Part I History

Depressed Classes Mission, Non-Brahmin movement and Justice Party   One, of the earliest lower caste movements, which became the torch bearer for the future caste movements, was founded in Maharashtra in the 1870s by Jyotibha Phule, who with his books Gulamgiri (1872) and Sarvajanik Satyadharma Pustak and his organisation Satya Shodhak Samaj, proclaimed the need “to save the lower castes from the hypocritical Brahmins and their opportunistic scriptures”. His main work was to rouse the masses and lead them to an organized resistance against the unreasonable claims of the priestly class. He made no distinction between non-Brahmins and untouchables. Dr. ... Read more

Satvahanas After the fall of the Mauryan Empire, the history of the Andhras, as a continuous account of political and cultural events, commences with the rise of the Satavahanas as a political power. According to Matsya Purana there were 29 rulers of this dynasty. They ruled over the Andhradesa including Deccan for about 400 years from the 2nd century B.C. to beyond the 2nd century A.D. Satavahanas were also called Salivahanas and Satakarnis. In the 3rd century B.C., Simukha, the founder of the Satavahana dynasty, unified the various Andhra principalities into one kingdom and became its ruler (271 B.C. – ... Read more

Cholas The founder of the Chola Empire was Vijayalaya, who was first feudatory of the Pallavas of Kanchi. He captured Tanjore in 850 A.D. He established a temple of goddess Nishumbhasudini (Durga) there. Aditya I succeeded Vijayalaya. Aditya helped his overlord the Pallava king Aparajita against the Pandyas but soon defeated him and annexed the whole of the Pallava kingdom. By the end of the ninth century, the Cholas had defeated the Pallavas completely and weakened the Pandyas capturing the Tamil country (Tondamandala) and including it under their domination He then became a sovereign ruler. The Rashtrakuta king, Krishna II ... Read more

Shungas The Sunga Empire (or Shunga Empire) is a Magadha dynasty that controlled North-central and Eastern India as well as parts of the northwest (now Pakistan) from around 185 to 73 B.C.E. It was established after the fall of the Indian Mauryan empire. The capital of the Sungas was Pataliputra. Later kings such as Bhagabhadra also held court at Vidisa, modern Besnagar in Eastern Malwa. The Sunga Empire is noted for its numerous wars with both foreign and indigenous powers although several kings patronized Buddhism. The Mathura school of art and the works of Patanjali colored North India during this ... Read more

Indian National Army Indian National Army, also known as the Azad Hind Fauj, was formed for the liberation of India from the British rule. It was formed in South-East Asia in the year 1942 by pioneering Indian Nationalists and prisoners who wanted to throw off the yoke of foreign domination and liberate the country. The INA was initially formed under Mohan Singh, after the fall of Singapore, the captain in the 1/14th Punjab Regiment in the British Army. However, the first INA under Mohan Singh collapsed and finally it was revived under the leadership of Subash Chandra Bose in 1943. ... Read more

The Delhi Sultanate basically refers to the Muslim rulers who ruled India through Delhi. This basically came into existence after Mohammed Ghori captured Delhi after defeating Prithviraj. After Prithviraj was captured, the Delhi Sultanate went into the hands of one of Ghori’s generals known as Qutub-ud-din Aibak. During the end of the 12th century, he established a series of rulers and this dynasty was called as the slave dynasty since the rulers had been military slaves. Read more about the history of the Delhi sultanate in India. The extent of Delhi sultanate was till Bengal in the east and Deccan ... Read more

Paramountcy of the British Crown over the Princely States in India did not conform to any of the constitutionally recognized models of relationship between two powers, one dominant (British) and the other dominated (Princely States). It is pertinent to mention that Paramountcy was not an international relationship. However, Henry Maine did claim for the States quasi-international status. The reality that under Paramount power the States had no international life stood well established and none of them enjoyed an independent status. The princely States of India and their relations with the British Government offer no parallel or analogy to any institution ... Read more

It is often believed that the colonial administration encouraged the commercialization of agriculture that improved the position of peasants in many areas of the Indian colony. From the 1860s onwards, the nature of agricultural production was determined by the demands of the overseas markets for Indian primary products. The items exported in the first half of the nineteenth century included cash crops like indigo, opium, cotton and silk. Gradually raw jute, food grains, oil seeds and tea replaced indigo and opium. Raw cotton remained the most in demand item. This expansion in cash crop production was accompanied by the building ... Read more

Indian trade links with Europe started in through sea route only after the arrival of Vasco da Gama in Calicut, India on May 20, 1498. The Portuguese had traded in Goa as early as 1510, and later founded three other colonies on the west coast in Diu, Bassein, and Mangalore. In 1601 the East India Company was chartered, and the English began their first inroads into the Indian Ocean. At first they were little interested in India, but rather, like the Portuguese and Dutch before them, with the Spice Islands. But the English were unable to dislodge the Dutch from ... Read more

The medieval period witnessed the growth of a rich corpus of literature that accompanied the development of new languages. The conventional view among historians was that the patronage of the Sanskrit and other regional language had declined because the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate led to the patronage of Persian. But this period witnessed the growth of a rich corpus of regional literature. This period is marked with composition of poetical works called the Kavya (poetical narrative) and the texts that codified laws called the Dhramashastras. The new literary languages in India had their genesis (beginning) in early Medieval centuries, ... Read more