India (Alternity)

India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: भारत गणराज्य; Sindhi: Bhārat Gaṇarājya), is the world's most populous nation, (with over 1.16 billion inhabitants) occupying the vast majority of South Asia and the Indian subcontinent. India shares borders with Burma to the east, Bhutan, Nepal, Tibet, China, and Baltistan to the north, and West Punjab, Balochistan, and Sindhustan to the west.

Independence was gained from the United Kingdom in August 1947 when the former British India was split into three countries: India, the Republic of Burma, and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the latter of which would become India's arch-rival for the next 20 years, until its dissolution into Balochistan, West Punjab, and Baltistan (of which West Punjab would become Pakistan's successor state) following the conclusion of the decisive Second Indo-Pakistani War in 1967.

Partition (1947)
The United Kingdom agreed to grant independence to the subcontinent after the Second World War, but it came at a cost: Muhammad Ali Jinnah's Muslim League demanded the creation of a separate state for Muslims known as Pakistan. The Muslim League laid claim to large swathes of India including Sindh, Baltistan, western Punjab, Kashmir, the eastern half of Bengal and the princely state of Hyderabad in the south. Though the British arbitrator Lord Mountbatten initially gave Pakistan the eastern half of Bengal, there was a public backlash due to Bengalis seeing their land as indivisible (though the colonial administration had proposed the partition of Bengal in 1905, nothing came of this) and the widespread airing of statements attributed to Jinnah and other high-ranking Pakistani officials, which implied that Bengalis would become second-class citizens in Pakistan. This response led Mountbatten to reconsider and hand an undivided Bengal to India.

Pakistan demanded compensatory land and India gave them a lowball offer of the Kutch region, the desert-stricken northernmost part of Bombay Presidency. To India's amazement, the Pakistanis accepted, but this was actually a shrewd move to gain the princely state of Junagadh. After the Bengal debacle, Mountbatten refused to grant Pakistan any lands that did not border their current territory, but the Kutch gave Pakistan a border with Junagadh, whose Muslim ruler promptly acceded to Pakistan. India vehemently protested, but later agreed to drop their claims to Junagadh in return for Pakistan agreeing to abandon any claims to the princely state of Hyderabad and refuse any support to their then-rulers.

As Junagadh was ruled by a Muslim but had a majority Hindu population, India then demanded all of Kashmir, which had the opposite characteristics, but Pakistan countered that Kashmir constituted a separate case entirely as Junagadh was effectively traded for eastern Bengal and Hyderabad. Mountbatten split Kashmir between the two after a popular rebellion in the state toppled the king, but the final result pleased neither side and would later lead to the First Indo-Pakistani War.

The Indian army soon overran Hyderabad and exiled the Nizam to Oman.

Early post-independence era (1947-1954)
Jawaharlal Nehru became the first Prime Minister upon independence in 1947. The nation's constitution was completed on January 26, 1950 and gave it a new self-image to the world at large - that India was set to join the world stage. As such, it was admitted to the UN one month later.

First Indo-Pakistani War (1947-1948)
Main Article: First Indo-Pakistani War (1947-1948)

Almost immediately, the two young nations came to blows over Mountbatten's partitioning of Kashmir. The desire of each side to grab the entirety of Kashmir was not helped by various outbreaks of violence between mobs of refugees who ended up on the wrong side of the religious divide. The conflict was started in September 1947 by a pre-emptive surge of Indian troops into Srinagar, concerned that the majority Muslim population would start a riot demanding annexation by Pakistan. The Pakistanis could not ignore a huge buildup of Indian troops on their border and immediately sent three brigades to Kashmir.

A small incursion into Indian-held territory by the Pakistanis led to an exchange of gunfire and then full-blown war. For the next two months, the line of control moved back and forth, at one point moving into Srinagar itself before an Indian push codenamed Operation Vijay brought the border close to its original point. After eight months of war, both sides were keen to concentrate on nation-building rather continue a fruitless conflict, so a cease fire was reached in May 1948.

The native Kashmiris, for their part, were caught up in a conflict they wanted no part of. The majority were loyal to Kashmir only and would have preferred independence from both India and Pakistan.

Sino-Indian War (1962)
Main Article: Sino-Indian War (1962)

Transition to capitalism (1964)
Nehru's reputation took a savage beating after the defeat, but he still mustered enough support to remain Prime Minister until his death in 1964. A power vacuum then ensued, with two men facing off for the leadership: Lal Bahadur Shastri, a staunch Nehruvian socialist, and Morarji Desai, a social conservative and supporter of free markets. Desai managed to gain the majority support of parliamentarians and became the second Prime Minister of India. In his first address to the nation on 11 June, Desai declared:


 * "There comes a time in the life of every nation when it stands at the cross-roads of history and must choose which way to go. If we remain on our current path, we will continue to lose in battle and live in abject poverty. We are surrounded on all sides by hostile parties who regard us as a weak nation due to the events of two years before, and will seek to harm us in the years to come. In order to meet this challenge we must become a stronger, smarter and richer nation, for true might is no longer measured by population size, but by economic size. I believe the best path for us to reach this goal is not through centralized control by the government, but through the power of free enterprise."

Desai's government immediately began dismantling Nehru's system of barriers to market entry, which was derisively christened the 'Licence Raj' by one of Desai's biggest supporters, the Tamil politician C. Rajagopalachari. Many government assets were privatized and the funds used to purchase modern assault rifles and fighter jets, in which India was woefully lacking during the Sino-Indian War.

Second Indo-Pakistani War (1965-1967)
Main Article: Second Indo-Pakistani War (1965-1967)

True to Desai's prediction, Pakistan attacked India in 1965, seeking to strike while India was still weakened from their defeat against China. The aim was to establish total control over the entirety of Kashmir.

Naxalite conflict (1980-Present)
India's embrace of free-market capitalism was not welcomed in all quarters, however. While burgeoning conglomerates such as the Birla, Tata and Ambani Corporations created fantastic wealth for their founders, the vast majority of people remained in poverty, malnourished and unemployed. Desai's dismantling of government monopolies made the labour force more competitive, but at the cost of higher consumer prices for the basic necessities of life, which drove many people even further into poverty.

In 1967, a guerrilla movement started in the Bengali village of Naxalbari, aiming to replace all Indian government with a communist republic similar to China under Mao Zedong. The 'Naxalites' remained fragmented and unimportant, however, until the growing inequalities of capitalist economic policies began to be felt in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Though the first Naxalite leaders were all either arrested or killed by the police, a new generation of student leaders took hold and united multiple groups under their banner, including existing communist movements, peasants, untouchables from the Hindu caste system and tribesmen displaced by the construction of new factories in their traditional lands. In 1980, the total number of Naxalite-aligned forces had swelled to 25 000, and open warfare began against the governments of Bengal, Bihar, Orissa and Assam.

The Naxalite conflict remains a severe problem facing the Indian government to the present day, but is largely confined to rural areas. The large amount of jobs being created in the cities and relative lack of support for trade unions has meant the communist movement has little support in urban India, where the Naxalites are mainly seen as terrorists.

Nuclear arsenal
Main Article: Nuclear weapons

Population
Main Article: States of India

India consists of 30 states, which are organized by language. The state of Bengal alone holds 200 million people, larger than Brazil, while the next biggest state, Uttar Pradesh, holds 170 million people, significantly larger than the Russian Federation.

The island of Lanka (formerly Ceylon) is partitioned between two states: the northern and eastern coastal districts are part of Tamil Nadu state, while the remainder makes up the state of Sinhala. As Tamil Nadu additionally comprises the southeastern corner of the mainland, Sinhala is the only state totally disconnected from the subcontinent and one of only two that is predominantly Buddhist (the other being Ladakh). This has led to the formation of a Sinhala independence movement, though many Sinhalese prefer the status quo due to the ease of travel to Bihar, home of the holiest sites in Buddhism.

The Lakshadweep islands are administered as part of Kerala state.