India

Etymology

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the English proper noun "India" derives most immediately from the Classical Latin India, a reference to a loosely-defined historical region of Asia stretching from South Asia to the borders of China. Further etymons are: Hellenistic Greek India (Ἰνδία); Ancient Greek Indos (Ἰνδός), or the River Indus; Achaemenian Old Persian Hindu (an eastern province of the Achaemenid Empire); and Sanskrit Sindhu, or "river," but specifically the Indus river, and by extension its well-settled basin. The Ancient Greeks referred to South Asians as Indoi, 'the people of the Indus'.

The term Bharat (Bhārat; pronounced [ˈbʱaːɾət] ), mentioned in both Indian epic poetry and the Constitution of India, is used in its variations by many Indian languages. A modern rendering of the historical name Bharatavarsha, which applied originally to North India, Bharat gained increased currency from the mid-19th century as a native name for India.

Hindustan ([ɦɪndʊˈstaːn] ) is a Middle Persian name for India that became popular by the 13th century, and was used widely since the era of the Mughal Empire. The meaning of Hindustan has varied, referring to a region encompassing the northern Indian subcontinent (present-day northern India and Pakistan) or to India in its near entirety.

History

Ancient India

Based on coalescence of Mitochondrial DNA and Y Chromosome data, it is thought that the earliest extant lineages of anatomically modern humans or Homo sapiens on the Indian subcontinent had reached there from Africa between 80,000 and 50,000 years ago, and with high likelihood by 55,000 years ago. Evidence for the neolithic period in the western margins of the Indus river basin, at Mehrgarh in Balochistan, Pakistan, dates to after 7000 BCE. These cultures gradually evolved into the Indus Valley Civilisation, which flourished during 2500–1900 BCE in Pakistan and western India. Centred around cities such as Mohenjo-daro, Harappa, Dholavira, Ganweriwala, and Rakhigarhi, its characteristic features included standardised weights, steatite seals, a written script, urban planning, public works, and arts and crafts including pottery styles, terracotta human figures and animal statuettes.

Between 1500 BCE and 1200 BCE, an archaic form of Sanskrit, an Indo-European language, diffused into India from the northwest. Its evidence today is found in the Rig Veda—the oldest scripture associated with what later became Hinduism—which was composed by Indo-Aryan-speaking tribes migrating east from what is today northern Afghanistan and across the Punjab region. The settling of the Ganges river plain took place during the next millennium, when large swathes of the river system's adjoining regions were deforested, at times by setting fires, or later by employing iron implements, and prepared for agriculture. The settlement may have involved driving the preexisting people out or enslaving them. The Dravidian languages of India were supplanted in the north, creating a broad language family-divide, with the Indo-Aryan languages being spoken mainly in the north and west, and the Dravidian in some parts of east India and most of the south.

A second urbanisation had taken place in South Asia by the 4th millennium BCE, this time on the Ganges plain. In fortified cities, social differentiation by caste, or varna, had emerged. By the mid-millennium, two new ethical and social systems had arisen: Jainism based on the teachings of Mahavira and Buddhism on those of the Buddha. Both religions stressed non-violence and abjured animal sacrifices conducted in Brahmanism, and birth into a fixed hereditary varna. By living ethically, lay people could rise socially and morally in these religions. Chronicling the life of the Buddha was central to the beginnings of recorded history in India. The rise of the two religions was a backdrop to the emergence of the first loose-knit, geographically extensive power in South Asia, the Maurya Empire. During the rule of the founder's grandson, Ashoka (ca. 268–232 BCE), the empire briefly controlled the subcontinent's major urban hubs and arteries, except in the deep south. The empire's period was notable for creativity in art, architecture, inscriptions, and produced texts, but also for the declining rights of women in the mainstream Indo-Aryan speaking regions. Following his conquest of Kalinga, in which his forces caused immense loss of life, Ashoka adopted Buddhism, subsequently adopting a policy of dhamma and commissioning numerous rock and pillar edicts throughout the Maurya Empire to promote ethical conduct, non-violence, and social welfare. Because the edicts forbade both the killing of wild animals and the destruction of forests, some modern environmental historians see Ashoka as an early embodiment of that ethos.

Medieval India

The Indian early medieval age, from 600 to 1200 CE, was defined by regional kingdoms and cultural diversity. During this time, pastoral peoples, whose land had been cleared to make way for the growing agricultural economy, were accommodated within caste society, as were new non-traditional ruling classes. The caste system consequently began to show regional differences.

In the 6th and 7th centuries, the first devotional hymns were composed in Tamil. They were imitated all over India and led to both the resurgence of Hinduism and the development of all modern languages of the subcontinent. Indian royalty, big and small, and the temples they patronised drew citizens in significant numbers to the capital cities, which became economic hubs as well. By the 8th and 9th centuries, the effects were felt in Southeast Asia, as South Indian culture and political systems were exported to lands that became part of modern-day Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Brunei, Cambodia, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

After the 10th century, Muslim Central Asian nomadic clans, using swift-horse cavalry and raising vast armies united by ethnicity, repeatedly overran South Asia's north-western plains, leading eventually to the establishment of the Islamic Delhi Sultanate in 1206. The sultanate was to control much of North India and to make many forays into South India. Although at first disruptive for the Indian elites, the sultanate largely left its vast non-Muslim subject population to its own laws and customs.

By repeatedly repulsing Mongol raiders in the 13th century, the sultanate saved India from the devastation visited on West and Central Asia, setting the scene for centuries of migration of fleeing soldiers, learned men, mystics, traders, artists, and artisans from that region into the subcontinent, thereby creating a syncretic Indo-Islamic culture in the north. The sultanate's raiding and weakening of the regional kingdoms of South India paved the way for the indigenous Vijayanagara Empire. Embracing a strong Shaivite tradition and building upon the military technology of the sultanate, the empire came to control a large portion of peninsular India, and was to influence South Indian society for long afterwards.

Early modern India

In the early 16th century, northern India—then mainly under Muslim rulers,—fell again to the superior mobility and firepower of a new generation of Central Asian warriors. The resulting Mughal Empire did not stamp out the local societies it came to rule. Instead, it balanced and pacified them through new administrative practices and diverse and inclusive ruling elites. This led to more systematic, centralised, and uniform rule. By departing from tribal bonds and exclusive Islamic identity, particularly under Akbar, the Mughals united their vast empire through personal loyalty to a near-divine emperor. It was expressed through a shared Persianised culture.

The Mughal state derived most revenue from agriculture. Its economic policies mandated tax payments in a well-regulated silver currency, and integrated peasants and artisans into larger markets. The relative peace maintained by the empire across much of the 17th century was a factor in India's economic expansion. Mughal ruling classes fostered extensive patronage of the arts, including painting, literary forms, textiles, and architecture. Newly coherent social groups in northern and western India, such as the Marathas, the Rajputs, and the Sikhs, gained governing ambitions during Mughal rule. Through collaboration or adversity, the Mughals gave them recognition and military experience. Expanding commerce gave rise to new Indian commercial and political elites along the coasts of southern and eastern India. From the late 17th century, the Mughal Empire gradually began to disintegrate, and these local elites and communities frequently gained greater autonomy and self-governance.

By the early 18th century, the lines between commercial enterprise and political sovereignty had become increasingly blurred. European chartered companies solidified their presence in India through fortified coastal outposts; most notable was the English East India Company. Its control of the seas, greater resources, and more advanced military training and technology led it to assert its military strength increasingly and caused it to become attractive to a portion of the Indian elite; these factors were crucial in allowing the company to gain control over the Bengal region by 1765 and sideline the other European companies. Its further access to the riches of Bengal and the subsequent increased strength and size of its army enabled it to annexe or subdue most of India by the 1820s. India no longer exported manufactured goods as it had long, but instead supplied the British Empire with raw materials. Many historians consider this to be the onset of India's colonial period. By this time, with its economic power severely curtailed by the British Parliament and having effectively been made an arm of British administration, the East India Company began more consciously to enter non-economic arenas, including education, social reform, and culture.

Modern India

The appointment in 1848 of Lord Dalhousie as Governor General of the East India Company set the stage for changes essential to a modern state: the consolidation and demarcation of sovereignty, the surveillance of the population, and the education of citizens. Technological changes—among them, railways, canals, and the telegraph—were introduced not long after their introduction in Europe. Disaffection with the company also grew during this time, culminating in the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Fed by diverse resentments and perceptions, including invasive British-style social reforms, harsh land taxes, and summary treatment of some wealthy landowners and princes, the rebellion rocked many regions of northern and central India and shook the foundations of Company rule. After the rebellion was suppressed in 1858, the East India Company was disbanded, and the British government began to directly administer India. Proclaiming a unitary state and a gradual but limited British-style parliamentary system, the new rulers also protected princes and landed gentry as a feudal safeguard against future unrest. In the decades following, public life gradually emerged across India, eventually leading to the founding of the Indian National Congress in 1885.

Rapid acceleration of technology and the commercialisation of agriculture during the second half of the 19th century was marked by economic setbacks, and many small farmers became dependent on the uncertainties of distant markets. There was an increase in the number of large-scale famines, and, despite the risks of infrastructure development borne by Indian taxpayers, little industrial employment was generated for Indians. However, commercial cropping, especially in the newly canalled Punjab, led to increased food production for internal consumption. The railway network provided critical famine relief, notably reduced the cost of moving goods, and helped nascent Indian-owned industry.

After World War I, in which more than 1.3 million Indians served, a new period began. It was marked by British reforms but also repressive legislation, by more strident Indian calls for self-rule, and by the beginnings of a nonviolent movement of non-co-operation led by Mahatma Gandhi. During the 1930s, the British enacted slow legislative reform; the Indian National Congress won victories in the resulting elections. The next decade was beset with crises: Indian participation in World War II, the Congress's final push for non-co-operation, and an upsurge of Muslim nationalism. All were capped by the advent of independence in 1947, but tempered by the partition of India into two states: India and Pakistan.

Geography

India accounts for the bulk of the Indian subcontinent, lying atop the Indian tectonic plate, and a part of the Indo-Australian Plate. India's defining geologic processes began approximately 70 million years ago, when the Indian Plate, then part of the southern supercontinent Gondwana, began a north-eastward drift caused by seafloor spreading to its south-west, and later, south and south-east. Simultaneously, the vast Tethyan oceanic crust, to its northeast, began to subduct under the Eurasian Plate. The Indian continental crust, however, was obstructed and was sheared horizontally. Its lower crust and mantle slid under, but the upper layer piled up in sheets (or nappes) ahead of the subduction zone. This created the orogeny, or process of mountain building, of the Himalayas. The middle and stiffer layer continued to push into Tibet, causing crustal thickening of the Tibetan Plateau. Immediately south of the emerging Himalayas, plate movement created a vast crescent-shaped trough that rapidly filled with river-borne sediment and now constitutes the Indo-Gangetic Plain. The original Indian plate makes its first appearance above the sediment in the ancient Aravalli range, which extends from the Delhi Ridge in a southwesterly direction. To the west lies the Thar Desert, the eastern spread of which is checked by the Aravallis.

The remaining Indian Plate survives as peninsular India, the oldest and geologically most stable part of India. It extends as far north as the Satpura and Vindhya ranges in central India. These parallel chains run from the Arabian Sea coast in Gujarat in the west to the coal-rich Chota Nagpur Plateau in Jharkhand in the east. To the south, the remaining peninsular landmass, the Deccan Plateau, is flanked on the west and east by coastal ranges known as the Western and Eastern Ghats; the plateau contains the country's oldest rock formations, some over one billion years old. Geographically, the Indian landmass lies to the north of the equator between 6° 44′ and 35° 30′ north latitude and 68° 7′ and 97° 25′ east longitude.

Major Himalayan-origin rivers that substantially flow through India include the Ganges and the Brahmaputra, both of which drain into the Bay of Bengal. Important tributaries of the Ganges include the Yamuna and the Kosi. The Kosi's extremely low gradient, caused by long-term silt deposition, leads to severe floods and course changes. Major peninsular rivers, whose steeper gradients prevent their waters from flooding, include the Godavari, the Mahanadi, the Kaveri, and the Krishna, which also drain into the Bay of Bengal; and the Narmada and the Tapti, which drain into the Arabian Sea.

Climate

The Indian climate is strongly influenced by the Himalayas and the Thar Desert, both of which drive the economically and culturally pivotal summer and winter monsoons. The Himalayas prevent cold Central Asian katabatic winds from blowing in, keeping the bulk of the Indian subcontinent warmer than most locations at similar latitudes. The Thar Desert plays a crucial role in attracting the moisture-laden south-west summer monsoon winds that, between June and October, provide the majority of India's rainfall.

Four major climatic groupings predominate in India: tropical wet, tropical dry, subtropical humid, and montane. Temperatures in India have risen by 0.7 °C (1.3 °F) between 1901 and 2018. Climate change in India is often thought to be the cause. The retreat of Himalayan glaciers has adversely affected the flow rate of the major Himalayan rivers, including the Ganges and the Brahmaputra. According to some current projections, the number and severity of droughts in India will have markedly increased by the end of the present century.

Biodiversity

India is a megadiverse country, a term employed for 17 countries that host high biological diversity and contain many species indigenous, or endemic, to them. India is the habitat for 8.6% of all mammals, 13.7% of bird species, 7.9% of reptile species, 6% of amphibian species, 12.2% of fish species, and 6.0% of all flowering plant species. Fully a third of Indian plant species are endemic. India also overlaps four of the world's 34 biodiversity hotspots, or regions that display significant habitat loss in the presence of high endemism.

India's densest forests, such as the tropical moist forest of the Andaman Islands, the Western Ghats, and Northeast India, occupy about 3% of its land area. Moderately dense forest, whose canopy density is between 40% and 70%, occupies 9.39% of India's land area. It predominates in the temperate coniferous forest of the Himalayas, the moist deciduous sal forest of eastern India, and the dry deciduous teak forest of central and southern India. India has two natural zones of thorn forest, one in the Deccan Plateau, immediately east of the Western Ghats, and the other in the western part of the Indo-Gangetic plain, now turned into rich agricultural land by irrigation, its features no longer visible. Among the Indian subcontinent's notable indigenous trees are the astringent Azadirachta indica, or neem, which is widely used in rural Indian herbal medicine, and the luxuriant Ficus religiosa, or peepul, which is displayed on the ancient seals of Mohenjo-daro, and under which the Buddha is recorded in the Pali canon to have sought enlightenment.

Many Indian species have descended from those of Gondwana, the southern supercontinent from which India separated more than 100 million years ago. India's subsequent collision with Eurasia set off a mass exchange of species. However, volcanism and climatic changes later caused the extinction of many endemic Indian forms. Still later, mammals entered India from Asia through two zoogeographic passes flanking the Himalayas. This lowered endemism among India's mammals, which stands at 12.6%, contrasting with 45.8% among reptiles and 55.8% among amphibians. Among endemics are the vulnerable hooded leaf monkey and the threatened Beddome's toad of the Western Ghats.

According to the IUCN Red List, India contains 1,021 threatened animal species—99 mammal, 82 bird, 105 reptile, 139 amphibian, 332 fish, 10 mollusk, and 254 other invertebrate—727 threatened plant species, and 4 threatened fungi species. Among them are the endangered Bengal tiger and the Ganges river dolphin. Critically endangered species include the gharial, a crocodilian; the great Indian bustard; and the Indian white-rumped vulture, which has become nearly extinct by having ingested the carrion of diclofenac-treated cattle. Before they were extensively used for agriculture and cleared for human settlement, the thorn forests of Punjab were mingled at intervals with open grasslands that were grazed by large herds of blackbuck preyed on by the Asiatic cheetah; the blackbuck, no longer extant in Punjab, is now severely endangered in India, and the cheetah is extinct. The pervasive and ecologically devastating human encroachment of recent decades has critically endangered Indian wildlife. In response, the system of national parks and protected areas, first established in 1935, was expanded substantially. In 1972, India enacted the Wildlife Protection Act and Project Tiger to safeguard crucial wilderness; the Forest Conservation Act was enacted in 1980 and amendments added in 1988. India hosts more than five hundred wildlife sanctuaries and eighteen biosphere reserves, four of which are part of the World Network of Biosphere Reserves; its eighty-nine wetlands are registered under the Ramsar Convention.

Government and politics

India is a parliamentary republic with a multi-party system. There are six recognised national parties in the country, including the Indian National Congress (generally, "the Congress") and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP); there are over 50 regional parties. The Congress is considered the ideological centre in Indian political culture; the BJP is right-wing to far-right.

Following independence on 15 August 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru served as prime minister of the Dominion of India, remaining caretaker until 1951, shortly after India became a republic in 1950. Led by Nehru, the Congress won the 1951, 1957, and 1962 general elections comfortably. After Nehru died in May 1964, Lal Bahadur Shastri became prime minister. Shastri died in January 1966, shortly after signing the Tashkent Peace Declaration. The Congress chose Indira Gandhi as prime minister, leading the party to election victories in 1967 and 1971. In 1975, she declared a state of emergency, suspending civil liberties, which led to Congress being voted out in 1977. Congress returned to power in 1980. Following a military operation at the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Indira Gandhi was assassinated on 31 October 1984. Indira Gandhi's son, Rajiv Gandhi, succeeded her and won the late 1984 elections. During the general election campaign of 1991, Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a Sri Lankan Tamil separatist. Congress emerged from the elections as the largest party, and P. V. Narasimha Rao formed a minority government that completed a full five-year term. Following the 1999 elections, BJP's Atal Bihari Vajpayee led a National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition, becoming the first non-Congress prime minister to complete a five-year term. The NDA was defeated in 2004 by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA). Manmohan Singh served as prime minister with external support, returning with increased, independent numbers in 2009. In 2014, the BJP led by Narendra Modi won an absolute majority, in the Indian parliament, and expanded it in 2019. The party joined an NDA coalition after losing its single-party majority in the 2024 general election. Modi remains the longest-serving non-Congress prime minister.

The Constitution of India was drafted by the Constituent Assembly of India between 1946 and 1949, despite the political disruptions of the Partition. The Government of India Act 1935 was used as a model and framework. Long passages from the Act were included. The constitution describes a federal state with a parliamentary system of democracy. The federal structure was conspicuous for the strength of the central government, which exclusively exercised control of defence, foreign affairs, railways, ports, and currency. The President, the constitutional head of state, has reserve powers for taking over the administration of a state. The central legislature has two houses: the Lok Sabha, whose delegates are directly elected by the people in general elections every five years, and the Rajya Sabha, whose members are nominated by the elected representatives in the states. There are also features not to be found in the Act of 1935. The definition of fundamental rights is based on the Constitution of the United States, and the constitutional directives, or goals of endeavour, are based on the Constitution of Ireland. An Indian institution recommended by the constitution is the panchayat or village committees. Untouchability is illegal (Article 17) and caste distinctions are derecognised (Articles 15(2) and 16(2)). The promulgation of the Indian constitution transformed India into a republic within the Commonwealth.

Administrative divisions

India is a federal union comprising 28 states and 8 union territories. All states, as well as the union territories of Jammu and Kashmir, Puducherry and the National Capital Territory of Delhi, have elected legislatures and governments following the Westminster system. The remaining five union territories are directly ruled by the central government through appointed administrators. In 1956, under the States Reorganisation Act, states were reorganised on a linguistic basis. There are over a quarter of a million local government bodies at city, town, district, block and village levels.

Foreign relations

India remained a member of the Commonwealth of Nations after becoming a republic in 1950. It strongly supported decolonisation in Africa and Asia in the 1950s, and played a leading role in the Non-Aligned Movement. Following a period of cordial relations in the 1950s, India and China went to war in 1962, resulting in a decisive military defeat for India. By 1967, however, India was able to fend off Chinese excursions into Sikkim.

India has had uneasy relations with its western neighbour, Pakistan. The two went to war in 1947, 1965, 1971, and 1999. Three wars were fought over the disputed territory of Kashmir. After the 1965 war, India began to pursue close military and economic ties with the Soviet Union. By the late 1960s, the Soviet Union was India's largest arms supplier.

China's nuclear test of 1964 and threats to intervene in support of Pakistan in the 1965 war caused India to produce nuclear weapons. India conducted its first nuclear weapons test in 1974 and carried out additional underground testing in 1998. India has signed neither the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty nor the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, considering both to be flawed and discriminatory. India maintains a "no first use" nuclear policy and possesses a nuclear triad as a part of its "Minimum Credible Deterrence" doctrine.

Since the end of the Cold War, India has increased its economic, strategic, and military cooperation with the United States and the European Union. In 2008, a civilian nuclear agreement was signed between India and the United States. Although India possessed nuclear weapons at the time and was not a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, it received waivers from the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Suppliers Group, ending earlier restrictions on India's nuclear technology and commerce; India subsequently signed co-operation agreements involving civilian nuclear energy with Russia, France, the United Kingdom, and Canada.

Economy

Economic history

The economic history of colonial India and early postcolonial India began with colonial extraction and ended with state planning. During British rule, the Indian subcontinent underwent deindustrialisation. After India's independence in 1947, it adopted a socialist-oriented economic model that relied on government-owned heavy industries and five-year plans which took their cues from those of the Soviet Union of the 1930s. Although the Green Revolution of the 1960s eventually helped India to attain some self-sufficiency in food, India's economic growth in real terms remained low. A balance of payments crisis in 1991 forced the government's hand and led it to embrace economic deregulation. The reduction in the government's control over the economy opened the domestic market to foreign direct investment and sped up the growth of private enterprise.

Modern economy

Today, India is a large emerging market with strong local buying. Its expanding economic output ranks among the largest in the world both by market exchange rates and purchasing power parity.

Although agricultural production remains the main source of employment for nearly half the population, the overall economy is led predominantly by the service sector.

India relies on financial technology, information systems, and professional services both for its export earnings and urban development. Recent government initiatives have emphasized physical infrastructure and manufacturing programmes designed to increase indigenous industrial capacity.

India's rapid economic expansion is counterbalanced by disparities in wealth, employment, and regional growth. The per capita income remains low relative to other large emerging economies, and shows large imbalances in the distribution of wealth. The official labour market struggles to generate enough stable jobs to account for the expanding, youthful workforce; this leaves a large proportion of the population to rely on informal employment. Significant gaps exist in regional growth within India: less developed states lag considerably behind advanced cities in human capital development and how swiftly their governments can clamp down on those who flout rules and regulations.

Industries

India is a worldwide centre for information technology and business services, which add 7.5% to GDP and over 35% to services sold abroad. This sector is sustained by a large English-speaking skilled labour force, with revenues surpassing $300 billion in Fiscal Year 2026. Although the industry once relied on basic call centres and simple software fixes, it has shifted toward cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and international tech hubs. Bangalore has grown from a cheap offshore site into a top centre for corporate research, making it one of the largest technology hubs outside Silicon Valley.

India's automotive sector comprises 7.1% of its economy. It produces 28 million vehicles every year of which the vast majority are two-wheelers (77%) followed by passenger cars (18%). In 2022, 8 per cent of Indian households owned a car, 55 per cent owned a bicycle, and 54 per cent a motor cycle or scooter. In 2023, India became the third-largest automobile market in the world, with buyers, many of whom are in their 30s, increasingly preferring SUVs.

India's pharmaceutical sector relies on a vast network of production facilities focused on low-cost manufacturing. Thousands of individual factories and domestic firms comprise this sector and together make India the main worldwide source of generic medications and vaccines by volume. However, the sector faces supply line vulnerabilities, especially a reliance on China for over 70% of its raw active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). Although India faces international quality-control audits in its factories, adverse outcomes have dropped from 12 per cent in 2015 to 8 per cent in 2025, and 80% of those were in small firms not the top 20 companies.

India's total installed electricity capacity exceeds 532 GW, with non-fossil and renewable energy sources contributing more than 283.5 GW, or roughly 53%.

The country's usage of coal is a major cause of India's greenhouse gas emissions, but its renewable energy capacity is growing. India emits about 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions. This equates to about 2.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide per person per year, which is half the world average. Increasing access to electricity and clean cooking with liquefied petroleum gas have been priorities for energy in India.

Demographics

India's population was 361 million in 1951. It grew to approximately 1.464 billion in 2025, surpassing China's population in 2021. 1,210,193,422 residents were reported in the 2011 provisional census report. The median age was 28.7 in 2020. Medical advances made in the last 50 years as well as increased agricultural productivity brought about by the "Green Revolution" have caused India's population to grow rapidly, though India's decennial rates of growth are decreasing: its population grew by 17.64% from 2001 to 2011, compared to 21.54% growth in the previous decade (1991–2001). The first post-colonial census, conducted in 1951, counted 361 million people. The life expectancy at birth has increased from 49.7 years in 1970–1975 to 72.0 years in 2023. The under-five mortality rate for the country was 113 per 1,000 live births in 1994, and had declined to 41.1 per 1,000 live births by 2018.

The human sex ratio, according to the 2011 census, is 940 females per 1,000 males. Female infanticide in India, and lately female foeticide, have created lop-sided gender ratios; the number of missing women in the country quadrupled from 15 million to 63 million during the period 1964–2014, faster than the population growth during the same period. According to an Indian government study, an additional 21 million girls are unwanted and do not receive adequate care. Despite a government ban on sex-selective foeticide, the practice persists.

Migration from rural to urban areas has been an important dynamic in India's recent history. The number of people living in urban areas grew by 31.2% between 1991 and 2001. In 2001, over 70% lived in rural areas. The level of urbanisation increased further from 27.81% in the 2001 census to 31.16% in the 2011 census. The overall population growth rate slowed due to a sharp decline in the growth rate in rural areas since 1991. In the 2011 census, there were 53 million-plus urban agglomerations in India, among them Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad, in decreasing order by population.

Languages

Languages of India belong to several language families. The 2011 Census of India, the last conducted by the Indian government, gives the following breakdown:

There are also small numbers of speakers of Tai–Kadai, Andamanese, and minor language families and isolates.

The Constituent Assembly of India chose the official language of India's federal government in September 1949 after three years of debate between two opposing camps. Hindi language protagonists wanted Hindi in the Devanagari script to be the sole "national language" of India whereas delegates from South India preferred English to have a place in the Constitution. The compromise reached declared (i) Hindi to be the "official language" of India's federal government; (ii) English to be an associate official language for 15 years during which Hindi's formal lexicon would be developed; and (iii) the international form of Hindu–Arabic numerals to be the official numerals. The compromise resolution became articles 343–351 of India's constitution, which came into effect on 26 January 1950. In 1965, after bitter opposition from South India to Hindi becoming the sole official language, a compromise was reached to where English would continue to be an "associate official language" indefinitely.

The Eighth Schedule of India's Constitution also recognises 22 languages, including Hindi but not English, which the government must develop. These are sometimes called "scheduled languages". This list includes major regional languages, but also others—such as Sanskrit, which no longer has first language speakers in India, and Urdu, which is not region-specific—because of their value to India's cultural heritage. In 1950, there were 14 scheduled languages: Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. In the following decades constitutional amendments added others: Sindhi (1967), Nepali, Manipuri, and Konkani (1992), Maithili, Dogri, Santali and Bodo (2004).

Religion

India has had a long history of religious pluralism that shapes its modern society. Hinduism is the majority faith followed by nearly 80% of the population; Islam is the largest minority at over 14%. Gavin Flood has defined Hinduism to be "a range and history of practice" which references the texts and sacrifices in the Vedas; whose adherents belong to endogamous social units (jāti/varna); participate in rituals in which offerings are made to a deity and blessings received in return (puja); and profess an outwardly polytheism, but sometimes also an inwardly monotheism in which many gods are considered manifestations of one supreme being. Axel Michaels has echoed the assessment, "I propose that Hindu India is special in that rituals surpass belief ...." Islamic religious life in India, according to Barbara D. Metcalf, has a central Sufi tradition of inner spirituality, "cultivation of ethical norms," and a reverence for holy guides. There is also text-based scholarship, especially the study of prophetic traditions in the hadith.

India also has populations of Christians and Sikhs in the tens of millions, Buddhists and Jains fewer than 10 million, and historical populations of Zoroastrians in the tens of thousands and Jews less than ten thousand. The Saint Thomas Christians in South India trace their history to the arrival ashore in India of St Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century CE; they have their distinctive liturgical traditions. Sikhism is a monotheistic tradition founded by Guru Nanak in the late 15th-century Punjab; it grew into a tight-knit fellowship under later gurus, the last guru ceding authority to the holy book Guru Granth Sahib. Although Buddhism, founded by the Buddha in the mid-5th-century BCE, eventually spread away from India to Southeast Asia and East Asia, its statues and stupas, stone realisations of the Buddha, are well-marked across the subcontinent. Jainism, also founded in the mid-5th-century BCE, protects all forms of life meticulously, including the microscopic. Zoroastrianism is followed by the Parsis who arrived on the western coast of India from Iran late in the first millennium CE, and rose in trade and industry, becoming early leaders of Indian nationalism. The Qissa-i Sanjan records their legendary arrival and welcome in India. Judaism, which had become established in India by the 8th-century CE, was never subject to antisemitism from Hindus, Christians, or Parsis, nor to ethnic tensions from Indian Muslims; it has preserved distinctive Indo-Judaic customs. As of 2019, there were 3,000 Jews in India, down from 28,000 in 1950. India is a secular state and guarantees the fundamental right to freedom of religion ("Liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith, and worship").

A large majority of Indian Muslims, Christians, and Sikhs participate in customs, or adhere to beliefs, that were once unique to Hinduism (e.g. karma). Sikh gurdwaras and Sufi dargahs often attract both visitors and worshippers from other religions. India has monastic traditions such as that of Jain ascetics some of whom practice an extreme form of nonviolence (ahimsa) and Buddhist communities who have preserved ancient styles of meditations. This religious diversity coexists with religious endogamy—people rarely marry outside their faith. There is also religious segregation in housing—religious groups cluster by choice or necessity. Thus, India's religious picture has both rich intermixing and clear divisions.

Education

In 1911, there were three primary schools for every ten villages in British India. Early literacy was low: It was 5% in 1891 (9% for men and 1% for women) and 7% in 1921 (12% for men and 2% for women). Historically, local diversity limited literacy growth in India because caste and religious fragmentation reduced private spending. Literacy rates rose to 18% in 1951 (27% for men and 9% for women) and 41% in 1981 (53% for men and 29% for women). By 2011, literacy reached 74.04% (82.14% for men and 65.46% for women). They ranged from Kerala's 93.91% to Bihar's 63.82%. Meanwhile, rural gains reached twice the level of urban, narrowing the rural-urban gap from 21.2 percentage points in 2001 to 16.1 in 2011.

The central, state, and local governments manage education in India. Every child between the ages of 6 and 14 has a right to education, which is free and compulsory. Traditionally, children had spent eight years in primary school before moving on to high school. In 2020, the National Education Policy changed this division to one based on developmental stages: a foundational stage: five years of pre-school and standards 1–2, for ages 3–8; a preparatory stage: standards 3–5; a middle stage: standards 6–8; and a secondary stage: standards 9–12. Critics argue that the new plan, although progressive, suffers from public underfunding and inadequate school infrastructure.

The first universities in India were founded in Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras in 1857, the last year of East India Company rule. India now has one of the world's largest systems of post-secondary education. Recent college reforms envisage offering more flexible degrees, creating online learning tools, and inviting foreign universities to set up campuses in India. However, large gaps remain between rural and urban areas. School quality, campus building conditions, and computer access vary substantially based on a student's gender and family's wealth. Poor job prospects for graduates and uneven rule enforcement across different states have faced criticism from researchers and the public alike.

Health

Since its 1947 independence, India has significantly reduced historically endemic diseases, though some remain intractable. The country was certified smallpox-free in April 1977 following two years of surveillance after its last Variola major case. It was officially certified polio-free by the World Health Organisation on 27 March 2014, after successfully completing three consecutive years without recorded cases of wild poliovirus. In contrast, cholera remains endemic to Ganges-Meghna Delta estuaries, resulting in seasonal outbreaks caused by monsoons and water supply network shortcomings. Tuberculosis is a major concern; India bears a quarter of the global tuberculosis disease burden. Historical malaria cases have dropped from millions to hundreds of thousands annually, but India experiences localised seasonal increases caused by drug-resistant variants of the Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax vectors.

Patients in India often face a stark choice: use basic, free, publicly funded health care or pay high out-of-pocket fees for better-equipped care from private doctors and hospitals. This divide is particularly severe outside cities, as public clinics in rural areas rarely have enough doctors or nurses to meet local demands. When serious medical emergencies occur, poorer families are often forced to sell land or take out high-interest loans to pay for private care. This resulting medical debt pushes approximately 55 million people into poverty every year.

Long-term exposure to outdoor and indoor air pollution adds a major environmental risk to public health in India. Particulate matter emissions from vehicles and factories are linked to a rise in chronic respiratory diseases, strokes, and cardiovascular disease, together adding an estimated 1.7 million premature deaths annually. India's early COVID-19 lockdown bought time to rapidly increase local testing and protective gear production; however, later waves of the virus overwhelmed the healthcare system, leading to severe shortages of oxygen and intensive care beds. Post-pandemic epidemiological studies estimate that cumulative excess deaths in India reached between 3.2 and 4.7 million.

Culture

Society

Although sometimes applied to other cultures and religions, caste is a uniquely Indian and Hindu social institution. All Hindus fall broadly into four castes, or varnas: Brahmin, or priests, at the top; below them Kshatriya, or warriors; further below, Vaishya, or merchants and farmers; and at the bottom, Shudra, or the service class. Outside the caste system, and therefore of traditional Hinduism, lie people formerly called "outcastes" or "untouchables," and now scheduled caste (a term used in India's constitution) or Dalit, a later self-description of pride, meaning "broken" or "downtrodden". Each caste is further divided into sub-castes, or jatis, many of which are tied to occupations. The custom of endogamy, or marrying within one's subcaste, however, makes caste a hereditary label, not of one occupational choice, and has caused the caste system, therefore, to become entrenched. The Constituent Assembly of India abolished untouchability in 1947, the Republic of India did more formally in 1950, and India has since enacted other anti-discriminatory laws and social welfare initiatives related to caste. Still, caste-based inequality, discrimination, segregation, and violence persist.

Multi-generational patrilineal joint families have been the norm in India, though nuclear families are becoming common in urban areas. A very large majority of Indians have their marriages arranged by their parents or family elders. Marriage is thought to be for life; and the divorce rate is extremely low; less than one in a thousand marriages end in divorce. Many women marry before reaching 18, which is their legal marriageable age; child marriages are not uncommon, especially in rural areas. In large parts of Hindu northern India, moreover, a form of territorial exogamy is observed in which a bride marries out of her natal village and her parents do not visit her in her married home; the annual rite raksha bandhan, during which married women return to their natal homes, has served both to affirm bonds with their natal families and offer a recourse in times of marital stress.

Muslims, India's largest religious minority, have contributed greatly to a shared, blended culture that deeply shaped India's classical music, literature, and celebrated architecture. Modern Indian Muslim society is highly diverse, divided by local languages, distinct cultural backgrounds, and internal social classes. However, Indian Muslims have much lower college enrollment, less access to banking services, and far fewer formal jobs than average. Additionally, due to safety worries and unfair housing practices, many urban Muslims have been forced to move into separated neighbourhoods that often lack basic public services. Muslim families regularly see higher rates of child survival compared to other religious and social groups.

Visual art

India has a very ancient tradition of art, which has exchanged many influences with the rest of Eurasia, especially in the first millennium. During this period Buddhist art spread with Indian religions to Central, East and Southeast Asia, the last also greatly influenced by Hindu art. Thousands of seals from the Indus Valley civilisation of the third millennium BCE have been found, usually carved with animals, but also some with human figures. The Pashupati seal, excavated in Mohenjo-daro, Pakistan, in 1928–29, is the best known. Virtually no art survives from a long period following the Indus Valley Civilisation. Almost all surviving ancient Indian art thereafter is in various forms of religious sculpture in durable materials, or coins. There was probably originally far more in wood, which is lost. In north India Mauryan art is the first imperial movement.

Over the following centuries a distinctly Indian style of sculpting the human figure developed, with less interest in articulating precise anatomy than ancient Greek sculpture but showing smoothly flowing forms expressing prana ("breath" or life-force). This is often complicated by the need to give figures multiple arms or heads, or represent different genders on the left and right of figures, as with the Ardhanarishvara form of Shiva and Parvati.

Most of the earliest large sculpture is Buddhist, either excavated from Buddhist stupas such as Sanchi, Sarnath and Amaravati, or is rock cut reliefs at sites such as Ajanta, Karla and Ellora. Hindu and Jain sites appear rather later. In spite of this complex mixture of religious traditions, generally, the prevailing artistic style at any time and place has been shared by the major religious groups, and sculptors probably usually served all communities. Gupta art, at its peak c. 300 CE – c. 500 CE, is often regarded as a classical period whose influence lingered for many centuries after; it saw a new dominance of Hindu sculpture, as at the Elephanta Caves. Across the north, this became rather stiff and formulaic after c. 800 CE, though rich with finely carved detail in the surrounds of statues. But in the South, under the Pallava and Chola dynasties, sculpture in both stone and bronze had a sustained period of great achievement; the large bronzes with Shiva as Nataraja have become an iconic symbol of India.

Ancient paintings have only survived at a few sites, of which the crowded scenes of court life in the Ajanta Caves are some of the most important. Painted manuscripts of religious texts survive from Eastern India from 10th century onwards, most of the earliest being Buddhist and later Jain. These significantly influenced later artistic styles. The Persian-derived Deccan painting, starting just before the Mughal miniature, between them give the first large body of secular painting, with an emphasis on portraits, and the recording of princely pleasures and wars. The style spread to Hindu courts, especially among the Rajputs, and developed a variety of styles, with the smaller courts often the most innovative, with figures such as Nihâl Chand and Nainsukh. As a market developed among European residents, it was supplied by Company painting by Indian artists with considerable Western influence. In the 19th century, cheap Kalighat paintings of gods and everyday life, done on paper, were urban folk art from Calcutta, which later saw the Bengal School of Art, reflecting the art colleges founded by the British, the first movement in modern Indian painting.

Mathematics

Significant mathematics began in India in the first millennium BCE. The Śulba Sūtras (literally, "Aphorisms of the Chords" in Vedic Sanskrit) (c. 700–400 BCE) contain the earliest extant verbal expression of the Pythagorean theorem (although very likely it had been known to the Old Babylonians.) All mathematical works were orally transmitted until approximately 500 BCE; thereafter, they were transmitted both orally and in manuscript form. The oldest extant mathematical document produced on the Indian subcontinent is the birch bark Bakhshali manuscript from the 7th century CE.

In the classical period of Indian mathematics (400 CE to 1200 CE), important contributions were made by Aryabhata, Brahmagupta, Bhaskara II, Varāhamihira, and Madhava. The decimal number system in use today was first recorded in Indian mathematics. Indian mathematicians made early contributions to the study of the concept of zero as a number, negative numbers, arithmetic, and algebra. Trigonometry was further advanced in India, and the modern definitions of sine and cosine were developed there. These mathematical concepts were transmitted to the Middle East, China, and Europe. A later landmark in Indian mathematics was the development of the series expansions for trigonometric functions (sine, cosine, and arc tangent) by mathematicians of the Kerala school in the 15th century CE. Their work, completed two centuries before the invention of calculus in Europe, provided the first example of a power series. In the modern era Srinivasa Ramanujan made fundamental contributions to number theory.

Music

India contains a wide array of musical practices, including many different folk musics from different regions. Indian classical music has Vedic origins, and split in the 13th century into the two main traditions of Hindustani and Carnatic music. Hindustani is associated with North India and is more improvisational, featuring instruments such as the sitar and tabla, and Carnatic is South Indian and more focused on written compositions such as the kriti, while both styles contain common elements such as the raga melodic framework and tala rhythmic meter. Indian music has influenced western genres, including rock and jazz musicians during the 1960s counterculture.

Indian film music is music written for Indian cinema, generally composed by music directors and sung by playback singers. Modern Indian pop takes influences from classical, folk, and western pop music.

Dance

Dance in India has drawn heavily from Indian classical dance traditions. Many of these in turn arose in temples or other religious contexts. Their sponsorship and promotion, however, have continued in secular, modern India. India also has local and modern dance traditions. Whether a dance is classical is determined by the Sangeet Natak Academi, the Indian government's organisation for performing arts. Although more dances could perhaps meet the criteria for classical, the Akademi has chosen eight.

The best-known classical dance is Bharatanatyam, which began as temple dances performed by Tamil devadasis. Identified with "prostitutes and courtesans", their dancing was formally banned in 1947. Concurrently, the dance was rehabilitated as a "pure" art form, with Rukmini Devi Arundale as a prominent figure. A devdasi who went on to attain national and international prominence was Thanjavur Balasaraswati. Some sources consider the dance-dramas Chhau of Jharkhand, West Bengal, and Odisha and Yakshagana of Karnataka to also belong to the classical tradition.

Local dance traditions vary widely across India. In addition to the dance-dramas Chhau and Yakshagana, they include dance-dramas Raslila of western Uttar Pradesh and Terukkuttu of Tamil Nadu; calendrical and festival dances such as the Bhangra of Punjab, especially at Vaisakhi, the onset of spring, and Garba of Gujarat during Navratri; and tribal or Adivasi dances, such as those of the Santal and Toda people, the latter, for example, in honour of the god Ön who brought buffalo to earth.

Among 20th-century directions is the modern dance of Uday Shankar in which classical styles were employed but not adhered to rigidly. Examples are dance-dramas based on the ancient Indian animal fables, Panchatantra, and Nehru's mid-century meditation on Indian history, The Discovery of India. Dance has been an essential aspect of Indian films from the first talkies of the 1930s. Individual and group dances in Bollywood, for example, show a broad range of influences, including classical, local, and Western popular dance. Towards the end of the 20th century, innovations in British South Asian music and dance, such as Post-Bhangra, fed back into dance in India.

Clothing

From ancient times until the advent of the modern, the most widely worn traditional dress in India was draped. For women it took the form of a sari, a single piece of cloth many yards long. The sari was traditionally wrapped around the lower body and the shoulder. In its modern form, it is combined with an underskirt, or Indian petticoat, and tucked in along the waist band for more secure fastening. It is also commonly worn with an Indian blouse, or choli, which serves as the primary upper-body garment, the sari's end—passing over the shoulder—covering the midriff and obscuring the upper body's contours. For men, a similar but shorter length of cloth, the dhoti, has served as a lower-body garment.

The use of stitched clothes became widespread after Muslim rule was established by the Delhi Sultanate (c. 1300 CE) and continued by the Mughal Empire (c. 1525 CE). Among the garments introduced during this time and still commonly worn are: the shalwars and pyjamas, both styles of trousers, and the tunics kurta and kameez. Shalwars are atypically wide at the waist but narrow to a cuffed bottom. They are held up by a drawstring, which causes them to pleat at the waist. When the pants are cut quite narrow, on the bias, they are called churidars. The kameez is a long shirt or tunic. Its side seams left open below the waistline. The kurta is traditionally collarless and made of cotton or silk; it is worn plain or with embroidered decoration, such as chikankari; and typically falls to either just above or just below the wearer's knees.

In the last 50 years, fashion in India has changed a great deal. Increasingly, in urban northern India, the sari is no longer everyday wear, though it remains popular on formal occasions. Younger urban women rarely wear the traditional shalwar kameez, favouring churidars or jeans. In office settings, ubiquitous air conditioning allows men to wear sports jackets year-round. For weddings and formal occasions, men in the middle and upper classes often wear bandhgala, or short Nehru jackets, with pants, with the groom and his groomsmen sporting sherwanis and churidars.

Cuisine

The foundation of a typical Indian meal is a cereal cooked plainly and complemented with savoury dishes. The cooked cereal could be steamed rice; chapati, a thin unleavened bread; idli, a steamed breakfast cake; or dosa, a griddled pancake. The savoury dishes might include lentils, pulses, vegetables, meat, poultry and fish commonly spiced with ginger and garlic, but also coriander, cumin, turmeric, cinnamon, cardamom and others. In some instances, the ingredients may be mixed during the cooking process. India has distinctive vegetarian cuisines, each a feature of the geographical and cultural histories of its adherents. About 20% to 39% of India's population consists of vegetarians. Although meat is eaten widely, the proportional consumption of meat is low.

The most significant import of cooking techniques into India during the last millennium occurred during the Mughal Empire, spreading into northern India from regions to its northwest, along with dishes such as pilaf. Onions, garlic, almonds, and spices were added to the simple yogurt marinade of Persia. Rice was partially cooked and layered alternately with sauteed meat, the pot sealed tightly, and slow cooked according to another Persian cooking technique, to produce biryani, a feature of festive dining in many parts of India.

The diversity of Indian food served worldwide has been partially concealed by the dominance of Punjabi cuisine. The popularity of tandoori chicken—cooked in a tandoor oven, which had traditionally been used for baking bread in the rural Punjab and the Delhi region, especially among Muslims, but which is originally from Central Asia—dates to the 1950s, and was caused in large part by an entrepreneurial response among people from the Punjab who had been displaced by the 1947 partition.

Sports

Sport in modern India is a nexus of both little-known, indigenous traditions and commercial sporting events that now have a worldwide reach. Traditional sports such as kabaddi and kho-kho have experienced a resurgence, attracting large television audiences; on the other hand, kushti wrestling in rural akharas—often regarded by its adherents as not so much a sport as a physical and moral regimen—has continued to survive away from the glare. Cricket is India's most watched sport, and a multi-billion dollar industry. The widespread popularity of chess among youth in southern India culminated in 18-year-old Gukesh Dommaraju of Chennai winning the undisputed World Chess Champion title in 2024.

British intervention reshaped India's athletic landscape. It introduced cricket, football and field hockey and institutionalised polo—a sport whose history is a case of reverse migration from ancient northeastern India to the West. Today, at the rural grassroots level, government initiatives like "Khelo India" have democratised athletics for traditionally overlooked youth. Rural soccer programs have employed teamwork to break down old caste barriers.

State initiatives such as the Target Olympic Podium Scheme have expanded resources for female athletes; meanwhile, the prominent international victories of figures like boxer Mary Kom and badminton player P. V. Sindhu have challenged traditional gender stereotypes in sports.

India has won eight men's cricket ICC tournament titles: two Cricket World Cups, three T20 World Cups, and three Champions Trophy titles. India has won a record eight men's field hockey gold medals in the summer Olympics, the last in 1980.