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Thread with excerpts from John Keay’s “India A History: From the Earliest Civilizations to the Boom of the Twenty-First Century” 
Mountains, rivers, passes, and fords are always important to note
Geography shaped little of India’s internal history. Climate has played the main role, fostering different modes of production - from desert herdsmen to floodplain farmers.
India’s flood myth, its date, its possible origin from Mesopotamian mythology or an old memory of the end of the Harrappan civilization on thr Indus.
Much like the recent research into the Early European Farmers and the Classical Mayans, it seems the Harappans had a large and organized state with a blood defined aristocracy.
The Harappan endonym may have survived in Sanskrit as a slur for a foreigner, as the word is similar to the name the Sumerians called the Harappans.
Discussion of the arrival of the Aryans. Book was published in 2000, before DNA studies. The Aryans were much bloodier than he guesses, although he is right that there were a lot of natives who assimilated.
The caste system with its division of society into priests, nobles, farmers, and the untouchable descendants of the pre-Aryan natives. As civilization evolved, states organized as noble republics or monarchies replaced the old clans.
The Dravidians in southern India adopted the Hindu epics and their priests, but didn’t adopt the caste system. @Glossophiliac75
By the 5th century BC, religious reform movements spread as the result of dissatisfaction with traditional religious practices. Parallels to the environment that led to Zoroastrianism.
Out of religious ferment and social strife in the time of Alexander, a low caste man declares war on all the high castes, and carves out a large empire in northern India. He founds a new dynasty - the Nandas.
The Nandas’ class war made them deeply unpopular. The founder of the powerful Maurya dynasty gained support from their enemies in the Punjab (recently abandoned by Alexander) and defeated the Nandas. His name is Chandragupta, and he met Alexander before he gained power.
Size of the Maurya domains
The Gupta
Ecumenism in Gupta society. Author argues that Hinduism not a real faith until 18th century, although the parts of the religion long predate that.
The Huns devastated NW India so badly in the 6th century that 150 years later Chinese tourists only found anarchy and depopulated ruins. Elsewhere, Indian kings had more success, with their own incarnation of Aetius.
Indian maritime influence in SE Asia included founding kingdoms in Cambodia and Indonesia, and spreading Hindu and Buddhist culture
The first successful Islamic invasion of India was a seaborne invasion of Sindh. Religious dissidents aided the Islamic advance. A bloody war ensued, with the Moslems killing the local king and conquering the region by 713.
The pretty daughters of the dead ruler of Sindh were sent back to the Caliph. When he sought their company, one of the daughters lied and told him that the conquerer of Sindh had already bedded her. The Caliph had his loyal general killed out of jealousy.
NW India after the Huns generated warlike nomadic clans that fiercely resisted Islamic expansion. These clans had a number of names, later becoming the Rajputs that the British admired for their fighting ability.
Mahmud of Ghazni’s father had gained a base east of the Hindu Kush. From this base, Mahmud launched 17 invasions of India from 1001 to 1030, devastating and plundering much of Northern India. His destruction of Hindu temples makes him a hated figure among Hindus.
Prithviraj III led a mighty Hindu kingdom which pressed on the declining Moslem states in Pakistan in the late 12th century. His enemy Muhammed of Ghor suffered several setbacks, and the Hindus failed to press on and destroy the Moslems
Mohammed of Ghor returned a year later with a new army of Afghans, Persians, Arabs, and Turks for jihad. The Hindu princes all rallied to form an army under Prithviraj. At the 2nd Battle of Tarain, the Moslems won and captured Prithviraj, leaving the rest of India exposed.
Muhammed of Ghor was too distracted by affairs in Punjab and Central Asia to conquer India. His Turkish soldiers raided into India & carved out their own kingdoms. Their early rule wasn’t as bad as it would later become.
The new Turkish rulers of northern India endlessly feuded with themselves, and were greatly aided by large numbers of Moslem refugees to India fleeing the Mongols. Delhi aspired to the paramount Moslem state in India.
One Sultan of Delhi was toppled by his sister. She ruled 4 years, dressed provocatively, and had a black boyfriend. Turks didn’t like this, toppled her, & killed her boyfriend. She married one of his killers and they were killed by Hindus while trying to retake the throne.
The Islamic sultanates were ruled by a narrow elite of Moslem Persian, Afghan, and Turk origin. They staffed their administrations, armies, and clergy with immigrants of the same origins. Banking, trade, and industry all remained in Hindu hands.
Indian nation-states began to form in the 15th century.
14th and 15th century Moslem-Hindu condominiums developed in areas with few foreign settlers as the Moslem rulers (occasionally native converts) needed local support.
The Afghan warlords who ruled northern India fought each other, and left Punjab and the entrance to India undefended in the 15th and early 16th centuries
Turks (presumably related to modern Uzbeks) rallied to Babur, descendant of Genghis Khan and Timur. His artillery, gunmen, and cavalry made a formidable force
At Panipat, Babur and his Turks defeat the Afghan rulers of Delhi and conquer much of the north. Many of his soldiers wish to return to Central Asia after they plunder.
The Hindu rajputs had seized territory from the Delhi Sultanate as Babur overran it. Babur suffered setbacks, and declared a jihad. He won the battle of Khanua against the rajputs, securing the rest of northern India for the Mughal Empire.
A brief Afghan restoration in northern India after Babur’s death, with a greatly improved administration that the Mughals would adopt.
Young Akbar’s troops fought the 2nd Battle of Panipat and reclaimed Delhi from a Hindu led Afghan army.
Intermarriage, political representation, and status acknowledgement sealed the loyalty of Hindu noblemen to the Mughals. Turks, Persians, and Afghans were still vastly over represented in the elite.
Religious pluralism and syncretism (from which Sikhs also originated) in Akbar’s reign, along with his heterodox views, led to dissent in the Islamic community.
Mughals paid their administrators and noblemen with revenue grants. The soldiers were very harsh in collecting the revenue that financed them directly. The revenue grants were temporary, and this gave their recipients little reason to develop their areas.
Mughal successions were fratricidal affairs.
Shivaji and his Marathas forged a vast but ill defined Hindu kingdom in the late 17th century. Even after Shivaji’s death, the Marathas proved formidable opponents to the Mughals.
By the end of the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb’s reign, harsh Islamic rule had inspired widespread resistance. The Marathas spread their rule and influence across much of India.
Unlike many previous Islamic rulers in India, Aurangzeb was a pious Moslem. He banned alcohol & drugs, replaced entertainers with holy men, destroyed Hindu temples, only hired Moslem bureaucrats, and collected jizya from non-Moslems.
Mughal persecution of Sikhs led to Sikh militancy in Punjab.
Much as in Roman times, specie flowed from the West to India. The British didn’t mind, as they made fortunes and Europeans took over the shipping industry.
The origins of Mysore as a remnant of an older Hindu kingdom never subjugated by the Mughals. The skilled Moslem warrior Haidar Ali and his son Tipu Sultan seized the kingdom, and fought 4 wars with the British.
Mysore modernized on European lines, with overseas trading posts, agricultural diversification, industrialization, a professional army, and foreign technical experts.
The Duke of Wellington’s conquests
The Sikh Empire’s success as a cohesive Punjabi state strong enough to expand its borders lasted until a succession war that the Brits used as an excuse to spread their influence. One result of the 1st Sikh War was Hindu rule in Kashmir, with lasting significance...
British tried standardizing their administration prior to the Mutiny. By cutting noblemen out of tax collection process, they could keep more money directly from taxpayers. The nobles who had long been loyal were angered along with the soldiers who lost their status...
Members of India’s diaspora that returned home were deeply influential in the independence movement.
Bose became Congress president in 1938, strongly opposing the constitution and supporting mass civil disobedience to force immediate independence. Gandhi & Nehru toppled him, so Bose turned to terrorism, then successfully sought foreign aid...
Congress’ lack of cooperation with UK in WWII gave Jinnah and the Moslem League an opportunity to gain legitimacy for their vague proposal of an autonomous or independent Islamic state(s).
Filled with veterans and religiously heterogeneous, Punjab turned into a bloodbath in thr partition of the Raj into India & Pakistan. Syncretists in particular suffered, as they fell into neither Hindu nor Moslem camp.
