Page 4 - India Destination Guide - Alluring Asia

to arrive were the British and the French. Although these continental European powers controlled various coastal regions of southern and eastern India during the ensuing century, they eventually lost all their territories in India to British islanders with the exception of the French outposts of Pondicherry and Chandermagore, the Dutch port of Travancore and the Portuguese colonies of Goa, Daman and Diu. In 1617 the British East India Company was given permission by Mughal Emperor Jahangir to trade in The Indian Independence Movement India, leading to ever more British influence over The physical presence of the British in India was not Indian territories which led to a series of armed significant, yet they were able to rule two-thirds of conflicts. The first major movement against the the subcontinent and exercise considerable leverage British Company's high handed rule resulted in the over the princely states that accounted for the Indian Rebellion of 1857. After a year of turmoil and remaining one-third. reinforcement of the East India Company's troops with British soldiers, the company overcame the Along with desire for independence, tensions rebellion. The nominal leader of the uprising, the last between Hindus and Muslims had also been Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar was exiled to developing over the years. The Muslims had always Burma, his children were beheaded, and the Moghul been a minority within the subcontinent and the line was abolished. In the aftermath all power was prospect of an exclusively Hindu government made transferred from the East India Company to the them wary of Independence. Although there was a British Crown, which began to administer most of large amount of tension and mistrust between the India as a number of provinces. Hindu and the Muslims, Mohandas Gandhi was able to bring a certain amount of unity between the two During British rule, famines in India, often attributed groups to stand up to the British. The British, who failed government policies, were some of the worst BanGkok were extremely weakened after the second World ever recorded, including the Great Famine of 1876-78 War promised that they would leave and in which 6.1 million to 10.3 million people died and participated in the formation of an interim then the Indian Famine of 1899-1900 in which up to government. The British Indian territories gained 10 million people died. In the middle of the 19th independence in 1947, after being partitioned into century yet another plague pandemic originated in the Union of India and Dominion of Pakistan. China spread, killing 10 million people in India alone. Following the controversial division of pre- Despite continued famines and diseases, the partitioned Punjab and Bengal, rioting broke out population of the Indian subcontinent, which stood at between Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims in these about 125 million in 1750, had reached 398 million by provinces and spread to several other parts of India 1941. and Pakistan. Pakistan gained its own independence on August 14, 1947 and Bangladesh, formerly known as East Pakistan and East Bengal, seceded from Pakistan. Today India has capitalized on its large educated English-speaking population to become one of the largest exporters of information technology services and software production. India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world with a GDP of over 4.06 trillion US Dollars per year.