Timeline of India

Courtesy: Himalayan Academy, Hawaii
Evidence for this modern timeline include:
* Carbon dating confirming that horses were use in Gujarat at 2,400 bce
* NASA Satellite pictures showing evidence of Sarasvathi river and its basin
* Fire alters excavated in Kali Bangan, Rajasthan
* Excavations in Kunal, Haryana showing writing and silver craft of pre-Harappan date 6,000-7,000 bce

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-2 Million Years
Stone artifacts are made and used by hominids in North India, an area rich in animal species, including the elephant.

-500,000 Stone hand axes and other tools are used in North India.

-400,000 Soan culture in India is using primitive chopping tools.

-300,000 Homo sapiens roams the Earth, from Africa to Asia.

-100,000 Homo sapiens sapiens with 20th-century man's brain size (1,450 cc) are in East Africa. Populations separate.

-75,000 Last Ice Age begins. Human population estimated at 1.7 million.

-60,000 According to genetic scientist Spencer Wells' research, televised by National Geographic, early man's first wave of migration from Africa occurred at this time to India, evidenced by the genetic makeup of Tamil Nadu's modern-day Kallar community, who are related to the Australian aborigines.

-50,000 Genetic research by Richard Villems of the Estonian Biocentre concludes that the maternal lineages of modern-day India's populations are largely unique to India, and on the order of 50,000 years old. As a result, Villems said, "I think that the Aryan Invasion theory in its classic form is dead."

-45,000 Seafaring migrations from S.E. Asia settle Indonesian Islands and Australia.

-40,000 Hunter-gatherers in Central India are living in painted rock shelters. Similar groups in Punjab camp at sites protected by windbreaks. Cave paintings found in 2002 in Banda depict a hunter riding a horse in a group hunting scene.

-30,000 American Indians spread throughout the Americas.

-10,000 Last Ice Age ends after 65,000 years; earliest signs of agriculture. World population is 4 million; India, 100,000.

-10,000 Taittiriya Brahmana 3.1.2 refers to Purvabhadrapada nakshatra's rising due east, a phenomenon occurring at this date (Dr. B.G. Siddharth of the Birla Science Institute), indicating earliest known dating of the sacred Veda.

-7500 Excavations at Neveli Cori in Turkey reveal advanced civilization with developed architecture.

-7000 Time of Manu Vaivasvata, "Father of Mankind," of Sarasvati-Drishadvati area (also said to be a South Indian monarch who sailed to the Himalayas during a great flood).

-7000 Early evidence of modern horses in the Ganges basin (Frawley).

-6500 Rig Veda verses (e.g., 1.117.22, 1.116.12, 1.84.13.5) say winter solstice begins in Aries (according to D. Frawley)

-5000 Beginnings of Indus-Sarasvati civilizations of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro.
Date derived by considering excavated archeological sites 45 feet deep. Brick fire altars exist in many houses, suggesting Vedic fire rites. Earliest signs of Siva. This mature culture lasts 3,000 years, ending around -1700.

-5000 Rice is harvested in China, with grains found in baked bricks. But its cultivation originated in Eastern India.

-4300 Traditional date for Lord Rama's time (Kulkarni's date is -5500; see also-2040, and latest dating at -500).

-4004 Archbishop Usher's (17th century) supposed date of the creation of the world, based on genealogies in the Old Testament.

-4000 Excavations from this period at Sumerian sites of Kish and Elamite Susa reveal presence of Indian imports.

-3928 July 25th: the earliest eclipse mentioned in the Rig Veda

-3761 The year of world creation in the Jewish religious calendar.

-3102 Beginning of Kali Yuga (Kali Era) in Hindu time reckoning.

-3100 Indian culture in Afghanistan and parts of Central Asia.

-3000 Evidence of horses in South India.

-2700 Tolkappiyam Tamil grammar is composed

-2700 Seals of Indus-Sarasvati Valley indicate Siva worship, represented by Pashupati, Lord of Animals.

-2600 First Egyptian Pyramid under construction

-2500 Main period of Indus-Sarasvati cities. Atharva Veda indicates culture relies heavily on rice and cotton, which were first cultivated in India. Ninety percent of sites are along the Sarasvati, the region's agricultural bread basket. Mohenjo-daro is a large peripheral trading center.

-2500 Reference to vernal equinox in Krittika (Pleiades or early Taurus) from Yajur and Atharva Veda hymns. This corresponds to Harappan seals that show seven women (the Krittikas) tending a fire.

-2051 Divodasa reigns to - 1961, has contact with Babylon's King Indatu

-2040 Prince Rama born at Ayodhya

-1915 Madurai Tamil Sangam is held at Thiruparankundram

-1900 Drying up of Sarasvati River, end of Indus-Sarasvati culture, end of the Vedic age. After this, the center of civilization in ancient India relocates from the Sarasvati to the Ganga, along with possible migration of Vedic peoples out of India to the Near East (perhaps giving rise to the Mitanni and Kassites, who worship Vedic Gods). The redirection of the Sutlej into the Indus causes the Indus area to flood.

-1728-1686 Hammurabi, famous lawgiver, is king of Babylon.

-1500 Proposed date of submergence of the stone port city of Dwarka near Gujarat. Residents use iron and employ a script halfway between Harappan and Brahmi, India's ancient pre-Sanskritic alphabet.

-1500 Cinnamon is exported from Kerala to Middle East.

-1450 Early Upanishads are composed during the next few hundred years, also Vedangas and Sutra literature.

-1424 Mahabharata War occurs

-1350 At Boghaz Koy, Turkey, stone inscription of the treaty with Mitanni lists as divine witnesses the Vedic Deities Mitra, Varuna, Indra and the Nasatyas

-1300 Very early date (by S.B. Roy) for lifetime of Panini, whose Ashtadhyayi systematizes Sanskrit grammar in 4,000 rules.

-1250 Moses leads 600,000 Jews out of Egypt.

-1150 Nebuchadnezzar I of Isin, king of Babylon, throws off Elamite domination.

-950 Jewish traders arrive in India in King Solomon's merchant fleet.

-900 Iron Age in India. Early sporadic use dates from at least -1500.

-850 The Chinese are using the 28-nakshatra zodiac called Shiu, adapted from the Hindu jyotisha system.

-776 First Olympic Games are held and documented in Greece.

-623 - 543 Life of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, born in Uttar Pradesh in a princely Shakya family. (Date by Sri Lankan Buddhists. Indian and other scholars favor -563 to - 483; Mahayanists of China and Japan prefer -566 to - 486 or later.)

-600 Life of Zoroaster, founder of Zoroastrianism

ca -600 Life of Susruta of Varanasi, the father of surgery. His ayurvedic treatises cover pulse diagnosis, hernia, cataract, cosmetic surgery, medical ethics, 121 surgical implements, antiseptics, toxicology, psychiatry, classification of burns, midwifery, surgical anesthesia, therapeutics of garlic and use of drugs to control bleeding.

-600 Lifetime of Lao-tzu, founder of Taoism in China

-599 - 527 Lifetime of Mahavira Vardhamana, 24th Tirthankara, renaissance Jain master who stresses vegetarianism, asceticism and nonviolence. (Some place him 40 years later.)

-560 In Greece, Pythagoras teaches math, music, vegetarianism

-551 - 478 Lifetime of Confucius, founder of Confucianism

-518 Darius I of Persia (Iran) invades Indus Valley.

-500 Lifetime of Kapila, founder of Sankhya Darshana, one of six classical systems of Hindu philosophy.

-500 Tamil Sangam age (-500 to 500) begins (see -3000). Sage Agastya writes Agattiyam, first known Tamil grammar (Kulkarni places him at -8576). Tolkappiyar (Kulkarni says -2700) writes Tolkappiyam Purananuru, on grammar, stating he is recording rules on poetry, rhetoric, etc., of earlier grammarians, indicating prior high development of Tamil. Gives rules for absorbing Sanskrit words. Other Sangam Age works are the poetical Paripadal, Pattuppattu, Ettuthokai Purananuru, Akananuru, Aingurunuru, Padinenkilkanakku. Some refer to worship of Vishnu, Indra, Murugan and Supreme Siva.

-478 Prince Vijaya, exiled by his father, King Sinhabahu, sails from Gujarat with 700 followers. Founds Sinhalese kingdom in Sri Lanka. (From the Mahavamsa chronicle, ca 500.)

-469 - 399 Lifetime of Athenian philosopher Socrates.

-428 - 348 Lifetime of Plato, Athenian disciple of Socrates.

-326 Alexander the Great of Macedon invades but fails to conquer Northwestern India. Soldiers' mutiny forces him to retreat and he leaves India the same year. Greeks who remain intermarry with Indians. Mutual interaction influences both civilizations. Greek sculpture impacts Hindu styles. Bactrian kingdoms later promote Greek influence.

-305 Chandragupta Maurya, founder of first pan-Indian empire (-324 to -184), expels Greek garrisons of Seleucus, founder of Seleucid Empire in Iran and Syria. At its height under Emperor Asoka (reign -273 to -232), the Mauryan Empire includes all India except the far South.

-302 Kautilya (Chanakya), minister to Chandragupta Maurya, writes Arthashastra, a compendium of laws, procedures and advice for running a kingdom.

-302 In Indica, Megasthenes, envoy of King Seleucus, reveals to Europe in colorful detail the wonders of Mauryan India: an opulent society with intensive agriculture, engineered irrigation and 7 castes: philosophers, farmers, soldiers, herdsmen, artisans, magistrates and counselors.

-297 Emperor Chandragupta abdicates; becomes Jain monk.

-273 Asoka, the greatest Mauryan Emperor, grandson of Chandragupta, seizes power and rules until 232. He converts to Buddhism after his brutal conquest of Kalinga in -260, and several other countries. He excels at public works, sends diplomatic missions to Syria, Egypt, Cyrene (now Libya), Epirus and Greece; and Buddhist dharma missions to Sri Lanka, China and throughout Southeast Asia. In his 40-year reign, Buddhism becomes a world power. He records his work and teaching in inscriptions, the Rock and Pillar Edicts. India's national emblem features the lion capital from his pillar at Sarnath.

-221 Great Wall of China is built, ultimately 2,600 miles long

-200 Lifetime of Rishi Tirumular, disciple of Maharishi Nandinatha and author of the 3,047-verse Tirumantiram

-200 Lifetime of Patanjali, shishya of Nandinatha and brother monk of Tirumular. He writes the Yoga Sutras at Chidambaram, in South India

-200 Bhogar Rishi (one of 18 Tamil siddhars) shapes from nine poisons the murti enshrined in today's Palani Hills temple in South India. He is from China or visits there.

-200 Lifetime of Saint Tiruvalluvar, poet-weaver who lived near present-day Chennai, author of Tirukural.

-150 Ajanta Buddhist Caves are begun near present-day Hyderabad. Construction of 29 monasteries and galleries continues to 650 CE. Famous murals are painted 600 - 650 CE.

-145 Chola Empire (-145 to - 1300 CE) of Tamil Nadu is founded, noted for government organization and artistic accomplishment, including enormous irrigation works and ballot based voting election system for electing local administrator.

-117-116 Greek navigators Eudoxus of Cyzicus and Hippalus of Alexandria discover use of monsoon winds in the direct sea traffic (rather than coast wise) to and from India. This results in the great increase of Western commerce, especially under the early Roman Empire.

-4 Jesus of Nazareth (-4 to -30 CE), founder of Christianity, is born, traditionally in Bethlehem of Judea (dates according to current Biblical scholarship).

Western calendar begins. C.E. - Common Era

60 Emperor Ming-Ti (reign: 58 - 76) converts to Buddhism and introduces the faith in China. Brings two monks from India who erect temple at modern Honan.

75 A Gujarat prince named Ajisaka invades Java.

80 Jains divide, on points of rules for monks, into the Shvetambara, "White-clad," and the Digambara, "Sky-clad."

100 Hsuen Tsang of China establishes trade routes to India and as far west as Rome, later known as the Silk Roads. (See alternate date: 630-644).

105 Paper is invented in China.

175 Greek astronomer Ptolemy, known as Asura Maya in India, spreads the knowledge of solar astronomy, Surya Siddhanta, to Indian students.

200 Hindu kingdoms are established in Cambodia and Malaysia.

250 Pallava dynasty (ca 250 - 885) is established in Tamil Nadu.

350 Imperial Gupta dynasty (320 - 540) flourishes. During this "Classical Age" norms of literature, art, architecture and philosophy are established. This North Indian empire promotes both Vaishnavism and Saivism and, at its height, rules or receives tribute from nearly all India. Buddhism also thrives under tolerant Gupta rule.

391 Roman Emperor Theodosius destroys Greek Hellenistic temples in favor of Christianity.

450 Hephthalite invasions (ca 450 - 565) take a great toll in North India. These "White Huns" (or Hunas) from the borders of China may or may not be related to Europe's Hun invaders.
During the 5th century, the Gupta dynasty in India reigned in the Ganges basin with the Kushan empire occupied the area along the Indus. India knew the Hephthalite as Huna by the Sanskrit name. The Hephthaltes or Hunas waited till 470 rigth after the death of Gupta ruler, Skandagupta (455-470), and entered the Inda from the Kabul valley after the conquest of Kushan. They mopped on along the Ganges and ruined every city and town. The noble capital, Pataliputra, was reduced in population to a village. They persecuted Buddhists and burned all the monasteries. Their conquest was accomplished with extreme ferocity and the Gupta regime (414-470) was completely extinguished.

499 Aryabhata I (476 - ca 550), Indian astronomer and mathematician, using Hindu ("Arabic") numerals accurately calculates pi () to 3.1416, and the solar year to 365.3586805 days. A thousand years before Copernicus, Aryabhata propounds a heliocentric system with elliptically orbiting planets and a spherical Earth spinning on its axis, explaining the apparent rotation of the heavens. His Aryabhatiya contains history's first exposition on plane and spherical trigonometry, algebra and arithmetic.

500 World population is 190 million. India's is 50 million: 26.3 percent of world.

533 Yasovarman of Malva and Isanavarman of Kanauj defeat and expel the Hephthalites from North India.

565 The Turks and Persians defeat the Hephthalites.

570 - 632 Lifetime of Mohammed of the Quraysh Bedouin tribe, founder of Islam. Begins to preach in Mecca, calling for an end to the "demons and idols" of Arab religion and conversion to the ways of the one God, Allah.

598 - 665 Lifetime of Brahmagupta, pre-eminent Indian astronomer, who writes on gravity and sets forth the Hindu astronomical system in his Brahma Sphuta Siddhanta. Two of 25 chapters are on sophisticated mathematics.

600 Religiously tolerant Pallava king Narasinhavarman builds China Pagoda, a Buddhist temple, at the Nagapatam port for Chinese merchants and visiting monks.

606 Buddhist Harshavardhana, reigning 606 - 644, establishes first great kingdom after the Hephthalite invasions, eventually ruling all India to the Narmada River in the South.

630 - 44 Chinese pilgrim Hsuen Tsang (Xuan-zang) travels in India, recording his copious observations. Population of Varanasi is 10,000, mostly Saiva. Nalanda Buddhist university (his biographer writes) has 10,000 residents, including 1,510 teachers, and thousands of manuscripts. (Alternate date: 100.)

641 - 45 Arab Muslims conquer Mesopotamia, Egypt and Persia.

650 More than 60 Chinese monks have traveled to India. Four hundred Sanskrit works have been translated into Chinese; 380 survive to the present day.

700 Over the next hundred years the 2,095-square-mile Indonesian island of Bali receives Hinduism from its neighbor, Java.

750 A Hindu astronomer and mathematician in Baghdad translates into Arabic Brahmagupta's Brahma Sphuta Siddhanta (treatise on astronomy), transmitting decimal notation and use of zero to the Arab world.

788 Adi Sankara (788 - 820) is born in Malabar. The famous Smarta monk-philosopher writes mystic poems and scriptural commentaries, including Viveka Chudamani, and regularizes ten monastic orders called Dashanami. Preaches Mayavada Advaita, emphasizing the world as illusion and God as the sole Reality.

985 Rajaraja I (reign 985 - 1014) ascends the South Indian Chola throne and ushers in a new age of temple architecture exemplified at Tanjavur, Darasuram, Tirubhuvanam and Chidambaram.

1000 World population is 265 million. India's is 79 million, 29.8 percent of world.

1000 Vikings reach North America, landing in Nova Scotia.

1000 Polynesians arrive in New Zealand, in the last stage in the greatest migration and navigational feat in history, making them the most widely spread race on the planet.

1017 - 1137 Life of Ramanuja of Kanchipuram, Tamil philosopher-saint of Shri Vaishnava sect

1025 Chola ruler Maharaja Rajendra I sends victorious naval expeditions to Burma, Malaysia and Indonesia, initiating decline of Mahayana Buddhist empire of Srivijaya.

1130 - 1200 Lifetime of Nimbarka, Telugu founder of the Vaishnava Nimandi sect holding dvaitadvaita, dual-nondual, philosophy.

1150 Khmer ruler Suryavarman II completes Angkor Wat temple (in present-day Cambodia), where his body is later entombed and worshiped as an embodiment of Vishnu. This largest Hindu temple in Asia is 12 miles in circumference, with a 200-foot high central tower.

1230 - 60 Sun temple is constructed at Konarak, Orissa.

1272 Marco Polo visits India en route to China.

1296 Ala-ud-din, second sultan of the Khilji dynasty, rules most of India after his General Kafur conquers the South, extending Muslim dominion all the way to Rameshwaram.

1300 Muslim conquerors reach Cape Comorin (Kanyakumari) at the southernmost tip of India and build a mosque there.

1336 Vijayanagara Empire (1336 - 1646) of South India is founded. European visitors are impressed by the opulence and sophistication of its 17-square-mile capital.

1414 Hindu prince Paramesvara of Malaysia converts to Islam.

1440 - 1518 Lifetime of Kabir, Vaishnava reformer who has both Muslim and Hindu followers.

1450? - 1547 Lifetime of Mirabai, Vaishnava Rajput princess saint who, married at an early age to the rana of Udaipur, devotes herself to Krishna and later renounces worldly life to wander through India singing to Him beautiful mystic compositions that are sung to the present day.

1469 - 1538 Lifetime of Guru Nanak, founder of Sikhism, originally a reformist Hindu sect stressing devotion, faith in the guru, repetition of God's name and rejection of renunciation and caste. (Most present-day Sikhs consider themselves members of a separate religion.)

1478 Spanish Inquisition begins.

1492 Looking for India, Christopher Columbus lands on San Salvador island in the Caribbean, thus "discovering" the Americas and proving the Earth is round, not flat.

1498 Portugal's Vasco da Gama sails around Cape of Good Hope to Calcutta, first European to find sea route to India. Portuguese Catholics soon capture Goa (1510) and other places, beginning conquest and exploitation of India by Europeans.

1500 Buddhist and Saiva Hindu princes are forced off Java by invading Muslims. They resettle on neighboring Bali, with their overlapping priesthoods and vast royal courts: poets, dancers, musicians and artisans. Within 100 years they construct what many call a fairytale kingdom.

1500 World population 425 million; 105 million live in India.

1509 - 1529 Reign of Maharaja Krishnadevaraya of the Vijayanagara Empire in Andhra Pradesh.

1526 Mughal conqueror Babur (1483 - 1530) defeats the Sultan of Delhi and captures the Koh-i-noor diamond. Occupying Delhi, by 1529 he founds the Indian Mughal Empire (1526 - 1761), consolidated by his grandson Akbar.

1532 - 1623 Life of monk-poet Tulsidas

1556 Akbar (1542 - 1605), grandson of Babur, becomes third Mughal Emperor at age 13. Disestablishes Islam as state religion and declares himself impartial ruler of Hindus and Muslims; encourages art, culture, religious tolerance.

1610 Galileo of Italy (1564 - 1642) perfects the telescope and with it confirms the Copernican theory. Catholic Inquisition condemns him a heretic for his assertions.

1613 - 14 British East India Company sets up trading post at Surat.

1630 Over the next two years, millions starve to death as Shah Jahan (1592 - 1666), fifth Mughal Emperor, drains the royal treasury to buy jewels for his "Peacock Throne."

1647 Shah Jahan completes Taj Mahal in Agra on the Yamuna River. Its construction has taken 20,000 laborers 15 years, at a total cost equivalence of ^US$ 25 million.

1658 Zealous Muslim Aurangzeb (1618 - 1707) becomes Mughal Emperor.

1675 Aurangzeb executes Sikh Guru Tegh Bahadur, beginning the Sikh-Muslim feud that continues to this day.

1679 Aurangzeb levies jizya tax on non-believers, Hindus.

1680 - 1747 Lifetime of Italian Jesuit missionary Costanzio Beschi, who preached for 36 years in Tamil Nadu. Under the name of Viramamunivar, he lived in Indian fashion and attained proficiency in the Tamil language. His long poem Tembavani retells Biblical stories in ornate style.

1700 World population is 610 million. India population is 165 million: 27 percent of world.

1764 British defeat the weak Mughal Emperor and gain full control of Bengal, richest province of India.

1780 - 1830 Golden era of Carnatic music. Composers include Sastri Tyagaraja Swamigal, Muthuswami Dikshitar and Shyama Sastri.

1781 George Washington routs British at Yorktown, Virginia.

1789 French Revolution begins with storming of the Bastille.

1792 Britain's Lord Cornwallis, Governor General of India, defeats Tipu Sahib, Sultan of Mysore and most powerful ruler in South India, main bulwark of resistance to British expansion in India.

1812 Napoleon's Grand Army retreats from Moscow. Out of a 500,000-strong invasion force only 20,000 survive.

1836 - 86 Lifetime of Sri Paramahansa Ramakrishna, God-intoxicated Bengali Shakta saint, guru of Swami Vivekananda. He exemplifies the bhakti dimension of Shakta Universalism.

1846 British forcibly separate Kashmir from the Sikhs and sell it to the maharaja of Jammu for £1,000,000.

1857 First Indian Revolution, the "Sepoy Mutiny"

1860 S/S Truro and S/S Belvedere dock in Durban, S. Africa, carrying first indentured servants (from Chennai and Calcutta) to work sugar plantations.

1861 - 1941 Lifetime of Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913.

1863 - 1902 Life of Swami Vivekananda, dynamic renaissance missionary to West and catalyst of Hindu revival in India.

1869 - 1948 Lifetime of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Indian nationalist and Hindu political activist who develops the strategy of nonviolent disobedience that forces Christian Great Britain to grant independence to India (1947).

1879 - 1950 Lifetime of Sri Ramana Maharshi, Hindu Advaita renunciate renaissance saint of Tiruvannamalai, S. India.

1885 A group of middle-class intellectuals in India, some of them British, found the Indian National Congress to be a voice of Indian opinion to the British government. This is the origin of the later Congress Party.

1887 - 1963 Lifetime of Swami Sivananda, Hindu universalist renaissance guru, author of 200 books, founder of D

1888 - 1975 Lifetime of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, renowned Tamil panentheist, renaissance philosopher, eminent writer; free India's first Vice-President and second President.

1893 Swami Vivekananda represents Hinduism at Chicago's Parliament of the World's Religions, first ever interfaith gathering, dramatically enlightening Western opinion as to the profundity of Hindu philosophy and culture.

1893 - 1952 Life of Paramahamsa Yogananda, universalist Hindu, renaissance founder of Self Realization Fellowship (1925) in US, author of famed Autobiography of a Yogi (1946), popular book globalizing India's spiritual traditions.

1898 - 1907 Cholera epidemic claims 370,000 lives in India.

1900 World population is 1.6 billion. India population is 290 million: 17.8 percent of world.

1900 India's tea exports to Britain reach 137 million pounds.

1914 US government excludes Indian citizens from immigration. Restriction stands until 1965.

1917 Following the Bolshevik Revolution, communists under Lenin seize power in Russia, one sixth of Earth's land mass.

1918 World War I ends. Death toll estimated at ten million.

1918 Spanish influenza epidemic kills 12.5 million in India, 21.6 million worldwide.

1920 Gandhi formulates satyagraha, "truth power," strategy of noncooperation and nonviolence against India's British rulers. Later resolves to wear only simple dhoti to preserve India's homespun cotton industry.

1923 US law excludes Indian nationals from naturalization.

1945 Germany surrenders to Allied forces. Ghastly concentration camps are discovered where 6 million Jews were killed.

1945 US drops atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, ending World War II. Total war dead is 60 million.

1947 India gains independence from Britain August 15. Leaders agree to partition into India and Pakistan despite Gandhi's opposition (as chronicled in a letter to Lord Mountbatten that surfaced in 1996: "I pointed [out] the initial mistake of the British being party to splitting India into two. It is not possible to undo the mistake.") Death toll is 600,000 in dual exodus of 14 million.

1948 Mahatma Gandhi is assassinated January 30th in Poona

1950 India is declared a secular republic.

1961 India forcibly reclaims Goa, Daman and Diu from the Portuguese. Goa became a state of India in 1987.