India [antikvár]

The hot land of India rests beneath the glistening ice of the Himalayas and between the glittering waters of the oceans like aj ewel in a shimmering setting. It is a nation of the most remarkable contrasts: there are sumptuous palaces and mud huts, broad floodplains and jagged mountains. But through it all shines the essential 'Indian-ness' of the people - whatever the setting there can be no mistaking the people.The enduring quality of the civilisation of the subcontinent can be glimpsed from earliest times. Some four and a half thousand years ago cities rose in the Indus Valley that could rival in splendour and maj esty any others in the world. Though this Harappan Empire fell into ruins around 1800BC in the face of pestilence, famine and invasion, many of its features have survived right down to the present day. Bangles and nose ornaments were as common then as now, the same canopied bullock carts rumbled through the streets, and the tiger and elephant were already endowed with some sort of religious significance.Over the centuries the cultural life of the country came under a variety of influences, yet no novelty was so strong that it was able to supplant the native way of life. After the fall of the Harappan Empire, waves of Indo-Europeans poured down through the Hindu Kush, bringing with them the sacred Vedras and perhaps stimulating the rise of cities along the Ganges. It was in the years after these migrations and invasions that the truly Indian culture, with its castes and religions, first came into view. It was the fairer-skinned Indo-Europeans who pushed the Dravidians into the south of the land and established the patchwork of languages and states. The forests were cleared and the land turned over to the rich agriculture which allowed the tremendous population of India to start to boom.A brush with the Western civilisation of the Greeks came when Alexander the Great marched across the Punjab to the Beas River and established Greek cities in his wake. But the effects were marginal and fleeting, for India continued on its own course. Jainism and Buddhism arose to challenge Hinduism, which was itself developing, but failed to supplant it. Empires rose and fell as the Mauryan was replaced by the Gupta, and after the thirteenth century a succession of Islamic rulers brought a new influence to bear on the sub-continent, perhaps the most lasting of all, for Islam remains a major religion in India. But in 1526 the Mogul, led by a descendant of Genghis Khan, swept down from the north and established an empire which would last, at least in name, until the arrival of the British.The mark of the British Raj on India, both physically and psychologically, is immense, and is the most recent of any foreign influence. Railways criss-cross the land and, despite government attempts to the contrary, English is the second language for most of the population. Indeed, the very unity of India is due to the British, who took over many of the states and reduced the rest to dependency. When independence came in the wake of the Second World War, the partition boundaries were drawn along lines decided by the British, and under a government built on Western democracy rather than Eastern despotism.But the vitality of India is not to be denied, and though the mark of British rule is all around, there can be no doubt that the country is India. The sacred cows wander the streets and the holy men sit by the streetside while intricately carved temples rise into the sky. The bangles and nose ornaments remain from earliest times and the caste system still exerts an influence.India has always been an agricultural country and so she remains to this day. The vast plains and open lands are a great patchwork of fields, where the traditional ox-drawn ploughs and irrigation systems keep the soil producing the food needed by India's millions. Picturesque though they may be, traditional farming methods are notoriously inefficient, and more modern techniques are gradually being introduced. Even so the small-holder, with his few acres of rice field and few livestock, seems set to remain a dominant feature of the countryside.Towns, by contrast, have benefited from the continuing investment in industry which has been such a feature of the nation since independence. The population of the cities has leapt ahead in recent years, so much so that most would be unrecognizable to anyone who knew them fifty years ago. Yet the great buildings of old have remained untouched by the bustle around them. The Red Fort and Presidential Palace still rise above Delhi, whileFort William and a whole host ofVictorian official architecture provide a spectacular centrepiece for Calcutta.But perhaps the most famous building in India, and certainly one which sums up the nation for many, is not for the living, but for the dead. The glistening, white marble edifice of the Taj Mahal, with its domes. and minarets, was raised in the seventeenth century by the Mogul Emperor Shah Jahan as a memorial to his wife, Begam. It is, without doubt, the finest product of a culture which can trace its roots back to the fallen Harappan Empire of so many centuries ago.Hindu faithful crowd the Ganges at dawn, Benares.