Magnificent India

India occupies a peninsula reaching into the Indian Ocean, walled off from the rest of Asia by the Himalayas to the north, with the Arabian Sea to the west and the Bay of Bengal to the east: about a third of the land area of the United States, and the most populous country in the world since 2023.

Hindi in Devanagari is the official language of the Union, and English is an additional official language; the states designate their own, and there is no national language at all. Twenty-two languages sit in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, and the 2011 census counted 121 languages and over 1,300 distinct mother tongues. There is no state religion. New Delhi is the political capital; Mumbai is where the money is.

Independence came at midnight on 14–15 August 1947, ending British rule that had begun as a trading concern, hardened into territorial control across the second half of the eighteenth century, and became direct Crown administration in 1858. What India inherited and what it has built since are both covered here.