Walsh J.E. A Brief History of India

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A BRIEF HISTORY OF INDIA

352

violent communal rioting breaks out, killing

4,000 in Calcutta and spreading across north-

ern India

1947 Lord Mountbatten is appointed the last British

viceroy to India and brokers a ﬁ nal plan to par-

tition British India into two separate countries,

India and Pakistan

India and Pakistan become independent

dominions at midnight on August 14

Partition boundaries, announced August 17,

produce communal violence in which 10 mil-

lion people become refugees

1947–49 Most Indian princes agree to transfer their

states to either India or Pakistan; India seizes

control of the princely states of Hyderabad and

Junagadh

India and Pakistan go to war over the state of

Kashmir; United Nations cease-ﬁ re and a tempo-

rary division of the disputed state ends the war;

India agrees to hold a plebiscite to determine

Kashmir’s future

1948 Gandhi is assassinated in New Delhi by Naturam

Godse, a right-wing militant Hindu

1949 Hindu Marriage Validating Act removes legal

barriers to intercaste marriage

Constructing the Nation

1950 New Indian constitution becomes law, estab-

lishing India as a democratic republic

1951–52 Congress Party wins the ﬁ rst elections held

under the new constitution and forms India’s

ﬁ rst government; Jawaharlal Nehru becomes

India’s ﬁ rst prime minister; Nehru remains

prime minister at the head of Congress govern-

ments until his death in 1964

1951–56 First Five-Year Plan successfully reestablishes

the stability of India’s economy

1955–56 Hindu Marriage Act, Hindu Succession Act,

and Adoption and Maintenance Act reform

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353

APPENDIX 2

marriage customs and equalize women’s access

to paternal property

Untouchability (Offences) Act provides pen-

alties for discrimination against Untouchables;

government establishes quotas (reserved

seats) in the Lok Sabha, provincial legisla-

tures, educational institutions, and government

departments for members of Scheduled Castes

(Untouchable castes) and Scheduled Tribes

1956 Indian government creates 14 language-based

states

Untouchable leader B. R. Ambedkar converts

to Buddhism, as do many of his followers

1956–61; 1961–66 Second and Third Five-Year Plans focus economic

efforts on industrializing the Indian economy

1959 Panchayati Raj Plan organizes agricultural and

village development work in Indian states

Indian television begins as a government

monopoly

1962 Sino-Indian War: India and China go to war

over disputed boundaries in the northeast,

resulting in an Indian military defeat and the

loss of the Karakoram Pass to China

1964 Nehru dies after a long illness; Lal Bahadur

Shastri is elected prime minister

1965–85 New strains of wheat and rice introduced into

the Punjab and other Indian regions produce

a “Green Revolution,” dramatically increasing

crop production, particularly in the Punjab

1966 India’s refusal to hold a plebiscite in Kashmir

leads to a brief war with Pakistan in which

Indian forces dominate; truce mediated by the

Soviet Union returns Kashmir to its 1949 sta-

tus; Shastri dies suddenly immediately follow-

ing the negotiations

In midst of escalating food shortages and ris-

ing prices, Congress Party bosses choose Indira

Gandhi as prime minister

1967 Congress wins reelection by its smallest mar-

gin to date as India’s food crisis worsens;

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A BRIEF HISTORY OF INDIA

354

anti-Brahman DMK party takes power in

Madras; Sikh party Akali Dal wins control of

the newly created province of the Punjab

1969 Gandhi nationalizes 14 of India’s private banks

1970–71 Gandhi abolishes the privy purses awarded to

former Indian princes

1971 Gandhi, expelled from Congress, wins election

through her own Congress (R) Party on a plat-

form of abolishing poverty

War between East and West Pakistan leads

India into a brief war with West Pakistan;

Pakistan surrenders, and East Pakistan becomes

the independent country of Bangladesh

1972–74 Monsoon failures create food shortages, rising

prices, and near famine conditions; interna-

tional loans restrict India’s economic plans

1974 India detonates an underground nuclear device

1975 Coalition of opposition parties protesting

government corruption and rising prices

becomes a national movement, the Janata

Morcha (People’s Front), against Gandhi’s

government

High Court of Uttar Pradesh ﬁ nds Gandhi

guilty of corrupt election practices and bars her

from holding ofﬁ ce

1975–77 Gandhi has the president of India declare

national emergency, jails her political oppo-

nents, suspends civil rights, and takes control

of the government

Sanjay Gandhi leads efforts to raze urban slums

and effect birth control through sterilization

1977 Indira Gandhi calls for new elections, ending

the Emergency and freeing her political oppo-

nents; Janata coalition wins the election, and

Morarji Desai becomes prime minister

1978–80 Janata government’s Mandal Commission

Report identiﬁ es more than 3,000 castes and

communities (“Other Backward Classes”) that

deserve preferential treatment in government

jobs and education

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APPENDIX 2

1980 Janata coalition loses election to Indira Gandhi

and her Congress (I) Party; Sanjay Gandhi dies

in a plane crash; Rajiv Gandhi wins election to

Parliament

1981 In Tamil Nadu mass conversions of Untouch-

ables to Islam in ceremonies sponsored by the

Muslim League raise Hindu nationalist fears of

a threat to the Hindu majority in India

1982 Doordarshan, the government television sta-

tion, adds programming and expands its audi-

ence through satellites

1983 The VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad) organizes

the Ekatmata Yatra (procession for oneness) to

demonstrate Hindu unity

Phoolan Devi, India’s “Bandit Queen,” sur-

renders and is imprisoned

1983–84 VHP begins a national Ramjanmabhoomi cam-

paign, an effort to restore the god Rama’s birth-

place in Ayodhya by destroying a 16th-century

Muslim mosque, Babri Masjid, said to have

been built over that site

RSS founds a new youth wing, the Bajrang

Dal, to work on the Ramjanmabhoomi cam-

paign and is involved in forming a new political

party, the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party), out of

the old Hindu nationalist Jana Sangh party

1984 Indian army in “Operation Bluestar” invades

the sacred Sikh temple at Amritsar to destroy

the Sikh militant leader Bhindranwale and his

followers

Indira Gandhi is assassinated by Sikh mem-

bers of her bodyguard; Rajiv Gandhi becomes

prime minister and calls for new elections,

which Congress wins overwhelmingly

Gas tank at a Union Carbide factory in

Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, explodes, killing

7,000 to 10,000 people within the ﬁ rst three

days and injuring at least 10,000 more

Kanshi Ram founds the Bahujan Samaj Party

to organize low castes and Dalits (Untouchables)

as a political party

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A BRIEF HISTORY OF INDIA

356

1985 After a legal judgment in the Shah Bano case

antagonizes conservative Muslims, Gandhi’s

government passes a bill making sharia prac-

tices the law for Indian Muslims

1986 As the number of dowry deaths increases, gov-

ernment makes such deaths a special category

of crime to facilitate prosecution

1987 V. P. Singh exposes the Bofors scandal in the

Gandhi government and is expelled from the

Congress Party; Singh founds an opposition

party, the Janata Dal

1987–90 Indian army unsuccessfully ﬁ ghts the Tamil

Tiger guerrilla movement in Sri Lanka

1989 Singh’s Janata Dal and National Front defeat

Congress; the front forms a coalition gov-

ernment with support from the BJP; Singh

becomes prime minister.

1990 Singh government’s decision to implement the

Mandal Report recommendations produces

upper-caste protests and student suicides; VHP

announces that construction of its Rama temple

in Ayodhya will begin in October; BJP leader

L. K. Advani begins a party procession from

Gujarat in support of the campaign; Prime

Minister V. P. Singh orders Advani’s arrest in

Bihar, and the BJP withdraws from Singh’s

government

1991 Rajiv Gandhi is assassinated in Tamil Nadu

by a member of the Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers;

Congress wins enough votes in the elections to

form a coalition government with Narasimha

Rao as prime minister

Rao’s ﬁ nance minister, Manmohan Singh,

implements an economic program to open

India’s economy to global markets

Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal is set up to

negotiate water rights on the Kaveri (Cauvery)

River between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu

1992 VHP volunteers break into the Babri Masjid

grounds in Ayodhya and destroy the mosque;

communal rioting breaks out across northern

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Appendix 2

india; prime Minister Rao arrests major Hindu

nationalists and temporarily bans the RSS,

VHp, and Bajrang dal from further activity

Samajwadi party is founded to organize

Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in Bihar and

Uttar pradesh

India in the Twenty-ﬁrst Century

1996 elections give the BJp a plurality, but the party

is unable to form a coalition government; coali-

tion of small parties forms government, ﬁrst

with deve Gowda and then with inder Kumar

Gujral as prime minister

phoolan devi wins election to Uttar pradesh

seat as Samajwadi party candidate

1996, 1997, 2002–03 Bahujan Samaj party forms brief coalition gov-

ernments in Uttar pradesh

1998 BJp succeeds in forming a coalition government

by abandoning key elements of its Hindutva

(Hindu nationalist) agenda

1998–99 More than 100 violent attacks are made against

Christians in the tribal areas of several states

and in Orissa

Tensions worsen between india and pakistan

as both countries explode nuclear devices

1999 BJp emerges from a new national election at the

head of a stronger coalition government

50-day Kargil War won by india after heavy

ﬁghting at Kargil, on the indian side of Kashmir

border, between pakistani and Kashmiri insur-

gents and indian military forces

2000 dowry deaths are now estimated to number

5,000 per year according to UniCeF

pakistan-based militants attack the Red Fort

in new delhi, killing three people

2001 An earthquake in Gujarat kills 20,000

people

2001–02 Armed terrorists attack the indian parliament

complex killing eight people; in 2002 terror-

ists kill 38 people in the Kashmir parliament

A BRIEF HISTORY OF INDIA

358

2002 As VHP celebrates 10-year anniversary of

Ayodhya movement, Muslims kill 58 Hindu

nationalist volunteers on a train in Godhra,

Gujarat; communal riots rage in Gujarat over

several months

2002–03 India and Pakistan withdraw political envoys

and mass soldiers on borders in Kashmir

2003 Amid claims that a Coca-Cola bottling plant had

polluted water in a Kerala village, an analysis

of Coca-Cola and PepsiCo soft drinks reports

that they contain high levels of pesticides

2004 BJP announces restoration of diplomatic and

transportation ties with Pakistan and says a

new round of peace talks will soon start

BJP loses national election after running on

a campaign of “India Shining”; Congress Party

forms government with economist Manmohan

Singh as prime minister

India, Brazil, Japan, and Germany ask for

permanent seats on the UN Security Council

A tsunami caused by an undersea earthquake

off the coast of Sumatra destroys coastal com-

munities in South and Southeast Asia, killing

thousands in southern India and the Andaman

and Nicobar Islands

Punjab state legislature passes act terminat-

ing its water agreements with states of Haryana

and Rajasthan

2005 Bus service resumes, between the Indian and

Pakistani regions of Kashmir; Kashmiri ter-

rorist bombs in New Delhi kill 60 people; in

Bangalore, Kashmiri terrorists open ﬁ re on a

technology conference

Congress enacts the National Rural

Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), a

legal guarantee of 100 days employment every

year to rural adults willing to do public works

2006 India and the United States sign a nuclear

co-operation agreement allowing India to buy

nuclear fuel in exchange for external inspection

of its civilian nuclear plants

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APPENDIX 2

Kashmiri terrorists explode bombs in eight

locations on a Mumbai commuter rail line,

killing 182 people; bombings result in a four-

month suspension of India and Pakistan peace

talks

2007 Terrorist bombs kill 68 passengers on an India-

to-Pakistan train, part of resumed rail service

between the two countries

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) wins a

landslide victory in Uttar Pradesh, returning

Mayawati as chief minister; 25 die in Rajasthan

as the OBC Gujjar caste demands the lower-

ing of its caste status to gain access to more

reserved government jobs

Pratibha Devisingh Patil (1934– ) is elected

president of India on July 19, the ﬁ rst woman

to hold this position

Indian crime statistics number dowry deaths

at 8,093

Farmer suicides, predominantly in ﬁ ve states,

average 16,631 per year from 1997 to 2007

Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal announces

its decisions; four states involved refuse to

accept and plan appeals

2008 Supreme Court allows government to proceed

with plan to expand 27 percent reservation

of seats for OBCs in elite technical and medi-

cal institutions but requires wealthier OBCs

(the “creamy layer”) to be excluded from the

reservations

India and the United States conclude a civil-

ian nuclear trade deal that would allow the

United States to sell nuclear fuel, technology,

and reactors to India for peaceful use

Terrorist attacks on tourist and other sites in

southern section of Mumbai between November

26 and 29 kill more than 170 people

2009 Congress wins 206 seats in unpredicted elec-

tion victory and easily forms a coalition gov-

ernment; BJP seats in Lok Sabha return to their

level in 1991; regional political parties poll

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A BRIEF HISTORY OF INDIA

360

more than 50 percent of the electoral vote for

the second time since 2004

Tendulkar Committee revises formula by

which poverty is estimated in India: percentage

of Indian people living at or below the poverty

level now estimated at 37.5 percent

2010 Twenty-six years after the 1984 Union Carbide

factory gas leak, a court in Bhopal, Madhya

Pradesh, ﬁ nds eight Indians guilty of “death

by negligence” and sentences the seven who

remain alive to two years each in prison;

those sentenced include the chairman of Union

Carbide in India, the Indian managing direc-

tor, the vice president, the works manager, the

production manager, the plant superintendent,

and the plant production assistant

A majority Allahabad High Court ruling

divides the disputed holy site of Ayodhya into

thirds; the court awards Hindus control over

the section where the Babri mosque had been

torn down in 1992 and divides the remaining

two-thirds equally between Muslims and a

Hindu minority sect, Nirmohi Akhara, which

had been an early litigant in the case

XIX Commonwealth Games take place in

New Delhi

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APPENDIX 3

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