Looking Back through Years-1

India, or Hindustan, was named by the Greeks after the Indus valley. Its dominant civilization was Hindu and Buddhist but, from the 11th cent., it was subject to conquest from the Islamic north. The most famous of its conquerors were the Mughals, who established their empire in 1526. In the age of exploration, the first Europeans to arrive were the Portuguese who developed a sea-borne empire centred on Goa. In the early 17th cent., the Dutch displaced the Portuguese, but India was peripheral to their principal interests in Java. The English East India Company established its presence from the 1610s and the French arrived in the 1660s. From the 1720s, the power of the Mughal empire started to decline. In Europe, France and England found themselves at war in this period and their respective companies carried on the conflict by constructing alliances with the successor states. At first, the French under Dupleix had the upper hand. But, from the late 1740s, the English company's fortunes began to turn as Robert Clive won a series of military victories. The major threat posed by the French was eliminated after the battle of Wandewash in 1760. For the next 30 years, there was some hesitancy in British circles at building on these foundations. But, during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, the opportunity was seized and by 1818, with the defeat of the Maratha empire, the East India Company had gained supremacy. After the Indian mutiny of 1857, however, the company was abolished and sovereignty passed to the British crown. In the 19th cent., India was undoubtedly Britain's most important colony. After the First World War, both its military and economic status began to decline and a mass nationalist movement emerged under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi. As early as 1920, the British began to clear the way for ‘responsible self-government’and, by 1935, had drawn up plans for India's eventual conversion into a dominion. However, the Second World War cut short this programme of devolution and promoted an extremely hasty retreat. British India was partitioned into the separate states of Pakistan and India, which became independent on 15 August 1947.