Than 50 million years ago a geological collision occurred that
determined India’s physical environment. The geographical features
and unique ecology that developed from that ancient event profoundly
affected India’s later human history. The subcontinent’s earliest
human societies, the Harappan civilization and the Indo-Aryans, continue
to fascinate contemporary scholars, even as modern Hindu
nationalists, Dalit (Untouchable) organizations, and Indian secularists
debate their significance for contemporary Indian life.
India is a “subcontinent”—a triangular landmass lying below the main
Asian continent—bordered on three sides by water: in the east by the
Bay of Bengal, in the west by the Arabian Sea, and to the south by the
Indian Ocean. Across the north of this triangle stand extraordinarily
high mountains: to the north and east, the Himalayas, containing the
world’s highest peak, Mount Everest; to the northwest, two smaller
ranges, the Karakoram and the Hindu Kush.
Geologists tell us that these mountain ranges are relatively young in
geological terms. They were formed only 50 million years ago, when
the tectonic plates that underlie the Earth’s crusts slowly but inexorably
moved an island landmass away from its location off the Australian
coast and toward the Eurasian continent. When this island smashed
into Asia (a movement that in itself took some 10 million years), the
island’s tectonic plate slid underneath the Eurasian plate, forcing the
Eurasian landmass upward and creating the mountains and high
plateaus that lie across India’s north (the Hindu Kush, the Karakoram
Range, the Himalayas, and further west, the Tibetan plateau). The steep
drop from these newly created mountains to the (once island) plains
caused rivers to flow swiftly down to the seas, cutting deep channels
through the plains and depositing the rich silt and debris that created
the alluvial soil of the Indo-Gangetic Plain, the coastal plains of the
Gujarat region, and the river deltas along the eastern coastline. These
same swift-flowing rivers were unstable, however, changing course dramatically
over the millennia, disappearing in one region and appearing
in another. And the places where the two tectonic plates collided were
particularly prone to earthquakes. (The main landmass of the subcontinent
continues to move northward at about 10 kilometers every 1 million
years, causing the mountain ranges of the north to rise by
approximately one centimeter a year.) All this took place long before
humans lived in India.
The subcontinent’s natural borders—mountains and oceans—protected
it. Before modern times, land access to the region for traders,
immigrants, or invaders was possible only through passes in the northwest
ranges: the Bolan Pass leading through Afghanistan to northeastern
Iran or the more northern Khyber Pass or Swat valley, leading also
toward Iran in the west or Central Asia to the north. These were the
great trading highways of the past, connecting India to both Central
Asia and the Near East. In the third millennium B.C. these routes linked
the subcontinent’s earliest civilization with Mesopotamia; later they
were traveled by Alexander the Great (fourth century B.C.), still later by
Buddhist monks, travelers and traders moving north to the famous Silk
Road to China, and in India’s medieval centuries by a range of Muslim
kings and armies. Throughout Indian history a wide range of traders,
migrants, and invaders moved through the harsh mountains and
plateau regions of the north down into the northern plains.
The seas to India’s east, west, and south also protected the subcontinent
from casual migration or invasion. Here also there were early and
extensive trading contacts: The earliest evidence of trade was between
the Indus River delta on the west coast and the Mesopotamian trading
world (c. 2600–1900 B.C.). Later, during the Roman Empire, an extensive
trade linked the Roman Mediterranean world and both coasts of
India—and even extended further east, to Java, Sumatra, and Bali. Arab
traders took over many of these lucrative trading routes in the seventh
through ninth centuries, and beginning in the 15th century European
traders established themselves along the Indian coast. But while the
northwest land routes into India were frequently taken by armies of
invasion or conquest, ocean trade only rarely led to invasion—most
notably with the Europeans in the late 18th century. But while the
British came by sea to conquer and rule India for almost 200 years, they
never attempted a large-scale settlement of English people on the subcontinent.
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