India and the Developing World

Important Issues

• Facing the developing world today– poverty

• developing countries

– Globalization

– Weak states

– Ethnicity/religious

divisions

– Environmental problems

In the chart on the following slide, the countries towards the top and on the right hand side are the most developed. The countries at the bottom and to the left are least developed.

Can you find India? China? Japan?

Where are they on the scale of “most developed” as compared to other countries?

Imperialism & Third World

• European colonial expansion for 300 years

• most colonies are independent after WWII

India

2nd most populous nation

• Population: over one billion

• Largest English speaking country (by population)

• Largest Democracy (by pop.)

A nation of diversity: languages

• Constitution lists 14 official “principal languages”

• English

• Hindi (30%)

A nation of diversity: religions

• Religions:– Hindu (~80%)– Muslim (~12%)– others (e.g. Buddhist 0.7%)

• all major religions in the world are present

• one of the major causes of conflict

• religion can become a political vehicle for social movement

Brief history

• One of the world’s oldest civilizations– 5,000 years

• foreign incursions – Aryans, Arabs, Turks,

(Moguls), Portugal, France, and Britain

– from 1,500 B.C. to 19th Century A.D.

190 years of British colonial rule

• Informal colonial rule through the British East India Company (1750s-1850s)

• formal colonial rule after the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857

British colonial rule

• economic impact– trade structure

• colonial institutions– state structure

Struggle for independence

• Indian National Congress was formed in 1885• non-violent resistance to colonial rule• Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948)

– Transformed Congress– unity within diversity– non-cooperation movement

• IMPORTANT LEADERS:• Gandhi• Nehru (1889-1964)• Mohammed Jinna

Independence & partition

• Division of the subcontinent (1947)

– India

– Pakistan

Independence & partition

• East Pakistan became Bangladesh in 1971

Republic of India

• Prime Minister Nehru (1947-1964)

• His daughter (Indira Gandhi) as Prime Minister (1966-1977, 1980-1984)

Nehru’s legacies

• His grandson– Rajiv Gandhi– Prime Minister (1984-1989)

• His granddaughter-in-law– Sonja Gandhi– Congress party president

(1999 - )