonesia. His son, Lakshmi (b.1950), soon led the operations there. In 2006 he created the world’s largest steel firm with the acquisition of Luxembourg-based Arcelor. In 2008 Tim Bouquet and Byron Ousey authored “Cold Steel: Britain’s Richest Man and the Multi-Billion-Dollar Battle for a Global Empire.
(Econ, 10/30/04, p.66)(Econ, 4/19/08, p.101)
1975 Smallpox was eradicated in India and Bangladesh.
(SFC, 10/19/01, p.A17)
1975-1977 During this period Indira Gandhi clamped down on India’s free-wheeling democracy, locked up her fractious opposition, censored the press and imposed police tyranny that included forced sterilization and slum demolitions. Over 8 million Indians were sterilized in a single year. The 22-month period is covered in a novel by Rohinton Mistry titled "A Fine Balance." His 1991 novel "Such A Long Journey" was set in the same period.
(WSJ, 4/29/96, p.A-20)(Econ, 5/24/08, p.107)
1976 India and China re-established diplomatic ties. PM Indira Gandhi chose K. R. Narayannan to serve as ambassador to Beijing.
(AP, 7/25/98)(SFC, 11/10/05, p.B8)(Econ, 8/21/10, p.17)
1976 Govindappa Venkataswamy (1918-2006), Indian eye surgeon, opened the Aravind Eye Hospital in Madurai, Tamil Nadu state. His low cost eye-care system catered to the poor and grew to become one of the largest eye-care systems in the world.
(WSJ, 8/5/06, p.A6)
1977 Mar 20, Premier Indira Gandhi lost her election in India.
(http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/1977-3/1977-03-20-CBS-2.html)
1977 Mar 22, Indira Gandhi revoked emergency rule and resigned as PM of India.
(http://tinyurl.com/32tg72)
1977 Mar 24, Morarji Desai, head of the Janata Party, became prime minister of India.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Minister_of_India)
1977 Oct 3, In India Indira Gandhi (1917-1984) was arrested for political corruption. She was released the next day.
(http://tinyurl.com/2xq3bt)
1977 Nov 14, Swami Srila Prabhupada, the founder of the Hare Krishna Hindu sect, died. He passed succession to 11 separate disciples.
(SFC, 2/13/01, p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._C._Bhaktivedanta_Swami_Prabhupada)
1977 Nov 19, A cyclone and tidal wave hit Andhra Pradesh, India. Entire villages were submerged by tidal waves with an estimated 10-20 thousand people killed.
(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)(SFC, 11/1/99, p.A11)(AP, 11/21/02)
1977 V.S. Naipaul, Trinidad born writer, authored “India: A Wounded Civilization,” recounting his travels there in 1975.
(WSJ, 4/4/09, p.W8)
1977 India had a non-Congress government but it fell before the end of its 5-year term. Democracy was restored following a 2-year emergency and Congress was swept from power.
(WSJ, 4/26/96, p.A-10)(Econ, 6/23/07, p.93)
1977 The Communist Party of India came to power in the state of West Bengal.
(Econ, 8/30/08, p.63)
1977 Coca-Cola left India when the new government ordered it to dilute its stake in an Indian unit and turn over its secret formula. An alternative cola was formulated by bottler Ramesh Chauhan of the Parle Group under the name Thums Up.
(WSJ, 4/29/98, p.B1)
1978 Jan 1, An Air India jet exploded in midair and killed 213 people near Bombay.
(WUD, 1994, p.1691)
1978 Jan 3, In India the Congress Party split and Indira Gandhi became head of the larger faction.
(WUD, 1994, p.1691)
1978 Apr 16, A tornado struck in Orissa, India, and killed 173 people.
(www.bangladeshtornadoes.org/climo/btorcli0.htm)
1978 Jul -1978 Sep, Floods in northern India killed 1,291 people.
(WUD, 1994, p.1691)
1978 Nov 5, Floods in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, India, killed 125 people.
(WUD, 1994, p.1691)
1978 Dec 20, India's former PM, Indira Gandhi, was arrested by police after India's Lower House of Parliament voted to expel her and have her jailed for breach of privilege and contempt of the Lower House. She was released after 6 days.
{India}
(http://archive.gulfnews.com/nation/Media/10176258.html)
1978-2008 India over this period exchanged 949 Pakistani fishermen in exchange for 2,304 Indian fishermen, which each side had apprehended for wandering into their respective waters in the disputed Sir Creek area. In early 2009 trade unions said India still held 357 Pakistani fishermen and that Pakistan held 48 Indian fishermen.
(WSJ, 1/13/08, p.A10)
1979 Apr 6, In India the United Liberation Front of Assam was created to fight for independence from India. The Ahom tribe was the major ethnic group of Assam.
(SFC, 4/5/00, p.A11)(AP, 4/6/09)
1979 Jun 7, Bhaskara 1, an Indian Earth resources meteorology satellite, was launched.
(www.csre.iitb.ac.in/isro/bhaskara1.html)
1979 Sep 22, Abul Ala Mawdudi (b.1903), Indian-born writer, died. He encouraged terrorism in the name of Jihad.
(WSJ, 4/4/08, p.W5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abul_Ala_Maududi)
1979 Oct 17, Mother Teresa of India, head of the Missionaries of Charity, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her years of work on behalf of the destitute in Calcutta.
(SFC, 3/14/97, p.A13)(AP, 10/17/97)
1979 "The Life and Crimes of Charles Sobhraj" was published as was "Serpentine." The 2 books covered the story of Charles Sobhraj, aka "The Serpent," a criminal jailed in 1975 in India for forgery, fraud and murder. He was released in 1997 and admitted to killing young tourists.
(SFC, 3/11/97, p.B1)
1979 Anil Agarwal (25), a scrap metal merchant in India, founded Vedanta Resources. In 2007 the company’s market cap reached $10 billion and his personal fortune was estimated at $5.4 billion.
(Econ, 7/28/07, p.72)
1980 Jan 6, Indira Gandhi's Congress Party won elections in India.
(http://tinyurl.com/3bgwny)
1980 Jun 23, Sanjay Gandhi (b.1946), Indian politician, died in an airplane crash shortly after his mother's return to power. Captain Subhas Saxena, the only passenger in the plane, was also killed in the crash.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanjay_Gandhi)
1980 Jul 18, India became the eighth country to demonstrate it could send a satellite to orbit above Earth with the launch of the satellite Rohini 1 on a Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV) rocket in the state of Andhra Pradesh.
(www.spacetoday.org/Satellites/Iran/IranianSat.html)(NG, 5/88, p.598)
1980 The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) coalesced from the Hindu revival group National Volunteer Corps, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), founded in 1925.
(WSJ, 5/16/96, p.A-10)(WSJ, 2/27/98, p.A1)
1981 Jun 6, In Bihar, India, a train crashed after a bridge collapsed in flash floods during the monsoon and some 400-800 people were killed in what was reportedly world's worst train disaster.
(SFC, 6/4/98, p.A15)(SFC, 8/3/99, p.A8)(AP, 4/23/04)
1981 The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) instituted the 80/20 rule for opium/poppy imports. 80% of the US need for opium was set to be imported from India and Turkey. Turkish farmers provided poppy heads while Indian farmers produced gum opium.
(WSJ, 4/3/00, p.A1,6)
1981 The Oregon commune leader, Bhagwan Sri Rajneesh (d.1990), was booted from the US for immigration fraud. He moved his free-love Tantra commune back to Pune, India. In 1985 he changed his name to Osho. His Tantric ruminations were later published by St. Martin’s Press: "The Book of Secrets." From the Pune school Marie Elizabeth Naslednikov (Margot Anand) published "The Art of Sexual Ecstasy."
(WSJ, 12/7/98, p.A1,6)(SFC, 12/13/02, p.K6)(SSFC, 8/29/04, p.E3)
1981 In India N.R. Narayana Murthy co-founded Infosys Technologies with 6 other software writers including Nandan Nilekani and S. Gopalakrishnan with some 10,000 rupees (about $1000) pooled from household money. In 1999 it became the first Indian company to list its shares in the US. Chairman Murthy retired in 2006 with Infosys employing 58,000 people. His 5.9% stake was valued at $1.2 billion.
(WSJ, 8/21/06, p.B7)(Econ, 10/7/06, Survey p.9)(SSFC, 6/29/08, p.C1)(Econ, 12/20/08, p.111)
1981 Subhash Chandra traveled to Zurich to land a $10 million deal to build a factory for toothpaste tubes. He went on to become a leading producer of laminated packaging and then expanded to a private TV network followed by mobile communications.
(WSJ, 5/18/00, p.A1)
1981 Phoolan Devi led a massacre of 22 high-caste men in the village of Behmai. A film was later made about her life titled "The Bandit Queen."
(WSJ, 8/3/01, p.A6)
1982 Oct 2, The Indian guru Swami Muktananda (b.1908) died. He had opened meditation centers in the US during the 1970s and attracted some 20,000 devotees. In 1983 he was charged posthumously with seducing young girls and stashing funds in a Swiss bank account.
(SFC, 6/15/05, p.A1)(www.leavingsiddhayoga.net/secret.htm)
1982-1992 India grew at an average annual rate of 5.2%.
(Econ, 12/13/08, SR p.8)
1983 Feb 16, In India a bomb wounded 13 people in the latest election violence in the northeastern state of Assam. The assassination pushed the death toll from 15 days of violence to at least 217 people.
(http://tinyurl.com/cer6x)
1983 Feb 18-1983 Feb 20, In India Hindu attacks against Moslems in Assam state left over 1500 dead.
(http://tinyurl.com/cer6x)
1983 India’s Supreme Court ordered that capital punishment only be used in the “rarest of rare” cases. From 1995-2010 only one convict was hanged.
(Econ, 10/1/11, p.43)
1983 The Indian guru Swami Muktananda (1908-1982) was charged posthumously with seducing young girls and stashing funds in a Swiss bank account.
(SFC, 6/15/05, p.A13)
1983 Vijay Mallya (27) inherited the UB Group of India when his father, Vittal Mallya, died of a heart attack. Sales for UB then grew from $100 million to $1.6 billion in 2003. Import duties on foreign liquor of up to 550% protected his business.
(SSFC, 10/26/03, p.I3)(WSJ, 6/8/07, p.A1)
1983 Maruti Suzuki India Ltd., a subsidiary company of Japanese automaker Suzuki Motor Corporation, began producing cars in Delhi.
(Econ, 10/22/11, SR p.12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maruti_Suzuki)
1984 Feb 11, Mohammad Maqbool Bhat, founder of the pro-independence Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), was hanged in New Delhi's Tihar jail for the murder of a policeman. Ravindra Mhatre, India's deputy high commissioner in Britain, had been murdered in Birmingham, England. A group calling itself the Kashmir Liberation Army claimed responsibility and demanded a ransom of 1 million pounds ($1.84 million) and the release of political prisoners in India. The Indian government hanged Maqbool Bhat, a leading Kashmiri dissident it had been holding in jail. In 2004 Mohammed Aslam (49) was charged with the kidnap, false imprisonment and murder of Mhatre.
(AP, 11/4/04)(AFP, 2/11/07)
1984 Apr, India sent troops to occupy the Siachen glacier following suspicious mountaineering expeditions from Pakistan. Over the next 15 years some 10,000 Indian and Pakistani casualties, largely due to frostbite and mountain sickness, resulted.
(SFEC, 5/16/99, p.A25)
1984 Jun 5, Indira Gandhi ordered an attack on Sikh's holiest site, the Golden Temple.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Blue_Star)
1984 Jun 6, In India government forces stormed the Golden Temple in Amritsar in an effort to crush Sikh extremists. At least 1,000 Sikhs and 200 soldiers were killed.
(AP, 6/6/04)
1984 Oct 31, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated near her residence in New Delhi by two Sikh members of her bodyguard. This sparked Hindu-Sikh clashes across the country. Four days of anti-Sikh rioting followed in India. The government said more than 2,700 people, mostly Sikhs, were killed, while newspapers and human-rights groups put the death toll between 10,000 and 17,000. In 2002 Katherine Frank authored the biography "Indira."
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)(AP, 10/31/97)(http://tinyurl.com/ypb6kl)(WSJ, 2/13/02, p.A18)
1984 Nov 3, In India some 2,733 people died nationwide over the last 3 days from attacks on Sikhs after Gandhi was shot dead. The bodyguards who killed her sought revenge for her decision to send the army to flush Sikh separatists out of the Golden Temple in Amritsar.
(AP, 10/31/04)(http://iref.homestead.com/Delhi84.html)
1984 Dec 3, More than 4,000 people died and 200,000 were injured after a gas escaped from a pesticide plant operated by a Union Carbide subsidiary in Bhopal, India. 40 tons of vaporous methyl isocyanate, hydrogen cyanide, monomethyl amine, carbon monoxide and possibly 20 other chemicals were released after an explosion. Over the years, according to the Indian government, some 15,000 people have died from effects of the gas. In 2011 India issued notices to Dow seeking payment of $1.7 billion, on top of $470 million already paid, due to the lingering effects of the poison.
(WSJ, 11/27/96, p.A1)(HN, 12/3/98)(SFEC, 3/5/00, p.A23)(AP, 12/3/04)(SFC, 3/1/11, p.A2)
1984 Dec 29, Indian PM Rajiv Gandhi claimed victory in parliamentary elections. The BJP entered the parliament for the first time with 2 seats.
(http://tinyurl.com/338zok)(SFC, 10/4/99, p.A12)
1984 Kanshi Ram (1934-2006) founded the Bahujan Samaj Party to promote the interests of India’s low caste Hindus, also known as dalits, or untouchables.
(SFC, 10/10/06, p.B7)
1984 Indian soldiers attacked the Golden Temple in Amritsar to flush out Sikh separatists.
(TMC, 1994, p.1984)(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)
1984-1995 It was estimated that thousands of Sikhs were killed by the Indian army and police during this period.
(Econ, 8/28/04, p.16)
1985 Apr 8, India filed suit against Union Carbide over Bhopal disaster.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_8)
1985 Jun 23, All 329 people aboard an Air India Boeing 747 were killed when Flight 182 from Montreal to London crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near Ireland, apparently because of a bomb. An hour earlier, a bomb in baggage intended for another Air India flight exploded in a Tokyo airport, killing two baggage handlers. In 2000 Canadian police arrested 2 men of Sikh origin for the bombing. In 2001 Canadian prosecutors filed murder charges against Inderjit Singh Reyat. In 2003 Reyat was sentenced to 5 years for his role in making the bomb. Reyat spent 10 years in prison for building the bomb that exploded at the Narita airport, and another five years for helping make the Flight 182 bomb. In 2005 a Canadian judge acquitted 2 men who had been accused of conspiring in the case. Talwinder Parmar (1944-1992) was later assumed to have been the mastermind behind the attacks. In 2010 Reyat was found guilty of perjury. In 2011 he was sentenced to an additional 9 years in prison.
(AP, 6/23/97)(SFC, 10/28/00, p.A13)(SFC, 6/6/01, p.C3)(AP, 2/11/03)(AP, 3/17/05)(Econ, 6/16/07, p.47)(Reuters, 9/18/10)(Reuters, 1/7/11)
1985 Aug 15, The Assam Accord was signed between Rajiv Gandhi and Assamese nationalists. A Congress government led by Hiteshwar Saikia, widely viewed in Assam as illegitimate, was dissolved as part of the terms of the Assam Accord. Under the accord the government promised to identify and deport people who had crossed the border since the creation of Bangladesh in 1971, but the promise went unfulfilled.
(http://tinyurl.com/ypjjgw)(Econ, 10/11/08, p.60)
1985 Aug 17, Rajiv Gandhi announced Punjab state elections in India.
(http://tinyurl.com/yru62e)
1985 India built up its nuclear capabilities and refused Pakistan’s offers of mutual inspections and nonproliferation pledges.
(SFEC, 5/17/98, p.A15)
1985 The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) was founded in Dhaka, Bangladesh, with the aim of promoting economic cooperation and alleviating poverty in South Asia. Members included Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
(AP, 11/13/05)
1986 Jan 26, In India a Sarbat Khalsa (general congregation of the Sikh people) was convened at the Akal Takht, the Sikh seat of temporal authority in Amritsar. The gathering passed a resolution favoring the creation of Khalistan. A militant Sikh separatist movement had emerged in the 1970s with the goal of carving out an independent Sikh state out of the Punjab called Khalistan.
(Econ, 3/19/05, p.46)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalistan)
1986 Feb 2, Dalai Lama met Pope John Paul II in India.
(MC, 2/2/02)
1986 Mar 24, A $15 billion contract between the Indian government and Swedish arms company AB Bofors was signed for supply of over 400 155mm Howitzer field guns.
(AP, 3/21/11)
1986 Mar 28, Extremist Sikhs killed 13 Hindus in Ludhiana, India.
(http://tinyurl.com/h5at2)
1986 Oct 2, Sikhs attempted to assassinate Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
(MC, 10/2/01)
1987 Apr 16, Swedish Radio claimed that Swedish arms company AB Bofors paid kickbacks to top Indian politicians and key defense officials to secure a deal.
(http://tinyurl.com/47jy7dp)
1987 Jun, Pakistan sentenced Gopal Das, an Indian man, to life in prison for alleged spying. In 2011 PM Zardari remitted Gopal Das' prison sentence on humanitarian grounds in response to an unusual appeal by the Indian Supreme Court.
(AP, 3/27/11)
1987 Jul 6, The first of three massacres by Sikh extremists over two days took place in India as gunmen attacked a bus with Hindu passengers. Seventy-two people were killed in the attacks in Punjab and Haryana.
(AP, 7/6/97)
1987 Jul 30, Some 50,000 Indian troops arrived in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, to disarm the Tamil Tigers and enforce a peace pact. After a time they began fighting the Tigers and in 1990 the government asked them to leave.
(SFC, 7/24/96, p.A9)(SFC, 11/2/96, p.A21)(Econ, 8/5/06, p.40)
1987 Dec 24, M.G. Ramachandran (b.1917), leading Tamil film actor and Chief Minister of the Tamil Nadu state from 1977, died. He was the first film actor to be a Chief Minister in India.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._G._Ramachandran)
1987 Bodo insurgents began attacking police and soldiers who protected the Muslim settlers in the tea-growing Assam state.
(SFC, 12/31/96, p.A10)
1987 Pantaloon chain began operations as India’s 1st formal trouser brand. By 2006 the retail chain employed 12,000 people in over 100 shops.
(Econ, 4/15/06, p.70)
1988 Aug 6, As many as 400 drowned in India when a ferry capsized in the Ganges River.
(AP, 2/3/06)
1988 Aug 21, More than 1,000 people were killed in an earthquake on the Nepal-India border.
(AP, 8/21/98)
1988 Oct 4, Indian professor Mithileshwar Singh, freed the day before by his Lebanese kidnappers, said his captors had treated him well during his 20 months of imprisonment, but acknowledged "there is no substitute for freedom."
(AP, 10/4/98)
1988 Pakistan's main spy agency (ISI) gave military training to Kashmiri rebels (JKLF) battling security forces in Indian-administered Kashmir. ISI training ended in 1989. The information was only made public in 2005 by JKLF leader Amanullah Khan in the 1st volume of his Urdu-language biography "Jehed-e-Musalsal" (Continuous Struggle).
(Reuters, 6/17/05)
1988 Bill Graham produced a worldwide tour on behalf of Amnesty Int’l. featuring Bruce Springsteen, Sting and Peter Gabriel. They toured Costa Rica, India and Zimbabwe.
(SFC,12/13/97, p.A15)
1988 Prannoy Roy set up New Delhi Television Ltd. (NDTV) in a rented 2-bedroom apartment and a staff of 8. In 1998 his operation inaugurated a 24-hour news channel on Rupert Murdoch's Star TV network.
(WSJ, 10/4/99, p.B1)
1988-1998 The fighting in Kashmir left 300,000 dead over this period.
(SFC, 6/4/98, p.C2)
1989 Feb 14, Union Carbide agreed to pay $470 million to the government of India in a court-ordered settlement of the 1984 Bhopal gas leak disaster.
(AP, 2/14/99)
1989 Mar 12, In India the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) was formed with Dhananjoy Reang (former Vice-President of the Tripura National Volunteers) as its "chairman."
(www.crwflags.com/fotw/Flags/in-tri.html)
1989 Nov 4, Typhoon Gay hit India. It claimed 69 lives there and destroyed or damaged some 20,000 homes. In total it caused 1,060 direct casualties.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon_Gay_(1989))
1989 Nov 29, India president Rajiv Gandhi resigned.
(http://tinyurl.com/grzg4)
1989 Nov, Rebellion erupted in India-held Kashmir and small arms sniping between Indian soldiers and rebels became routine. Many of the Islamic separatists trained in Pakistan. By 2007 over 68,000 people dead due to the insurgency.
(SFC, 6/12/99, p.A12)(SFC, 6/8/02, p.A20)(SSFC, 12/2/07, p.A17)
1989 Dec 2, V.P. Singh was sworn in as prime minister of India.
(AP, 12/2/99)
1989 The film "Enemy of the People" was directed by Satyajit Ray.
(SFC, 9/5/01, p.D2)
1989 India again had a non-Congress government but it fell before the end of its 5-year term.
(WSJ, 4/26/96, p.A-10)
1989 In India the Bofors scandal, centered on kickbacks for a 1986 contract between the Indian government and Swedish arms company AB Bofors, brought down the government.
(Econ, 3/12/11, p.18)
1989 Javed Hussain Shah completed 6 months of training in Afghanistan and led a Kashmiri insurgent group later dubbed the Jihad Force. He fought along with al Qaeda members and later became a Kashmiri legislator.
(SSFC, 6/23/02, p.A13)
1989 PepsiCo. Inc. began operations in India.
(WSJ, 9/12/06, p.A6)
1990 Jan 19, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (b.1931), Indian guru (Osho), died. [see 1981]
(SFC, 12/13/02, p.K6)(SFC, 6/15/05, p.A1)
1990 Jan, India opened fire in Kashmir. Over 30,000 people were killed over the next 12 years.
(SSFC, 12/30/01, p.A22)
1990 Feb 14, Ninety-four people were killed when an Indian Airlines passenger jet crashed while landing at a southern Indian airport.
(AP, 2/14/00)
1990 Mar 20, The last Indian peacekeepers left Sri Lanka.
(www.india-seminar.com/1999/479/479%20mehta.htm)
1990 May 9, A major cyclone made landfall on Andhra Pradesh, India. It dissipated 2 days later over central India. Strong flooding caused 510 human fatalities, but the effect on agriculture was substantial. More than 100,000 animals were killed,
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990-1994_North_Indian_Ocean_cyclone_seasons)
1990 Jul, India’s 1958 Armed Forces Special Powers Act, was extended to Kashmir. It allowed soldiers to search houses without warrants and shoot anyone suspected of being a terrorist.
(http://tinyurl.com/27uour9)(Econ, 9/18/10, p.58)
1990 Nov 10, Chandra Shekhar was sworn in as India’s new prime minister.
(AP, 11/10/00)
1990 In India Prime Minister V.P. Singh announced that the government would set aside 27% of public sector jobs for the backward castes. This caused riots by the upper castes and the toppling of his government.
(WSJ, 5/10/96, p.A-4)
1990 India enacted its Armed Forces Special Powers Act which made civilian courts powerless to initiate criminal prosecutions against security forces in disturbed areas without federal permission.
(SSFC, 12/2/07, p.A24)
1990 The Bargi Dam along India’s Narmada River was completed. Many uprooted families moved to the slums of Jabalpur.
(SFC, 1/17/02, p.A9)
1990 Bangladesh authorities were warned that arsenic was seeping from the subsoil into the water supply through the cheap surface wells. The adjoining Indian Province of West Bengal first noticed the problem. The wells were dug by UNICEF in an effort to provide clean water.
(SFC, 7/30/97, p.A8)(WSJ, 6/24/05, p.W9)
1991 May 21, A Tamil suicide bomber assassinated PM Rajiv Gandhi (46) at a campaign rally near Madras. Tamil leader Velupillai Prabhakaran ordered the assassination. Gandhi and 16 others were killed when the female Tamil bomber, Dhanu, presented him flowers hiding explosives packed with 10,000 metal pellets. 41 Indian and Sri Lankan suspects were charged with murder and conspiracy. 12 suspects later committed suicide when they were trapped by police. In 1999 4 of the 25 convicted had their death sentences confirmed. 3 death sentences were commuted to life in prison and 19 sentences were set aside. In 1999 3 Tamil men and a woman, convicted in 1991, were scheduled for execution.
(HFA, '96, p.30)(SFE, 9/16/96, p.A9)(SFC, 1/9/96, p.A10)(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15) (SFC, 1/29/98, p.A10)(WSJ, 5/12/99, p.A1)(SFC, 10/16/99, p.A16)(SFC, 5/30/00, p.A25)
1991 Jun, In India P.V. Narasimha Rao (1921-2004) assumed the post of prime minister. He launched a fast track program to attract private investment in the energy sector to reduce chronic power shortages. Rao led until 1996.
(WSJ, 11/22/95, p.A-3)(www.ceeby.com/people/PVNarasimhaRao.cfm)
1991 Jul 24, India’s finance minister Manmohan Singh presented a budget to parliament. Singh said “the room for maneuver, to live on borrowed money or time, does not exist anymore.” His speech marked India’s entry into global capitalism.
(Econ, 7/23/11, p.10, 59)
1991 Dec 26, Sikh separatists killed about 50 train passengers in Punab, most of them Hindus.
(AP, 12/26/01)
1991 The film "City of Joy" was based on a novel by Dominique Lapierre. It was about the street children of Calcutta and Mother Teresa.
(SFC, 8/19/97, p.E4)
1991 India launched economic reforms under finance minister Manmohan Singh. Previous to this the government controlled the market-place dictating everything from industrial output to import levels. PM P.V. Narasimha Rao launched free market policies. Its previous socialist-inspired "License Raj" system dated back to British rule and required government permits for almost every aspect of business. A flood of imported products followed.
(WSJ, 2/18/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 1/9/04, p.A1)(WSJ, 1/27/04, p.A1)(Econ, 8/27/05, p.35)(Econ, 3/18/06, p.64)
1991 The IMF foisted tariff cuts on India as one of the conditions attached to a $2.5 billion bailout package. Tariffs were cut from an average of 90% this year to 30% in 1997.
(Econ, 5/9/09, p.82)
1991 India’s federal government dismissed the state government of Tamil Nadu, controlled by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party, for aiding the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka.
(SFC, 9/22/97, p.A10)
1991 India banned shows featuring live snakes, but the shows persisted as snake charmers continued their performances.
(SFC, 2/18/09, p.A2)
1991 Ratan Tata succeeded his uncle, J.R.D. Tata, as chairman of the Tata Group’s holding company, just as India began liberalizing its economy. Uncle Tata had started Tata Airlines which later became India Air.
(Econ, 4/2/05, p.53)(Econ, 1/13/07, p.62)
1991-1996 Jayalalitha Jayaram, a former movie star, served as the chief minister of Tamil Nadu. She was voted out of office in disgrace. She allegedly embezzled million of rupees in kickbacks and faced trial on the charges.
(SFC, 8/21/98, p.D2)(SFEC, 4/18/99, p.A19)
We study the history as seen in the time line. one a day.
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